Lute guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument sounds from the family of shell -necked lutes. Other names for this instrument are German lute (also for the waldzither used ), hiking bird sounds, round sounds, loud guitar or Zupfgeige, pejoratively also bastard sounds. It operates as a folk instrument and was as such in the German-speaking world one of the most widely used musical instruments of the early 20th century.

History

In 1800, took over the guitar from Mandora the sixth string and the atmosphere, while the Mandora took over the Einzelbesaitung of the guitar. The gitarrisierte Mandora was further developed in the 19th century to a new sound guy who was more robust built and provided with frets, mechanics and stringing the guitar, but retained the pear-shaped body sound of the lute. The guitar sounds can therefore, simply put, are regarded as lute with " Guitar Properties", from which also derives its name.

The guitar lute is strung like a classical guitar ( six individual strings, usually in the guitar tuning EAdgh -e ' ) today. The strings are usually gut or nylon strings like a classical guitar. Metal strings are rarely found in guitar sounds.

Designs

The body of the guitar sounds has the typical teardrop-shaped outline of the most lute instruments. The shell is composed of wood shavings. A distinction round belly sounds, usually with 11 to 13 chips and half round designs ( Portuguese type ) with frame and 5-7 chips. Also flat stomach sounds with a flat bottom plate occur. Body wood is usually maple, with high-quality round belly sounds sometimes rosewood. For the acoustic ceiling is almost exclusively spruce wood used. Guitar sounds are built almost entirely of full solid wood. Locked woods are rarely in frames of semi-circular flat belly sounds used.

The scale length is at guitar sounds mostly around 620 mm. Most round belly sounds have a 9 According to flush fingerboard, which lies in a plane with the acoustic ceiling and continues on this in 3 to 5 body frets of wood, metal or plastic. Especially with semicircular Zargenlauten you can often find similar guitar fingerboards, ranging on the acoustic ceiling to the sound hole. Both types can be executed fretboard flat or grooved. The fingerboard width at the nut is usually 42 to 45 mm. There are rosewood, ebony, but also indigenous hardwoods ( walnut, oak ) are used.

The peg box is not bent like a Renaissance lute at right angles, but is straight. The trapezoidal pegbox adopted by lute and Mandora is the most common design, window boxes vortex similar to the guitar were almost as often installed. Very rare and usually only on very old instruments one finds eddy boards. The guitar sounds usually has tuners, similar to the guitar, however, come in Keystone pegboxes and eddy boards often wooden pegs used. The peg box is running mostly from a hook-shaped forward -looking, rectangular, smooth or decorated plate or a carved head.

Window pegbox

The sound hole is, as usual at Mandora and sounds, worked as a rosette. The diversity of the rosette motifs is legion. Classical ornamentation is just as common as floral design. Also figurative motifs of flower, animal representations to the " landscape with castle " testify to the taste of the respective formation epoch. In younger instruments or those of Manufactured Goods the soundhole rosette is often not carved out of the ceiling, but used.

A special form is the German bass lute or guitar sounds theorbierte at which the peg box is extended and expanded to a second pegbox, attached to the so-called double strings are ( usually two to six).

Use

Guitar sounds are known since the 19th century, especially from the German speaking countries. They were popular in Germany in the early 20th century as a musical instrument among the migratory birds and in youth music movement. The instrument, known colloquially Zupfgeige was probably also the well-known Songbook The Zupfgeigenhansl his name.

Guitar sounds can be played like guitars, so plucked with the fingers or with a plectrum or be beaten. Today, they are often used in the music of the medieval scene, because they are cheaper to buy and more robust than historically oriented sounds, "historic " are look than traditional guitars and easier than historically oriented sounds to play. While historically oriented sounds, due to their small volume, essentially only for chamber music are ( unless they are with a microphone system reinforced), guitar sounds can also be used unreinforced outdoors.

Often, the guitar sounds is adorned with colorful fabric strips which are attached to the neck. This fits in with a romanticized notion of the Middle Ages, which was a feature of the youth movement and can also be found today in the medieval market subculture and music scene.