Historical Stringed Instuments

[Sos]

Hi folks,

now i said i would do this at some point make a thread detailing the string instruments used in the world, or at least would fit, now until someone will correct me i'm operating under the assumption that the world is set around the 15th century/early Renaissance but anyway.

Now a disclaimer, i do not claim to know everything about history or musical history, but this is what i found so feel free to correct me.... anyhow, lets begin

most people don't really give much thought to what instruments were actually used as we are generally fed the usual fantasy style -which i guess would be a Celtic style in modern day- this isn't wrong but I'm not here to discuss style as that is a topic for a different day.

I bring this up as most people as i said mostly look to fantasy games and such for ideas on what instruments are used and there is a common misconception that only lutes, harps and flutes were used. Now i know many of you are smarter than this but its best to cover the bases than assume everyone is on the same level. I can tell you now, after a mere sorting through the various pages of Wikipedia.... its very surprising.

Now let us start with the stringed Instruments in general around this time. most modern stringed instruments use steel wires as their stings as its fairly cheap and it last long while giving a consistent note, but in this time frame, no one has access to machines that can die-press steel into wires, or even forge steel into the grade requires (with the possible exeption of the dwarves) and if you could, it would be way to expensive to make at any reasonable level. now as far as i can tell the early instrument stings were made out of animal gut or tendons and even silk in some cases, it gives some difference in sound but not as much as you may think seen as steel string are designed to replicate the sound of the instrument but someone could shed some light on this.

now the oldest confirmed stringed instrument was used around four and a half thousand years ago, that is the Lyres of Ur (or harps of Ur if you wish) so they have been around for a long time but...

Stringed instruments follow three basic categories. (I'm going to put the pictures in other thread because we could be here all day)

• Lutes; Guitars, violins and a Saz (get onto that in a bit) are all classified as lutes and are usually classified as Instruments with Necks for the strings and an interior to amplify the sound... more or less

• Harps; which are.... harps , Lyre and Cithara. Unlike the Lutes, they are simply strings suspended over a frame to generate the sound but of course have a different sound.
• Zithers; are Instruments with stings mounted on or in a body such as the Piano and Cimbalom. ( I swear to you, I'm not making these names up) The main difference is that these were more portable and durable and of course allowed for bigger instruments such as the piano.

The harps and Zithers are so similar in design, use and manufacture, they might as well be the same thing, Lutes on the other hand, are completely different that they warrant most of my attention seen as that's what i assume most people are interested in.

now i could go into the very interesting histories of most instruments but alas, there are not enough hours in the day. So i will give brief rundown.

Guitars do exist but not as we know them.... let me explain.
the first version of what anyone would call a guitar would have come into being around the twelfth century but it wasn't until the 13th century that the word guitar was used.... kinda....
the word guitar came from the word guitarra latina which referred to the instrument guitarra latina which is remarkably similar to the modern guitar. I personally wouldn't make too far as a stretch to say that a modern folk guitar couldn't be made in the world of altera as the main difference between them is in fact the body.

lutes on the other hand are a tad different, what we would call a 'lute' in fact came to be around about the 16th century but of course earlier versions did exist but most of these were similar to the lute that i would go as far as to say that it really makes no difference in terms of role play.

Harps we don't really need to go too much detail as they have remained unchanged since the 9th century and the only improvements were that of materials, but I stress when most people talk about Harps, they would be referring to the bigger versions, the hand held Harps were known as Lyres, important difference is that you can play with one while stood up or on your lap, the other is that you places down then play.
Zithers are basically harps for all intents and purposes aside for the fact that Strings are mounted onto a body as the Harp strings are mounted on a frame.


A note for everyone using them in role play: each and every instrument is different, this is a time way before the production line possess and thus are hand crafted and usually made in isolation, even the same instrument from different regions will have noticeable variations in both Appearance and sound.
and each of the different races would have their own way of making each instrument depending on taste and materials at hand, and i would be surprised if human versions of these instruments wouldn't be different in some form or another, with in the reasons of materials and technologies at the time of course.


Skyrim lute; an example to what we expect medieval instruments to be like

Lutes;

Violin;

Saz/Bağlama;

Lyre;

Zithers;

earlier guitars;

Harps;