Theory

In theory, families of musical instruments descend from the musical bow.

Henri Breuil surveyed the Trois Frères caves in France and made an engraving that attempted to reproduce a c. 13,000 BC cave painting into a black-and-white lithograph engraving.^[4] His engraving showed a mysterious figure, a "man camouflaged to resemble a bison", in the midst of a mass of herd-animals, "herding the beasts and playing the musical bow".^[4][5][6] The artwork is confused, and those who are trying to reproduce the art in color have had to work to bring out legible images.^[5][6] One interpretation of the "magician-hunter" image considers his hunting-bow to be a musical bow, used as a single-stringed musical instrument.^[6][7]

Whether the bow in the cave illustration is a musical instrument or the hunting tool in a paleolithic hunt, musicologists have considered the idea that the bow could be a possible relative or ancestor to chordophones, the lutes lyres, harps and zither families.^[8] Curt Sachs said that there was good reason not to consider hunters' bows as likely musical bows.^[9] One reason was that the oldest known musical bows were 10 feet long, useless for hunting, and that "musical bows were not associated with hunters' beliefs and ceremonies".^[9]

Sachs considered the musical bows important, however. He pointed out that the name for the Greek lute, pandûra was likely derived from pan-tur, a Sumerian word meaning "small bow".^[10] He considered this evidence in support of the theory that the musical bow was ancestral to the pierced lute.^[10]

The bows used for music required a resonator, a hollowed object like a bowl, a gourd or a musician's mouth, in order to produce audible sound.^[9] Although the musical bow could be manipulated to produce more than one tone instruments were developed from it that used one note per string.^[9][8] Since each string played a single note, adding strings added new notes for instrument families such as bow harps, harps and lyres.^[8] In turn, this led to being able to play dyads and chords.^[8] Another innovation occurred when the bow harp was straightened out and a bridge used to lift the strings off the stick-neck, creating the lute.^[11]

Theory disputed

This picture of musical bow to harp bow is theory and has been contested. In 1965 Franz Jahnel wrote his criticism stating that the early ancestors of plucked instruments are not currently known.^[12] He felt that the harp bow was a long cry from the sophistication of the 4th-millennium BC civilization that took the primitive technology and created "technically and artistically well-made harps, lyres, citharas and lutes".^[12]

Prehistoric roots in Sumer, westward to Egypt

A tradition of singing and dancing girls, wine, women and song

Egyptian lute , 18th Dynasty, 1390–1295 BC

Three musicians, Tomb of Nakht, Thebes, 18th Dynasty, 1422–1411 BC. The lute-player's lute has two strings (indicated by tassels) and lines where frets are on modern instruments.

Musician tuning her lute, pulling the string upward from below while the hand at the top secures the tension. Tomb of Rekhmire, 18th Dynasty.

From China to Central Asia and India to Egypt, artwork shows women entertaining with music and alcohol.

Egypt— The Egyptians acquired the lute with singing and dancing girls, as tribute from conquered territories, shown in a 1422 BC painting.^[23] The tradition of exchanging female performers between countries was long lived.

China— In China, more than 11000 slaves specializing in entertainment—including music dance and instrumentals—had their own section in the capital, Changan, during the Tang Dynasty (618–960 AD)^[24] Slaves were among the most commonly traded commodity carried by merchants on the Silk Road and their numbers included dancers and musicians.^[25][26]

Arabia, Persia and Islamic Countries— The commerce in singing girls (qiyan) between the countries of the Near East, accompanied by their instruments, gave music an "international, interoriental character", which blended as Islam spread from the Malayan Archipelago in Asia to Spain.^[27] Under both the Umayyads and Abbasids they were "highly accomplished, not only in music, but in other departments of culture" and trained in schools by virtuosi.^[28] In the "Days of Idolatry" among the Arabs, singing girls were common, into the era of Muhammad (570–632 AD)^[29] They were part of "the household of every Arab of social standing", and "attached to the taverns for the entertainment of the visitors".^[29] In the 430s AD, Persian king Bahram Ghur visited the court of the Ghassanids, where he listened to girls from the Byzantine Empire and from Al-Hira sing music from their homes, accompanied by the barbat, a Central Asian instrument.^[27] The instruments accompanying the singers "lost their regional character" by the 7th century AD.^[27] It should be pointed out that not all the women singing and playing lutes were slaves. Although used by Persian royalty in the days before Muhammed, the harem was not part of the Bedouin culture at that time, and free women "joined in the music of the family or tribal festivities with their instruments".^[29] It was a time of the "badawī Arab". A secular people then, for them "love, wine, gambling, hunting, the pleasure of song and romance ... wit and wisdom" were all important.^[29]

Entertainers on a Sassanian bowl, 5th to 7th centuries AD. Lute player (far left).

Sumerians, Babylonians, Kassites, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks all ruled the Mesopotamian area between Tigris and Euphrates rivers where the earliest examples of lutes have survived in clay and stone artwork.^[30] Sachs described the Mesopotamian lutes as having "very small bodies, long necks with many frets, two strings attached without pegs and were played with a plectron".^[31] The long lute entered Egypt after its conquest of Southwest Asia, when it began receiving tribute in the form of "singing and dancing-girls with their instruments", illustrated in paintings at Tell El-Amarna.^[23]

The paintings of the Egyptian lutes are detailed enough to provide a better understanding of ancient long lutes. Furthermore, original lutes survived in tombs, some still with strings attached. The Egyptian pierced-lutes had a carved wooden bowl for the instrument's body, "usually oval", covered with rawhide. A stick which acted as the instrument's neck pierced the instrument's body. The stick was threaded through cuts in the top of the rawhide to the end of the bowl. It was attached to the strings through a "triangular opening cut in the skin" at the bottom of the bowl. Besides being woven through the skin-soundboard, the stick was supported underneath by "wooden crosspieces" that ran crosswise underneath the stick, to the edges of the bowl on either side.^[32] The strings were "wound around the top of the handle" and tied with thongs, the tassels visible in some surviving artwork.

Nora E. Scott gave more details about the Egyptian lute's construction, saying that the lute that belonged to Har-Mose, 1500 BC, had two bridges, the triangular bridge at the bottom, attached to the stick and protruding through the skin, and another on the neck.^[33][34] The string passed over the second bridge and was tied down to the neck with linen cord to keep its tension.^[33] The player tuned the lute by pulling the string tight over the second bridge and tightening the linen cord to hold.^[33] The second bridge corresponds in function to the nut on a guitar or mandolin. The soundboard skin could have as many as six soundholes.^[33]

Sachs points out one significant difference between the Egyptian lutes and other pierced lutes of the ancient world. The non-Egyptian lutes had a stick handle piercing the bowl on both ends (spike lutes), rather than having one end resting inside the bowl (tang lutes).^[32] He also gave consideration to African skin-topped instruments that survived into the 20th century, noting that those in Morocco and Senegambia, such as the gunbri, might be descendants.^[32] He said the instruments "degenerated" from the Egyptian instruments, but then were developed after the Arab conquest of North Africa.^[32] Other differences he noted include different body shapes, attaching strings to "lateral pegs" (rather than tying strings directly to the neck) and reducing the instrument's size.^[32]

Greece and Rome, pandura

Pandura at Mantineia, c. 330–320 BC

Pandura at Tanagra, Greece, c. 3rd century BC

Roman guitar-type instrument depicted on a Roman sarcophagus dated to the 3rd century AD.^[35]

Roman pandura, 2nd century AD, found at Mérida, Spain

Woman Playing a Pandoura, Cyprus, circa 300 B.C.E.

The long-necked lute to Greece as well. In the 5th century BC the Egyptian lute made it into Greek sculpture, recognizable as a pierced lute, stick running into an oval body, with triangular bridge at base of instrument and two lines of soundholes parallel to the stick, on either side of it.^[36] A century later at Mantineia, the pierced lute would be changed, with a broader neck, somewhat shorter than the earlier Egyptian style lute, but still a long-necked instrument, with the neck longer than the soundbox.^[37] A second version at Tanagra in 200 BC was carved from a single piece of wood, neck and soundbox, pear-shaped much as the short-lutes that later arrived from Central Asia.^[38] Still another form of the pandura would have a one-piece carved triangular body with skin stretched across it.^[39]

Sachs describes the pandura as having three strings, tied still to the neck as there were no pegs, and a small body.^[10] The Greeks called the lute by multiple names, including trichordon (3-stringed) and pandura.^[10] He looks as the latter name as evidence that the instrument was foreign to Greece, introduced from the East; the name was derived from pan-tur, a Sumerian name meaning small bow.^[10] Sachs said that the instrument could be called "alternatively an Assyrian, a Cappadocian and an Egyptian instrument".^[10]

While examples exist across 1100 years, the pandura was rarely covered in Greek and Roman art, compared to the cithara, harp and lyre. One possible reason had to do with cultural values. In the Mesopotamia and in Egypt, the lute had been associated with dancing girls and with entertainment. Sumerian pottery and clay statues show that the lute players were often naked performers, with sexuality a part of the performance. The Egyptian girls are similarly scantily clad, dancing for their lords and ladies.

A millennium later at Rome in the 5th century AD, the pandura was a low-class instrument with a "disreputable association with frivolity and low merry-making".^[40] A story about St Theodoulos the Stylite says that he was tested by God, forced to associate with Cornelius the pandouros (pandura player). According to the story, "Theodoulos is horrified at being associated with a man from the theatre" and more horrified to find "Cornelius at the Hippodrome, holding his instrument with one hand, and with the other, a bareheaded prostitute".^[41]

Lack of artwork does not necessarily mean absence of the lute in Roman and Greek society. What images have survived of Greek and Roman pandura players are from high-class art. In the statuary, plaques and a mosaic in the Byzantine emperor's palace, players are dignified and clothed. The art, made for the wealthy upper classes doesn't show the lower-class places where Theodoulos was shocked.

Tanbur family

Tanburs have been present in Mesopotamia since the Akkadian era, or the 3rd millennium BC.^[44]

Three figurines have been found in Susa that belong to 1500 BC, and in hands of one of them is a tanbur-like instrument.^[45] Also an image on the rocks near Mosul that belong to about 1000 BC shows tanbur players.^[45]

Playing the tanbur was common at least by the late Parthian era and Sassanid period,^[46] and the word 'tanbur' is found in middle Persian and Parthian language texts, for instance in Drakht-i Asurig, Bundahishn, Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan, and Khosrow and Ridag.^{[note 1][45]}

In the 10th century AD Al-Farabi described two types of tanburs found in Persia, a Baghdad tunbūr, distributed south and west of Baghdad, and a Khorasan tunbūr.^[44][45] This distinction may be the source of modern differentiation between Arabic instruments, derived from the Baghdad tunbūr, and those found in northern Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sindh and Turkey, from the Khorasan tunbūr.^[44]

The Persian name spread widely, eventually taking in long-necked string instruments used in Central Asian music such as the Dombura and the classical Turkish tambur as well as the Kurdish tembûr.^[44][47] Until the early 20th century, the names chambar and jumbush were applied to instruments in northern Iraq.^[44] In India the name was applied to the tanpura (tambura), a fretless drone lute.^[44] Tanbur traveled through Al-Hirah to the Arabian Peninsula and in the early Islam period went to the European countries. Tanbur was called 'tunbur' or 'tunbureh/tunbura' in Al-Hirah, and in Greek it was named tambouras, then went to albania as tampura, in Russia it was named domra, in Siberia and Mongolia as dombra, and in Byzantine Empire was named pandura/bandura. It travelled through Byzantine Empire to other European countries and was called pandura, mandura, bandura, etc.^[45]

Later the Iranian (Kurdish) tanbur became associated with the music of the Ahl-e Haqq, a primarily Kurdish ghulat religious movement similar to a Sufi order, in Kurdish areas and in the Lorestān and Sistan va Baluchestan provinces of Iran, where it is called the 'tembûr'.^[48]

Persians have another naming system for differentiating different styles of the instrument, using the word tar with a number for the number of strings or courses of strings.^[49] Instruments named this way include the dutar (2 strings/courses), setar (three strings/courses), cartar (4 strings/courses) and panctar (five strings/courses).^[49] A course is multiple strings played together, so that a setar can have 6 strings altogether, but the strings are divided in three rows or courses.

The pegs on the long-lutes are different than on short lutes (such as the oud) where a pegbox has pegs accessed from the sides.^[49] On long lutes, some are inserted from the front, some from the side.^[49] Sachs felt that the pegs were an indication of mixed origins for tanbur. Front and side elements came from Arabo/Persian instruments, rear pegs from Turkish.^[49]

The tanbur family includes

• bağlama (Saz)
• bouzouki related to tanburs but also of European lute tradition
• çifteli
• cura
• dombra Dombura shares some of its characteristics with the Central Asian komuz and dutar.
  • Dombura in Turkish,
  • Dombıra, in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan,
  • Dambura or Danbura in northern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan,[1]
  • Hazara Dambura or Hazaragi Dambura The Dambura which is played by Hazara people mostly in Afghanistan.[2]
  • Dumbura in Bashkir and Tatar,
  • Dombor in Mongolia,
  • Dombyra in Kazakhstan,
  • Dombira or 冬不拉 (Dongbula) in Xinjiang, China
  • domra Russian instrument, recreated in the 1800s, modern version is shorter necked like mandolin
  • balalaika Russian instrument. Related to domra.
• dutar
• komuz (not same as kobyz), Kyrgyz instrument. Placement of this instrument in tanbur family not certain. A skin-topped version has existed.
• pandura
• sato (bowed)
• setar looks very similar to tanbur. Has three courses of strings (normally four strings total, but as many as six)
  • Chitrali sitar
• Sataer bowed instrument
• setor
• sitar
• tambura, played in Balkan peninsula, possibly identical to tamburica
• tamboori an Indian melodic instrument similar to a Tanpura
• tambouras played in Greece
• tamburica any member of a family of long-necked lutes popular in Eastern and Central Europe
• tanbur, tanbur, tanbūr, Tambur a long-necked, string instrument originating in the Southern or Central Asia (Mesopotamia and Persia/Iran). Three strings total (not courses).
• Iranian tanbur (Kurdish tanbur), used in Yarsan rituals
• Turkish tambur, instrument played in Turkey
• Yaylı tambur, also played in Turkey
• tanpura, a drone instrument played in India
• tar
• tembor longer than most
• tzouras

Instruments not included on this list provide a chance to think about the instruments' evolution. Early Mesopotamian long-necked lutes would have had skin tops and sound-bowls that were either carved from wood or made from a turtle shell. There was a divergence; modern tanburs have wood tops, while rubabs have skin tops. One instrument straddled the line, the Byzantine or Coptic lute. These appear to have been successors of the middle east long-lute tradition, in which Egypt participated. They have a wooden soundboard (a tanbur trait), however, the neck is hollow (a rubab trait). Also the Byzantine lute from Qasr Libya, in Libya, has barbs on its top, a rubab trait. The Coptic lute also overlaps with an instrument that Curt Sachs called a pandura, the instrument illustrated in the mosaic in the Byzantine emperor's palace in Constantinople.

The other long lutes not included here are because of their rubab orientation are the dotara, dramyin, rawap and pamiri rubab. They have soundboards of skin and may also have hollow necks.

Strings are mathematical

The lute is tied to the mathematics related to pitches. Unlike the harp, in which a string produces a single note, a lute string produces more than one note. Placing a finger on a string divides the string into measurable parts. Measuring those parts leads to mathematical ratios, useful in placing frets on the neck of the lute.^[50] An instrument such as the setar uses moveable frets to hit whole notes, half notes and quarter notes.

It isn't known when frets were first used. Some ancient images discovered in the Middle East from before 1000 BC appear to show frets. These are rare and most images do not show frets on the early lutes.^[51]

A rare example from about the 3rd century AD was discovered in 1907 in the Niya ruins in Xinjiang, China, a broken lute's neck with two gut frets intact.^[52] The neck and pegbox of the lute are similar to the lute painted on the wall in the Dingjiazha Tomb No. 5 (384–441 AD^[53]), which also has frets. Buddhist artworks from the 6th-10th centuries AD in the Mogao Caves (558-907 AD) and Yulin Caves (618-907 AD) appear to have frets. Some long lutes in the Utrecht Psalter (c. 850 AD) in France also appear fretted, as do citoles from Spain in the Cantigas de Santa Maria (c. 1280).

Bringing order to infinite number of pitches

Turkey. Hittite lute from Alacahöyük 1399–1301 BC colored to estimate frets.

Relief sculpture offers clues to frets, but may be difficult to see. In this image, frets on the body may not be frets, but loops where the stick goes in and out of the skin soundboard. Holes above and below the stick are sound holes.

Richard Dumbrill talked about the earliest known systems of musical notes, and what makes them feel natural.^[54] He concluded that what makes a mode "feel intrinsic is centuries of usage".^[54] For the Sumerians, natural was a five-note system.^[54] For the Akkadians, natural was a nine-note system and then a seven-note system, "the basis for our modern [western] system".^[54]

With a seeming infinite number of possible pitches to create modes, musicians had to choose which notes to use, and which to play together. One way of bring order to the infinite number of tones was to examine music with mathematics.

The Sumerians and Akkadians, the Greeks, and the Persians all used math to create notes used on lutes and lyres and other stringed instruments. Using the idea that a plucked or bowed string produces a note, they noticed the difference in tone when a string is stopped. "The great discovery" was hearing the double octave, that halving a string produces a note one octave above the string.^[55] Written as a ratio 2:1.^[55]

They measured the ratios of string lengths on one side and the other of where the string was pressed, creating ratios. Those ratios allowed them to compare sounds, for example third intervals, fourths, fifths. They were able to tune one string against another in those intervals on lutes, lyres, harps, zithers. Those lutes that had frets gave them the further ability to reliably find those intervals on a played string, by marking points on the neck at mathematically spaced distances based on the ratios. Unlike modern instruments, where frets may be permanently fixed into the neck, as on a guitar, the older instruments used gut strings tied around the neck for frets, and this made their instruments adjustable. Early musicians could tune their instruments to different modes. Lute players could tune the strings to different intervals, and could further adjust the frets for the modes.

Knowledge passed back and forth between cultures

See: Transmission of the Greek Classics

Western scholarship has traditionally credited the Greeks, including Pythagoras (c.  570 – c.  495 BC), with discovery of this math to determine notes on strings, called Pythagorean tuning,^[56] which covers western tuning based on perfect 5ths and octaves. However, as modern scholars have looked at cuneiform texts, it is clear that the Greeks were not the first; recorded thinking in Mesopotamia about the mathematical ratios of strings predates the Greek thinking by at least 1500 years.^[57] Furthermore, a form of written music came out of that era, called the Hurrian songs, currently the oldest known written music, and is based on modes of music, recorded in cuneiform string ratios.

Once the Persian and Arab thinkers from the Umayyad and Abbssid periods (7th to 13th centuries AD) had translations of Greek manuscripts, they began to study music as a science as part of "mathematical arts".

Some Muslim musicians came to have access to more than one mathematically created scale, such as the Persian scale, the Arab scale and the Pythagorean scale.^[58]

Thinkers and polymaths of Central Asia and Arabia

See: Golden Age of Islam

Iraq. Drawing of a lute by Safi al-Din from a 1333 copy of his book, Kitab al-Adwār.

Illustration from Al-Fārābī (about 870-950): Kitāb al-mūsīqī al kabīr Drawing of a musical instrument, called ""šāh-rūd"")

Al-Farabi's seven-stringed oud design

The mixing cultures of Central Asia and Arabia produced several thinkers who wrote about music, including something about the lute in their works, including Al-Kindi (c. 801 – c. 873), Ziryab (789–857), Al-Farabi (c. 872 – c. 950), Avicenna (c. 980 – 1037), and Safi al-Din al-Urmawi (1216–1294). They wrote in Arabic, what had become the useful lingua-Franca of their time, and took part in Muslim society and culture. They weren't solely working in the Middle East; Islam was spread wide and some of the thinkers were from Central Asia.

The Arabs had a musical scale, described by al-Farabi, in use by some through the 13th century AD.^[59] That tanbar scale, which divided the string into "40 equal parts" may have been a leftover from Babylon and Assyria.^[59] However, the Arabs traded with and conquered the Persians, and they adopted Persian scales for their lutes, just as they adopted Persian short-necked lutes.^[59]

Ziryab moved from Baghdad to al-Andalus, where he set up a school of music and was one of the first to add a fifth string or course to oud, "between 822 and 852).^[60] Al-Andalus, where he settled would become a center of musical instrument development for Europe.

Al-Kindi was a polymath who wrote as many as 15 music-related treatises. He was among the first to apply Greek musical theory to Central Asian-Arabian short lutes.^[60] He added semi-tones between the nut and the first string.^[60] He also added a fifth string to his oud in the east, as Ziryab had done in the west.^[60]

Al-Farabi "fully incorporated the works of Aristoxenus and Ptolemy into his theory of tetrachords", and wrote among books in many subjects, the Kitab al-Musiqa al-Kabir, the Major Book of Music, in which he detailed how to tune an oud, using mathematical ratios.^[61] He gave instruction for both 10 frets and 12, telling where to place the tied (and moveable) gut-string frets on the neck.^[61] His way of tuning allowed a "12-fret 'ud tuning — which results ... 'double-octave' scale", with 22 notes in each octave.^[61]

Pipa, ruan and yueqin

Early pipas

Early depiction of pear-shaped lute or pipa in China from Dingjiazha Tomb No. 5, at end of Sixteen Kingdoms and beginning of Northern Wei dynasty eras (384–441 AD)^[53]

5-string pipa, Tang Dynasty period (618–907 AD), south wall of Yulin cave 25. The painting appears to depict the instrument with frets.

5-string pipa, 6th century, from the Kizil Caves, cave 8

Pipa from Yulin caves, cave 10, Western Xia period 1028–1227.

Pipa

The pear-shaped pipa is likely to have been introduced to China from Central Asia, Gandhara, and/or India.^[84] Pear-shaped lutes have been depicted in Kusana sculptures from the 1st century AD.^[85][86]

The pear-shaped pipa may have been introduced during the Han Dynasty and was referred to as Han pipa. However, depictions of the pear-shaped pipas in China only appeared after the Han Dynasty during the Jin Dynasty in the late 4th to early 5th century.^[87]

A small pipa was found in murals of tombs in Liaoning (遼寧) province in northeastern China. The date of these tombs is about late Eastern Han (東漢) or Wei (魏) period (220–265 AD). However, the pear-shaped pipa was not brought to China from Dunhuang (敦煌, now in northwestern China) until the Northern Wei period (386–524 AD) when ancient China traded with the western countries through the Silk Road (絲綢之路). Evidence was shown on the Dunhuang Caves frescoes that the frescoes contain a large number of pipa, and they date to the 4th to 5th centuries.^[88]

The pipa acquired a number of Chinese symbolisms during the Han Dynasty – the instrument length of three feet five inches represents the three realms (heaven, earth, and man) and the five elements, while the four strings represent the four seasons.^[89]

Depictions of the pear-shaped pipas appeared in abundance from the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420 to 589) onwards, and pipas from this time to the Tang Dynasty were given various names, such as Hu pipa (胡琵琶), bent-neck pipa (曲項琵琶, quxiang pipa), some of these terms, however, may refer to the same pipa. Apart from the four-stringed pipa, other pear-shaped instruments introduced include the five-stringed, straight-necked, wuxian pipa (五弦琵琶, also known as Kuchean pipa (龜茲琵琶)),^[90] a six-stringed version, as well as the two-stringed hulei (忽雷). From the 3rd century onwards, through the Sui and Tang Dynasty, the pear-shaped pipas became increasingly popular in China. By the Song Dynasty the word pipa was used to refer exclusively to the four-stringed pear-shaped instrument.

Ruan and yueqin

Early moon lutes

Apsara with sitar or yueqin, found at Luoyang; Longmen Caves. Northern Wei period (385–534 AD)

Xishan, Nanjing, tomb of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, second half of the 5th century. Artwork: "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and Rong Qiqi", shows Rong Qiqi (left) and Ruan Xian (playing a ruan or yueqin).

A lute resembling a yueqin moon lute, from the Western Wei Dynasty 535–557, 285th Cave of Mogao Caves. Lutes like this have some resemblance to Southeast Asian moon lutes such as the chapey and the đàn nguyệt. Appears to have frets.

5-string lute from Mogao caves, cave 220, Tang Dynasty 618–907. Body shape resembles qinqin or đàn sến, but different numbers of strings. Seems to have frets.

The moon lutes have become widespread. Versions of them can be found throughout China as the ruan family and also as the yueqin family. Moon lutes have spread south of the border where, in Southeast Asia, they have their own versions. The Southern China version of the yueqin, which may be related to the Southeast Asian moon lutes, has a longer neck than the northern version. The long-necked yueqin is being revived in Taiwan.^[91]

Another type of lute in China is the yueqin, a round-bodied instrument with flat top and back. According to tradition, the instrument was invented in China during the 3rd to 5th centuries AD Jin Dynasty.^[92] The ruan, another Chinese instrument, is the ancestor of the yueqin.^[92] The period overlaps with the period of immigration of ancient non-Han Chinese peoples and invasions, by groups such as the Five Barbarians.

The yueqin is a type of ruan, what may be China's oldest lute. Ruans may have a history of over 2,000 years, the earliest form may be the qin pipa (秦琵琶), which was then developed into ruanxian (named after Ruan Xian, 阮咸), shortened to ruan (阮).[1][2] In old Chinese texts from the Han to the Tang dynasty, the term pipa was used as a generic term for a number plucked chordophones, including ruan, therefore does not necessarily mean the same as the modern usage of pipa which refers only to the pear-shaped instrument. According to the Pipa Annals 《琵琶赋》 by Fu Xuan (傅玄) of the Western Jin Dynasty, the pipa was designed after revision of other Chinese plucked string instruments of the day such as the Chinese zither, zheng (筝) and zhu (筑), or konghou (箜篌), the Chinese harp.[3] However, it is believed that ruan may have been descended from an instrument called xiantao (弦鼗) which was constructed by labourers on the Great Wall of China during the late Qin Dynasty (hence the name Qin pipa) using strings stretched over a pellet drum.[4]

The antecedent of ruan in the Qin Dynasty (221 BC – 206 BC), i.e. the Qin pipa, had a long, straight neck with a round sound box in contrast to the pear-shape of pipa of later dynasties. The name of "pipa" is associated with "tantiao" (彈挑), a right hand technique of playing a plucked string instrument. "Pi" (琵), which means "tan" (彈), is the downward movement of plucking the string. "Pa" (琶), which means "tiao" (挑), is the upward movement of plucking the string.[5]

The present name of the Qin pipa, which is "ruan", was not given until the Tang Dynasty (8th century). During the reign of Empress Wu Zetian (武則天) (about 684–704 AD), a copper instrument that looked like the Qin pipa was discovered in an ancient tomb in Sichuan (四川).^[93] It had 13 frets and a round sound box. It was believed that it was the instrument which the Eastern Jin (東晉) musician Ruan Xian (阮咸) loved to play.^[94]

Although the ruan was never as popular as the pipa, the ruan was divided into several smaller, better-known instruments within recent centuries, such as yueqin ("moon" lute, 月琴) and qinqin (Qin [Dynasty] lute, 秦琴) . The short-necked yueqin, with no sound holes, is now used primarily as accompaniment for Beijing opera . The long-necked qinqin is a member of both Cantonese (廣東) and Chaozhou (潮州) ensembles.^[95]

• 
  Kizil Cave 77, Cave of the Statues, back room, back wall, fresco over reclining Parinirvana Buddha.
• 
  Kizil Cave 118, circa 395-465

Gallery: Asian plucked lutes, long and short-necked

Musical instruments came into China from Central Asia, such as the pipa, or may have been invented locally such as the Qin-Pipa or sanxian. China became a source of instruments for (or shares instruments in common with) other cultures, including Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Three ways to categorized these are:

• short-necked pipas (such as the pipa, liuqin, bipa, and Tỳ bà)
• short and long-necked moon lutes (such as the yueqin, ruan, gekkin, đàn tứ, đàn đáy, zhongruan, qinqin, đàn sến, đàn nguyệt)
• long-necked lutes (such as the sanxian, tianqin, shamisen, đàn tam, and đàn tính).

• 
  China, pipa, 2008.
• 
  Japan, biwa
• 
  China, liuqin, smaller than pipa
• 
  Korea, bipa
• 
  Vietnam, đàn tỳ bà
• 
  China, (left to right) sanxian, pipa, two huqin type fiddles, c. 1907, Fuzhou.
• 
  China, huqin type fiddle (left) and a yueqin (moon lute) or ruan, c. 1874.
• 
  Japan, gekkin, 1886.
• 
  Vietnam, đàn tứ, tứ meaning "four" for 4 strings. Also called đàn đoản (đoản meaning "short", referring to the instrument's neck). Related to Chinese yueqin, although 4 individual strings makes it closer to the ruan.
• 
  China, southern yueqin or possibly a zhongruan (中阮, lit. "medium ruan"), 1960. Southern yueqins had long necks, unlike the northern. This instrument lacks the large soundholes that are a trait of the ruan. These are being revived in Taiwan.^[91]
• 
  Vietnam, đàn nguyệt literally means "moon string-instrument" (đàn is the generic term for "string instrument" and nguyệt means "moon"). Image taken in Australia, 2017
• 
  Cambodia, Chapei dong veng (ចាប៉ីដងវែង) and Thailand grajabpi (กระจับปี่), c. 1880. Origin uncertain: China (ruan or yueqin), Islamic (rubab or tanbir), India ("chapei derives from the Sanskrit kacchap(î)" turtle shell, used for sound bowl).^[96]
• 
  Vietnam đàn đáy. Possibly related to Chapei dong veng as both are heptatonic.^[96] Also shares characteristic with some Indonesian and Malaysian boat lutes: has an open back.
• 
  China, qinqin (秦琴) or plum blossom qin (梅花琴)
• 
  Vietnam, đàn sến. Vietnamese version of qinqin
• 
  Vietnam đàn nguyệt or đàn sến
• 
  Larger ruans in an orchestra
• 
  China, ruan-family instrument, either a bass daruan (大阮) or contrabass diyinruan (低音阮)
• 
  China, sanxian, 1780.
• 
  Japanese style shamisen, 2006 played by a man in Australia. Related to sanxian
• 
  Đàn tam, tam means three (for three strings). Related to sanxian.
• 
  Vietnam, đàn tính, or tianqin (天琴). Gourd lute. A musical instrument of Zhuang people came to some ethnic groups in Northern mountainous region in Vietnam
• 
  Thailand sueng
• 
  Thailand and Laos, phin

Muslim and European instruments, blended tradition

Chinese sanxian

It has been suggested that the sanxian, a form of spike lute, may have its origin in the Middle East, and older forms of spike lute were also found in ancient Egypt.^[111] Similar instruments may have been present in China as early as the Qin dynasty as qin pipa (pipa was used as a generic term in ancient China for many other forms of plucked chordophones) or xiantao (弦鼗).^[111][112] Some thought that the instrument may have been re-introduced into China together with other instruments such as huqin by the Mongols during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368),^[111][113] however, an image of a sanxian-like instrument was found in a stone sculpture dating from the Southern Song period (1217–79). The first record of the name "sanxian" may be found in a Ming dynasty text.^[114][113]

The instrument was transmitted to other East Asian countries, for example to Japan as shamisen.^[115][116]

• 
  A sanxian

Gambus and rabâb, skin tops plucked and bowed, rebab, rubab rabâb, robab

Rababs or rebabs in Europe, c. 1260

Rebab player. Soundboard is cut in half. Sachs said of another example that this was probably wood and skin.^[117]

Three-string rebabs with wooden soundboards. These have also been called gitterns an instrument ancestral to the guitar and according to Sachs the mandore/mandola.

Rebabs of the same style that Sachs labels rabâb, now called Maghreb rebabs.^[118] Wood and skin soundboards. Examples were still being made in Morocco in 1991.

Sachs said these instruments entered Europe through Spain.^[117] He felt that they were the likely candidate for the Moorish guitar, "with shrill and harsh notes", and ultimately related to the mandore or mandola.^[117] The Cantigas de Santa Maria, c. 1260, captured some of the musical instruments introduced from Muslim dominated Andalusia to Southern Europe. The plucked and bowed versions existed alongside each other.^[117] The bowed instruments became the rebec and the plucked instruments became the gittern. Curt Sachs linked this instrument with the mandola, the kopuz and the gambus, and named the bowed version rabâb.^[117] When the Muslims were driven out of Spain, Andalusian music and instruments survived in North Africa, in the Maghreb.

In The History of Musical Instruments, Sachs talked about a second kind of short lute found in the "Islamic Near East", carved from a single piece of wood, no distinct neck and a pegbox that was sickle shaped.^[117] There was also a kind with "an inferior stringholder".^[117]

The instruments that would become the gambus with sickle shaped pegbox traveled east "as far as the Celebes in Southeast Asia and southwards to Madagascar off the east coast of Africa".^[117] Another scholar thinks they traveled across the Indian ocean as well on Yemeni ships, as the Yemeni quanbus The gambus is among the last of the family of skin-topped lutes. Sachs names the instruments gambus, kabosa and qūpūz.^[117]

The gambus is plucked, but many of the variants are bowed. By the time the instrument became bowed, it was named rabâb, a name that has been used for long-necked skin topped instruments as well.^[117] The Cantigas de Santa Maria in Southern Spain had examples of both bowed and unbowed instruments.

The early instruments traveled west to enter Europe through Andalusia and Eastern Europe where they gained wooden tops and became lyras. In Yemen, the instrument was known as the quanbus. It traveled to Southeast Asia with Yemeni sailors. Over time, some of these became intertwined with spike fiddles. Variations of these instruments can be found in China, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Europe.

Variations include the rebabs that spread via Islamic trading routes over much of North Africa, the Middle East, parts of Europe, and the Far East.^[119] The Medieval European Rebec, Croatian Lijerica, Cretan Cretan lyra, Bulgarian Gadulka and Russian Gudok, the Gusle used in Serbia, Romania, Albania and Bulgaria, the Eastern Mediterranean Kemenche and Persian Kamancheh, the Kazakh Kobyz, Bangladeshi Ektara are variations.

Gallery: skin topped lutes and rubabs

These can blur the line between long-necked instruments and short necked. The soundbox is, in some cases, so long that it effectively adds to the instrument's scale-length, like a long neck.

India and Southeast Asia

Indian short-necked lute 2nd-1st century B.C., Shunga period, Chandraketugarh. The original sculpture appears to have 3 strings.

Indian long-necked lute, Bengal, Shunga period, 2nd century B.C.

Lute or veena player, northern India, (Mathura during Kushan Period), 1st century A.D.

Lute from the Pawaya, 4th-5th century C.E.^[120]

Among modern lutes in India are the sitar, tanpura and Saraswati veena.

The sitar is currently believed to have developed from tanburs during Muslim rule in the north, after 1192 C.E.^[121][122] The Saraswati veena was developed in about 1600-1634 during the reign of Raghunatha Nayak.^[123] It was developed from the "barbed rabab" of the Moghul courts, with the tuning, frets, upper resonator, string and running coming from the native stick-zither instruments such as the kinnari vina.^[123]

However, this is not to say India was unfamiliar with lutes earlier in its history. Images of Indian lutes exist, both short necked and long necked instruments as far back as the Shunga Empire in the 2nd century B.C.

In the north of India a lute from the first century C.E. may be seen in a Mathuran sculpture.^[124] In the 1st-4th centuries C.E., lutes traveled with Buddhists in Northern India along the Silk Road and can be seen in sculptures in Gandhara, where Buddhism mixed with Hellenism.

In the south of India, images at the Ajanta Caves (450-490 A.D.) and Pawaya (4th-5th century A.D.) also show the instruments in years approaching the medieval period. Sculptures by Buddhist and Hindu cultures at Champa (Cham culture), Ku Bua, Thailand (Dvaravati culture), and Borobudur, show Indian cultural influence and images of lutes dating to the 7th through the 9th century A.D.

Boat lutes in the island regions

Lumad musicians playing kudyapi (right) and tube zither during the 2016 Kaamulan Festival of Bukidnon.

Sapeh being played at Rudolstadt-Festival 2019. The musicians come from different islands of the Pacifik and Indian Ocean.

Si Datas on kulcapi, Karo Regency, 1914–1919.

Modern boat lutes in the island regions of Southeast Asia include the Sapeh from Borneo, the Sumatran Hasapi and Philippine Kutiyapi. The history of these has not been fully documented, but musicologists look to India for origins. Hans Brandeis, a researching musicologist working with the Philippine Kutiyapi lutes, considers the instrument could have traveled to the Philippines by way of Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand. He pointed out similarities between the alligator zithers of those countries, such as the Chakhe or Mi gyaung and the boat lutes, including the way they are strung with a melody and drone string, movable frets and a plectrum tied to a finger to play. Another feature in common is the way the alligator zithers and boat lutes are made, carved out of a log from the back, leaving a wooden soundboard intact in the front.^[133]

• 
  Pre-1951, Sumba, Indonesia. A jungga boat lute.
• 
  Sumba. A junga, showing influence of Portuguese instruments on lute-making culture, now a guitar-family instrument.
• 
  1948, Borneo. Boat lute (not named when collected).
• 
  Pre-1953, Toba Batak people. Riman boat lute. Appears to be carved from top with separate soundboard.
• 
  Pre-1942, Southern Sulawesi. Ketjapi.
• 
  Pre-1940, Kenyah people, Indonesia. Ketjapi.
• 
  Pre-1986, Toba Batak people. Hasapi.
• 
  Maguindanao, Philippines. Kutiyapi decorated with ukkil motifs.

Muslim-origin lutes in Malaysia and Indonesia

2010, Malaysia. Musician playing wood-topped gambus modeled on oud.

Boy playing a gambus, a local name for the quanbus-like instrument.

After the fall of Borobudur, Indian influence declined.^[125] The arrival of Muslim traders and communities would add further influences to the region's music as Muslim communities were established throughout the region. Immigrants from Yemen brought with them the qanbūs a skin-topped lute.

The instruments were "transmitted" from the Muslim world to the Malay at an undermined time. Links to the Middle East begin as early as the 5th or 6th centuries AD, with trading networks and occupation in the 15th century. Experts have tentatively given dates for the instruments' arrival between the 9th and 15th centuries AD. In looking for origins, musicologists have also noted some similarities with the Chinese pipa.^[134][135]

Following a new wave of immigrants from Yemen in the 18th century, the term gambus began being applied to an instrument resembling the oud with a wood soundboard, instead of the skin soundboard of the other gambus and the qanbus.

Lute

Nicholas Lanier, 1613

David Hoyer, an artist from Leipzig, painted by Jan Kupetzky, c. 1711.

Theorbo-lute hybrid. From the 1648 painting A Lady Playing a Lute by Jan Mijtens.

Portraits of Early modern or Renaissance people, posing with lutes.

The European lute and the modern Near-Eastern oud descend from a common ancestor via diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a great variety of instrumental music from the Medieval to the late Baroque eras and was the most important instrument for secular music in the Renaissance.^[136] During the Baroque music era, the lute was used as one of the instruments which played the basso continuo accompaniment parts. It is also an accompanying instrument in vocal works. The lute player either improvises ("realizes") a chordal accompaniment based on the figured bass part, or plays a written-out accompaniment (both music notation and tabulature ("tab") are used for lute). As a small instrument, the lute produces a relatively quiet sound.

Medieval lutes were 4- or 5-course instruments, plucked using a quill as a plectrum. There were several sizes, and by the end of the Renaissance, seven different sizes (up to the great octave bass) are documented. Song accompaniment was probably the lute's primary function in the Middle Ages, but very little music securely attributable to the lute survives from the era before 1500. Medieval and early-Renaissance song accompaniments were probably mostly improvised, hence the lack of written records.

In the last few decades of the 15th century, to play Renaissance polyphony on a single instrument, lutenists gradually abandoned the quill in favor of plucking the instrument with the fingertips. The number of courses grew to six and beyond. The lute was the premier solo instrument of the 16th century, but continued to accompany singers as well.

By the end of the Renaissance the number of courses had grown to ten, and during the Baroque era the number continued to grow until it reached 14 (and occasionally as many as 19). These instruments, with up to 26–35 strings, required innovations in the structure of the lute. At the end of the lute's evolution the archlute, theorbo and torban had long extensions attached to the main tuning head to provide a greater resonating length for the bass strings, and since human fingers are not long enough to stop strings across a neck wide enough to hold 14 courses, the bass strings were placed outside the fretboard, and were played open, i.e., without pressing them against the fingerboard with the left hand.

Over the course of the Baroque era the lute was increasingly relegated to the continuo accompaniment, and was eventually superseded in that role by keyboard instruments. The lute almost fell out of use after 1800. Some sorts of lute were still used for some time in Germany, Sweden, Ukraine.

Bowed fiddles, lyra, kamānģa rūmī, vièla, viola

Spain had bowed instruments as early as the 10th and 11th centuries AD, when they were included in Spanish manuscripts, such as the Commentary on the Apocalypse Beatus of Liébana Emilianense Codex.^[137][138]

The Byzantines had a bowed lute called a "kamānģa rūmī" in the east, also known as the Byzantine lira in "Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia".^[137] The instrument still has a presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, in Southern Italy as the Calabrian lira, in Bulgaria as the gadulka, in Greece, Iran, Turkey, Armenia, and regions adjacent to the Black Sea the kemenche, in Dalmatia as the lijerica.

Sachs said that the Byzantine lyra would become the main bowed instrument in Europe, eventually becoming the "fiddle, vièle, [and] viola".^[137] The rebec also had a presence in Europe, but was not derived from the lyra but from the rabâb.^[137]

Cythara, a European lute-building tradition?

The word cythara was used generically for a wide variety stringed instruments of medieval and Renaissance Europe, including not only the lyre and harp but also necked, string instruments.^[139] In fact, unless a medieval document gives an indication that it meant a necked instrument, then it likely was referring to a lyre. It was also spelled cithara or kithara and was Latin for the Greek lyre.^[139] However, lacking names for some stringed instruments from the medieval period, these have been referred to as fiddles and citharas/cytharas, both by medieval people and by modern researchers. The instruments are important as being ancestors to or influential in the development of a wide variety of European instruments, including fiddles, vielles, violas, citoles, guitars. Although not proven to be completely separate from the line of lute-family instruments that dominated Europe (lute, oud, gittern, mandore), arguments have been made that they represent a European-based tradition of instrument building, which was for a time separate from the lute-family instruments.

Gittern and mandola

Gittern

Juan Oliver's c.1330 painting at Pamplona Cathedral, showing a musician playing a gittern.

By 1570 the German quinterne resembled the European 4-course guitar, including how it was strung.

The gittern was a relatively small gut strung round-backed instrument that first appears in literature and pictorial representation during the 13th century in Western Europe (Iberian Peninsula, Italy, France, England). It is usually depicted played with a quill plectrum,^[140] as we can see clearly beginning in manuscript illuminations from the 13th century.^[141]

It was also called the guitarra in Spain, guiterne or guiterre in France, the chitarra in Italy and quintern in Germany.^[142] A popular instrument with court musicians, minstrels, and amateurs, the gittern is considered ancestral to the modern guitar and possibly to other instruments like the mandore and gallichon.^[143]

From the early 16th century, a vihuela shaped (flat-backed) guitarra began to appear in Spain, and later in France, existing alongside the gittern. Although the round-backed instrument appears to have lost ground to the new from which gradually developed into the guitar familiar today, the influence of the earlier style continued. Examples of lutes converted into guitars exist in several museums, while purpose-built instruments like the gallichon utilised the tuning and single string configuration of the modern guitar. A tradition of building round-backed guitars in Germany continued to the 20th century with names like gittar-laute and Wandervogellaute.

Moving toward the acoustic guitar

Photo from the Cantigas de Santa Maria, Castile/Spain, c. 1300–1340. The left instrument has been called both Guitarra latina and citole. The other instrument has been called guitarra morisca.

Modern guitars, acoustic (left), resonator guitar (right).

The modern acoustic guitar comes from a long evolution of stringed musical instruments. It has often been claimed that the guitar is a development of the medieval instrument vihuela as evolution of ancient lute.

Although the word guitar today indicates a specific musical instrument family, centered around the acoustic guitar, in the past it has been used in English about members of the cittern family as well, for example the English guitar and Portuguese guitar.

Further, the ancestor instrument of the citterns, the cytole, came from Spain during the period that one of the ancestors of the guitar, the gittern, was being played. It also has been confused with the Guitarra latina from the early period of instrument development in Spain, and no clear relationship nor distinction has been formed about these guitar ancestors or cousins.

Gitterns, a small plucked guitar were the first small guitar-like instruments created during the spanish Middle Ages with a round back like that of a lute.^[151] Modern guitar shaped instruments were not seen until the Renaissance era where the body and size began to take a guitar-like shape.

The earliest string instruments that related to the guitar and its structure were broadly known as the vihuelas within Spanish musical culture. Vihuelas were string instruments that were commonly seen in the 16th century during the Renaissance. Later, Spanish writers distinguished these instruments into two categories of vihuelas. The vihuela de arco was an instrument that mimicked the violin, and the vihuela de penola was played with a plectrum or by hand. When it was played by hand it was known as the vihuela de mano. Vihuela de mano shared extreme similarities with the Renaissance guitar as it used hand movement at the sound hole or sound chamber of the instrument to create music.^[152]

By 1790 only six-course vihuela guitars (six unison-tuned pairs of strings) were being created and had become the main type and model of guitar used in Spain. Most of the older 5-course guitars were still in use but were also being modified to a six-coursed acoustical guitar. Fernando Ferandiere's^[153] book Arte de tocar la guitarra espanola por musica (Madrid, 1799) describes the standard Spanish guitar from his time as an instrument with seventeen frets and six courses with the first two 'gut' strings tuned in unison called the terceras and the tuning named to 'G' of the two strings. The acoustic guitar at this time began to take the shape familiar in the modern acoustic guitar. The coursed pairs of strings eventually became less common in favor of single strings.^[154]

Finally, c. 1850, the form and structure of the modern guitar is credited to Spanish guitar maker Antonio Torres Jurado, who increased the size of the guitar body, altered its proportions, and invented the breakthrough fan-braced pattern. Bracing, which refers to the internal pattern of wood reinforcements used to secure the guitar's top and back and prevent the instrument from collapsing under tension, is an important factor in how the guitar sounds. Torres' design greatly improved the volume, tone, and projection of the instrument, and it has remained essentially unchanged since.

Citole and cittern

Citole and cittern

Rylands Beatus, c. 1175, cythara.

England, East Anglia. Angel playing citole in an illustration from the "Ormesby Psalter" (c. 1310)

"Woman with cittern", canvas painted 1677 by Pieter van Slingelandt (c. 1630–1691).

The citole was a string musical instrument, closely associated with the medieval fiddles (viol, vielle, gigue) and commonly used in Europe from 1200–1350.^{[155][156][157]} The earliest representations of the instrument are in sculpture in Spain and Italy, with Spain having the most. Another link to Spain is the similarity to plucked fiddles in the Spanish Beatus Apocalypse manuscripts, such as the Ryland Beatus. Examples of these plucked fiddles trace back to Central Asian art, such as the Airtam Frieze. This artwork is too distant in time to be considered a relative, though it is very similar to many citoles.

The one surviving citole has a hollowed neck, a feature of the rubabs and Coptic lute.

Although it was largely out of use by the late 14th century, the Italians "re-introduced it in modified form" in the 16th century as the cetra (cittern in English), and it was possibly ancestral to the Spanish guitar as well.^{[158][159][160]} Three possible descendant instrument are the English guitar, Waldzither, Portuguese guitar and the Corsican Cetera, all types of cittern.

The cittern or cithren (Fr. cistre, It. cetra, Ger. zitter, zither, Sp. cistro, cedra, cítola)[1] is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the Medieval citole (or cytole). It looks much like the modern-day flat-back mandolin and the modern Irish bouzouki. Its flat-back design was simpler and cheaper to construct than the lute. It was also easier to play, smaller, less delicate and more portable. Played by all classes, the cittern was a premier instrument of casual music-making much as is the guitar today.

Viola, 4-course guitars, late 15th century

4-course guitar, viola

Cover of 1552 music book by Guillaume de Morlaye. Four-course guitar.

4-course guitar, c1570

By the late 15th century, small guitar shaped instruments were appearing in Spain and Italy. The instruments were smaller than lutes, which separates them from the later vihuela, which they resembled. As these took over from the gittern, they began to be called guitars in the 16th century. The use of these newer guitars overlapped with the older gittern, which may have seen occasional use into the 18th century.^[161]

Known by modern musicologists as the "Renaissance four-course guitar", the instrument was contemporary with the lute and the vihuela.^[162] The instruments were called violas by the French and Italians.^[161] As the instruments were developed in Italy, Spain and France, they grew larger, while the Portuguese kept making the smaller guitars, and still called them violas.

The instrument remained popular enough for music to be published for it in England and Italy into the 17th century, and Spain into the 18th century.^[162]

Plucked viol and vihuela

Viol, Viheula

Japanese painting from 1573–1615 of a European woman with a viol. Her viol has four courses of strings. Later viols would be commonly strung with 6 single strings and played with a bow.

Italian engraving from before 1510. Depicts the poet Giovanni Filoteo Achillini playing the viola da mano or vihuela de mano.

The viola da mano was the Italian version of the vihuela de mano. The two instruments were equivalent, but with different bodies. The viol had "C-shape cuts with pointed corners" while the vihuela had a "figure-of-eight body shape".^[163]

The vihuela was a guitar-shaped instrument that existed at the same time as the 4-course and 5-course guitars, tuned as a lute, with moveable gut frets. Its resemblance to the guitar has caused speculation that it might be related. However the 4-course guitar predates the vihuela, and that was the instrument was which was modified to create the 5-course guitar.

The guitar was an instrument of popular music; the vihuela was an instrument for the "virtuoso player".^[164] Vihuela was used as a word in Spain starting in the 13th century.^[164] The instrument was popular in Spain in the 15th and 16th centuries. In Italy and Portugal it was called viola.^[164]

There were several different types of vihuela (or different playing methods at least):

• Vihuela de mano: 6 or 5 courses played with the fingers^[165][164]
• Vihuela de penola: played with a quill plectrum^[164]
• Vihuela de arco: played with a bow (ancestor of the viola da gamba)^[164]
• Viola da Gamba: leg viol^[165]
• Viola da braccio: arm viol^[165]

Plucked vihuelas, being essentially flat-backed lutes, evolved in the mid-15th century, in the Kingdom of Aragón, located in north-eastern Iberia (Spain). In Spain, Portugal, and Italy the vihuela was in common use by the late 15th through to the late 16th centuries. In the second half of the 15th century some vihuela players began using a bow, leading to the development of the viol.^[165]

The vihuela faded away, along with the complex polyphonic music that was its repertoire, in the late 16th century. The vihuela's descendants that are still played are the violas campaniças of Portugal. Much of the vihuela's place, role, and function was taken up by the subsequent Baroque guitar (also sometimes referred to as vihuela or bigüela).^[165]

Today, instruments like the tiple are descendants of vihuelas brought to America in the 16th century.^[165]

Baroque guitar

The guitar player by Johannes Vermeer (c. 1672)

The Baroque guitar (c. 1600–1750) is a string instrument with five courses of gut strings and moveable gut frets.^[166] 5-course guitars were used in Italy by the late 1400s.^[162] Like the 4-course guitar and the vihuela, this instrument could also be called viola or vihuela and use the variations, such as viola da mano, vihuela del mano.^[162]

The "Hispano-Italian guitar" was made fashionable in the 17th century by Italian actors, working in Paris.^[167] It was first an instrument of aristocrats, inspired by the actors, and later it became an amateur instrument.^[167]

The Baroque guitar replaced the Renaissance lute as the most common instrument found in the home.^[168][169] The earliest attestation of a five-stringed guitar comes from the mid-sixteenth-century Spanish book Declaracion de Instrumentos Musicales by Juan Bermudo, published in 1555.^[170] The first treatise published for the Baroque guitar was Guitarra Española de cinco ordenes (The Five-course Spanish Guitar), c. 1590, by Juan Carlos Amat.^[171][172] The baroque guitar in contemporary ensembles took on the role of a basso continuo instrument and players would be expected to improvise a chordal accompaniment. Several scholars have assumed that the guitar was used together with another basso continuo instrument playing the bass line.^[173] However, there are good reasons to suppose that the guitar was used as an independent instrument for accompaniment in many situations.^[174] Intimately tied to the development of the Baroque guitar is the alfabeto system of notation.

6-string guitar

Antonio de Torres Jurado

In the second half of the 18th century, the doubled strings of the 5-course guitar began to become single strings, and by the end of the century, the 5-string guitar was out of fashion, in favor of the 6-string guitar. Examples of the new instrument with its additional low E string were seen in Spain (by 1780), Italy, France and England.^[162]

By the second half of the 19th century, luthier Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817–1892) had created the modern classical guitar.^[162] Ignacio Fleta (1897–1977) and Hermann Hauser Sr. (1882–1952) have also been linked to creating fine early versions of the instrument in the 20th century.^{[175][176][177]}

Portuguese

Portuguese violas

See: Violas portuguesas (Portuguese Wikipedia)

Two Portuguese instruments: the viola beiroa from Beira Baixa Province (right) and the cavaquino or machete or viola braguesa from Braga.

The Portuguese violas are a collection of instruments shaped like a classical guitar but smaller. Although the body is shaped like an "8", these instruments are not descended from the guitar. While the modern guitar was introduced in Portugal in the 18th century from France and has 6 simple strings, the Portuguese violas are older, were developed from the Iberian vihuela, are smaller and have 5 courses of double strings. Due to the widespread use in Portugal of the word "viola" to designate the guitar, it is common to call these violas "violas of 10 strings". However, there are no records of being called "10-string guitars".

Some of them are on the verge of extinction, but others continue to enjoy great popularity, despite being restricted to the interpretation of popular music. From Portugal, these instruments were taken to Brazil.

Violas native to Portugal include the Viola Braguesa, Viola Amarantina, Viola Toeira, Wire Viola, Viola Campaniça, and Viola Beiroa.

Brazilian violas

In Brazil, the viola became the viola caipira, while the classical guitar was called the violão. The viola caipira is an instrument of the Brazilian rural music while the violão an instrument of urban life.

Brazil. Viola caipira

Brazil. Viola de cocho

Brazilian violas include the

• viola caipira, common in the states of Goiás, Paraná, São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro
• Angrense or coastal viola, Common on the coast of the states of Paraná, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and associated with caiçara culture.
• Viola branca (white viola), specific to the region of Iguape and Cananéia, on the coast of the state of São Paulo.
• Viola de Queluz, Specific the ancient city of Queluz.
• Viola machete, also called machete, machim, machinho, machetinho or mochinho, and possibly originally from Madeira Island.
• Viola de cocho, common in the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul.
• Viola de buriti, common in the state of Tocantins, from the use of buriti wood . Created in the 1940s in the community of Mumbuca do Jalapão.
• Viola dinâmica (or viola nordestina), Common in the Northeastern Brazilian states and very associated with record players, who often use the Paraguaçu tuning . It has acoustic amplifiers in the form of aluminum cones

Cavaquinho

From left: Hawaiian ukulele, Madeira braguinha, Portuguese cavaquinho, Brazilian cavaquinho, Cape Verde cavaquinho.

Portuguese experiments led to the Portuguese guitar, and other instruments seen today in places that Portuguese ships landed. There are several forms of cavaquinho used in different regions and for different styles of music. Separate varieties are named for Portugal, Braga (braguinha), Minho (minhoto), Lisbon, Madeira, Brazil, and Cape Verde; other forms are the braguinha, cavacolele, cavaco, machete, and ukulele.

Spanish

Tiple

The Columbian tiple is larger than the Puerto Rican tiple.

Puerto Rico. Bordonua, has a large, deep body (sound-boxes are usually 6 inches (15 cm) deep) bass guitar

Venezuelan cuatro

A tiple (literally treble or soprano) is a plucked-string chordophone of the guitar family. The first mention of the tiple comes from musicologist Pablo Minguet e Irol in 1752. David Pelham says of the Colombian tiple: "The tiple is a Colombian adaptation of the Renaissance Spanish vihuela brought to the New World in the 16th century by the Spanish conquistadors. At the end of the 19th century, it evolved to its present shape.

The tipple of Puerto Rico is the smallest of the three string instruments of Puerto Rico that make up the orquesta jibara (i.e., the Cuatro, the Tiple and the Bordonua). According to investigations made by Jose Reyes Zamora, the tiple in Puerto Rico dates back to the 18th century. It is believed to have evolved from the Spanish guitarrillo. There was never a standard for the tiple and as a result there are many variations throughout the island of Puerto Rico including the most common tiple doliente, two smaller tiples (the tiple requinto and tiple vihuela), the larger tiplón or tiple con macho, and the largest tiple grande de Ponce.

Bandurria, bandolón and bandola

Cuban musician Barbarito Torres playing a Spanish lute or Laúd.

International, including Spain, China, Philippines. Bandurria

Three 18-string bandolons

Moisés Torrealba.JPG playing a Bandola llanera.

The bandurria and laúd are members of a family, resembling a type of cittern. They have become international instruments, played in Spain and in former colonies of the Spanish Empire, including Cuba and the Philippines. The bandurria is an older instrument, its roots going back to the Mandore, which birthed both mandolin and bandurria. The laúd was developed about 1880.

The bandurria was the Spanish version of the mandore, and the modern instrument is thus related to the mandolin family. The similarity of the instruments affects the history of other instruments from South and Central America; a variety of instruments exist called bandolas. At least one, the bandola andina colombiana, is related to the bandurria. The others are not clear at this time, and possibilities include mandolin family instruments such as the mandola or the cittern family. These were all present in Spain and Portugal during the colonization era. The bandolas have multiple courses of strings, like the bandurrias, mandolins and citterns.

Juan Ruiz first mentioned the term "mandurria" in the 14th century in his Libro De Buen Amor.^[184] After that, Juan Bermudo gave the description of the bandurria in his "Comiença el libro llamado declaraciõ de instrumentos" as a three-string instrument in 1555, but he also mentioned other types with four or even five strings.

It had become a flat-backed instrument by the 18th century, with five double courses of strings, tuned in fourths.^[185] The original bandurrias of the Medieval period had three strings. During the Renaissance they gained a fourth string. During the Baroque period the bandurria had 10 strings (5 pairs).

There are also many different varieties of bandurria in South America, especially Peru and Bolivia. They have four courses, unlike the traditional Spanish six courses.^[186] The four courses are double, triple or quadruple, and the tuning is guitar-like, rather than the fourths tuning used on the Spanish type.^[187] In Lima, Peru, harp and bandurria duos were common in the early 20th century. Nowadays people there still play bandurria accompanying with the popular vals peruano, or vals criollo.^[188]

The Philippine harp bandurria is a 14-string bandurria used in many Philippine folkloric songs, with 16 frets and a shorter neck than the 12-string bandurria.^[186] This instrument probably evolved in the Philippines during the Spanish period, from 1521 to 1898.

Larger instruments gave developed in the bandurria family including the Mexican bandolón and several instruments called bandola from Venezuela, Colombia and Peru. These include the Bandola llanera, bandola andina colombiana, bandola oriental, bandola guayanesa, and bandola Andina (or bandola Aymara or Peruvian bandola).

Mexican instruments

Mexican vihuela

Guitarrón mexicano

Guitarra panzona

Guitarra de golpe

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Mexican artisans built several types of instruments with double strings in three, four, five, six, seven and eight courses, influenced by their Spanish ancestors. Descendants of these instruments are bandolon, guitarra séptima, quinta huapanguera, jarana jarocha, concheras, and guitarra chamula, among others.^[189]

Guitarra de golpe

Huapanguera

Bajo sexto

jarana huasteca

Guitarra de golpe

A Guitarra de golpe is a type of 5-string guitar designed in Mexico. The perked once had a distinct traditional shape that is designed to look like a stylised owl with wooden pegs, but nowadays this is sometimes replaced with a guitar or vihuela style headstock with machine heads. For a while during the 20th century, the Guitarra De Golpe fell into disuse in traditional Mariachi groups, and was replaced by the Classical guitar. It has now however been revived.

Jarana huasteca

Mexico. A son huasteco trio, featuring a violin, jarana huasteca and huapanguera.

The jarana huasteca, jarana de son huasteco or jaranita is a string instrument. It is most often called simply jarana. It is a guitar-like chordophone with 5 strings. It is smaller than the guitarra huapanguera and usually forms part of the trío huasteco ensemble, along with the quinta huapanguera and violin, taking on the role of the rhythmical accompaniment to the ensemble.

Native American creations

Concheras

Mexico. Native Americans playing mandolin and vihuela de conchera in Mexico City.

"Old charango", has shape of mandolin or bandurria

In Mexico, the Concheras lute tradition may date to the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century. Native Americans imitated the European instruments, making their own.^[193] Sounds boxes were made from armadillo shells, from calabash gourds, and from strips of wood like the lute. The dancers who use the Concheras (also known as conchas) call them "Mecahuehuetl" (from Nahuatl: Meca(tl) = chord + Huehue(tl)= old one "drum"). The tradition is rooted in the Otomi, Jonaz, Chichimeca, and Caxcan tribes.

As Christians tried to suppress the native's religion, the instruments became a tool to preserve music.^[193] Early Concheros dancers were able to incorporate the precolumbian dance and drum rhythms into the music made on the guitars and lutes.^[193] A traditional conchero can tell which step should be carried out by how the melody is being strummed on the conchas.

Modern instruments include the mandolina conchera, vihuela conchera, and guitarra conchera. The vihuela and guitar types are tuned using reentrant tuning, each course having two strings an octave apart.

Gallery, Latin America, Indonesia, Philippines, Hawaii

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  Bolivia. Luciel Izumi playing modern charango
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  Bolivia. Charango, rounded back made from an armadillo
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  Modern charango with wood back
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  Canary Islands, Fuerteventura. timple
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  Chilean guitarron
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  Colombia. Colombian tiple
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  Columbia. Bandola andina
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  Sumba, Indonesia. Kahi Ata Ratu performing on the Junga. Originally a boat lute, this type was modeled after a Portuguese instrument.
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  Merida, Yucatán, Mexico, 19th century. Six-stringed charanga or jamanita.
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  Panama. Mejorana
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  Puerto Rican tiple doliente
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  Puerto Rico, 19th century, tiple requinto
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  Venezuela. Bandol llanera
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  Venezuela. Bandola oriental