Pre-1650 Tunings

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

Interesting listing of many, many tunings for string instruments. Maybe we can argue what authentic, pre-1650 lap steel should sound like?
http://www.whitetreeaz.com/guitar1650/tunings.htm

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

This stuff fascinates me.
Lute:
"new" tuning (Virdung ca. 1500): G C F A D G
"Sharp" tuning: G C F A C E

Imagine, 6th tunings back in 1500! Wonder if they knew how to play "Route 66"?

Thanks for posting these.````

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

You get bet somebody played these chord tunings with a blunt instrument
at least a few times.
Sword or knife edge, ale tankard etc.

We all imagine slack key or slide playing started in the 1800's Hawaii.
I seriously doubt that.

I wonder what "GUT" gauges they used?

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 01 July 2006 at 04:49 AM.]

David Doggett · Posted 1 Jul 2006 12:38 pm

David M., we see them as major tunings with a 6th, but I think they originally saw them as minor tunings. In early times minor keys were more common than majors. I think that is why the scale letters start on A, the minor root of the piano white notes, rather than on C, the major root. Thus, the "new" tuning is a Dm tuning, and the "sharp" tuning is a Am tuning. Also, it is easy to change a minor open tuning into a major chord by putting one finger on the first fret of the string with the minor 3rd. A movable minor chord is made by a barre with a single finger. And a movable major is made with the barre and a single finger on the 3rd. It is more complicated to get a minor chord out of a major tuning. Actually, I'm just guessing. But it almost sounds like I know what I'm talking about.

------------------
Student of the Steel: Zum uni, Fender tube amps, squareneck and roundneck resos, tenor sax, keyboards

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 01 July 2006 at 01:39 PM.]

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

DD that sounds pretty right to me.
It's easier to bar and add the major,
than bar AROUND the minor.

I have also played many trad music festivals,
and this is how I have seen things played.

Sol Ho'op'i'i liked C#m7,
but could still make it sound major.
Same, same!

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 01 July 2006 at 10:15 PM.]

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

Sounds likely - they had a lot to be sad about back then, fleas, the Black Plague, no ibuprofen or Gameboys, etc. Funny they didn't invent the blues, I guess you needed freight trains & bad women though.

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

"What co-pedant dost thou use?"
John Dowling, 1520

Tucker Jackson · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

For you music historians out there...

How did they set a reference pitch?

These days, we know the mathematical properties of an agreed upon pitch (say, A440). We have tuners, and before that, tuning forks.

But in the Renaissance, couldn't anybody play any pitch and declare "that's an 'A' note. Why? Because I said so. So everybody tune to me." Meanwhile, the guy next door's harpsichord had every note tuned 5 steps sharp, or whatever.

I'm pretty sure this isn't how it went down. So... does anybody know how it did go down?

[This message was edited by Tucker Jackson on 02 July 2006 at 10:33 AM.]

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

Differing church organs became local references.
Tuning forks traveling with organ builders became portable references.

But different countries did have alternate standards.

David Doggett · Posted 2 Jul 2006 11:10 am

David M., I don't think they always saw minor keys as sad. If you go back to the madrigals and folk music, there is a lot of minor key stuff with an up tempo and a happy lilt. Minor was just the mode they mostly worked out of.

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

From the Same Site. Some Other Instruments...

I like the "Petard".

Like they say, tune it (and/)or die..

Happy Fourth.

EJL

[This message was edited by Eric West on 04 July 2006 at 10:29 AM.]

John Kavanagh · From: Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada * R.I.P.

Tucker asked:

"For you music historians out there...
How did they set a reference pitch?"

There wasn't a completely absolute standard, but for instance the lowest note on an organ was a "C", and was made by a pipe 8 feet long (they still call it "8-foot pitch"). They had pitch pipes and tuning forks.

Although a foot might vary a little locally, and an organ pipe of a certain length can be tuned up or down a little, it still kept concert pitch within a semitone or two in either direction. There might be a problem when, say, wind instruments made in France were imported into Germany, and some of Bach's music has the organ part written in a different key than the wind parts for that reason.

As always, string players tuned to whatever instrument is hardest to retune, like that A=420 piano my Mom had.

Standard concert pitch had to come with international travel, but it wasn't really nailed down until the 1930s.

Now, I have seen old lute books that tell you to tune the top string "as high as it will go without breaking", but that was for playing solo, I'd guess.

John Kavanagh · From: Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada * R.I.P.

I don't like to criticise, but that "Guitar before 1650" page should be taken with a grain of salt - there are some misunderstandings and inaccuracies there in the things I do know about, so I wouldn't use it as a reference for stuff I don't know about.

I used to play a lot of music for unaccompanied "lyra viol" - a smallish six string bass viola da gamba (bowed). The music is all in tablature, and it uses a bunch of slack-key tunings. In the books published by Playford in the late 1600s, he uses "viol-way" (standard tuning, DGcead'), "Bandora-way" DGdgbe'; "harpway sharp" DAdf#ad';"harpway flat" DAdfad; "high harpway Sharp" DGdgbd' and a bunch of others. Sound familiar? Nothing's new.

[This message was edited by John Kavanagh on 05 July 2006 at 07:28 AM.]

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