![]() German caves have revealed mammoth-bone flutes fashioned over 40,000 years ago ( presumably the ‘ Warhammer era‘) – and an intriguing analysis of ~20,000-year-old French cave art concludes that, “ the presence of wall paintings highly correlated with of natural echo…and especially so at particular resonant frequencies“, with the juiciest acoustic zones often indicated by “precisely-coded…lines or dots emerging from the mouth of a person or animal” (basically, the oldskool version of cranking up the volume: “look, these caves go to 11!”).ĭespite the incredible age of these cave images, no actual string instruments have yet been discovered from truly prehistoric times (i.e. However, we do know that human music long predates this period. ![]() While most see the instrument as some form of ‘ mouth bow ’, others consider it to be a flute – while some dispute these musical connections entirely. ), and also over exactly what it depicts. “Hundreds of years before the dawn of history…No one knows who they were, or what they were doing…But their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock” (Eminent sonic archeologist Nigel Tufnel on Stonehenge )ĭebate persists over the age of the image (current consensus dates it to around 13,000 B.C. (Trois Frères cave sketches: c.13,000 B.C.) Hidden amongst hundreds of other creatures (170 bison, 84 horses, 40 deer, 20 ibex, 8 bears, 6 birds, 6 felines, 2 mammoths, and 1 woolly rhinoceros), a curious horned figure can be seen, apparently cradling a shoulder-mounted string instrument of some kind. The earliest evidence of string-playing activity comes from the Trois Frères cave complex in Southern France, a 430m system of passageways and chambers which, in 1912, was found to contain a wealth of Palaeolithic paintings. Still, we do have some remarkably ancient creations to mull over. ![]() Given the decomposability of wood-and-string constructions, it’s vanishingly unlikely that we’ll ever know. Initial designs might have derived from hunting bows, fishing line, or natural fibers (although more recent scholarship has disputed these functional assumptions). The strange resonances of stretched strings have likely provoked intrigue since the earliest days of our evolution – suggesting that the guitar’s basic ‘chordophone’ concept (plucking a taut line fixed at both ends) may have been discovered independently by multiple cultures through time. Bonus: earliest recordings: the first surviving guitar sessions.Etymologies of the string: gui tars, si tars, do tars, & zi thers.The age of electric steel (~1930) : the birth of amplification.Paths to modernity (~1750): finalising the core elements.Baroque expansions (~1600): radical growth of size & scope.Renaissance experiments (~1300): extra strings & more.From lyres to lutes (~0 C.E.): Central Asia to Central London.Ancient artefacts (~3000 B.C.): Mesopotamian grave harps.Prehistoric mysteries (~13000 B.C.): cave-painted ambiguities.So, where do guitars come from? How did we arrive at our modern designs? naturally, this framing is overly neat: after all, most of today’s notes still go unrecorded… ). The rest, forever lost to the waves of time (or, more accurately, the winds), forms the inaudible foundations of today’s repertoire – thus shaping the lifelong fascinations and everyday routines of countless people across the world ( n.b. Despite an unimaginable wealth of recorded six-string sounds, this preserved proportion of axe activity only spans a small fraction of the whole. Our view of guitar history tends to be somewhat iceberg-shaped. Online Lessons! Searching for altered-tuned inspiration? Looking to uncover higher levels of technique, expression, and creative purpose? intensify your six-string imagination with global musical ideas….Mediterranean luthiers seem to have added the low E a few generations later – although it would take far longer for our instrument’s design to truly ‘settle’ (if it ever really has…). Its most distinctive quirk is the irregular major 3rd jump between 3>2str (‘5>5>5> 4 >5′), preventing a dissonant E-to-F semitone clash arising between 6-1str (to keep it in, try All Fourths ).ĮADGBE has roots in Renaissance Europe, where various proto-guitars of the 15th and 16th centuries (including the English lute and Iberian vihuela ) were set to layouts of ADGBE or similar. The perfect 4ths -based layout gives a curiously vacant-sounding ‘ open chord’ of Em7(11), ripe for multidirectional expansions in many global genres. No tuning is the ‘best’ – but the popularity of our modern ‘standard’ makes sense, balancing geometric clarity, harmonic versatility, and physical convenience.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |