One word review: Wow!
Want specifics: Read on!

If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you might have seen my earlier post on the Renaissance guitar and the similarities it shares with the modern ukulele. Someone who saw the article mentioned a book by Christopher Page, The Guitar in Tudor England : A Social and Musical History.

The level of research here is mind-blowing, with scores of obscure 16th-century references to the guiterre, gittern, gitterne, etc. (Elizabethans weren’t big on standardized spelling) … the instrument we now know as the 4-course renaissance guitar, which shares many similarities to the modern ukulele. Here are some things I knew going in the book:

• Hourglass shape with flat back and sides made of bent wood (rather than carved from a block)
• Fretted with gut ties like a lute
• Gut strings
• A 4th – 3rd – 4th tuning in 4 courses (sets of strings) … gG CC EE A

Some interesting additions to this that I learned exclusively from Page’s research:

• It came in DIFFERENT SIZES! How cool is that? Today we have our Soprano/Concert/Tenor sizes, all generally tuned the same gCEA as each other, as well as the Baritone in DGBE … Queen Elizabeth was gifted a set of 3 gitterns by a prominent English instrument maker and Page speculates that these would most likely have been of two or three different sizes (one of which may have been the size of today’s soprano ukulele as evidenced by the Eglantine Table of Hardwick Hall).
• In addition to the well-documented gG CC EE A tuning (see The Renaissance Guitar 1500-1650 by James Tyler in Early Music), Page uncovered evidence that some of these Renaissance instruments may have been tuned re-entrant, without the lower octave string, like today’s ukulele.
• He also found an alternate tuning system that maintained the same 4th-3rd-4th pitch relationships, but with different specific pitches. With this information he reconstructs a 3-tiered system of tuning with specific pitches of C4 F4 A4 D5 (a 4th higher than a ukulele standard), F3 Bb3 D4 G4 (a whole-step lower than standard) and C3 F3 A3 D4 (a whole-step lower than baritone). Of course, at the time pitch was much fuzzier when it comes to specifics, but this is still cool. A modern parallel would be Sopranino, Standard and Baritone ukulele tunings.
• Lots of strong evidence that the instrument was primarily used in England to strum chords while accompanying the voice, though translations of French method books were published that showed that there was enough interest in playing it instrumentally to merit the effort.

There was sooooooo much more to this than instrument specifics though. Page explores how the instrument was popular in different layers of the social strata. The instrument belonged to:

• Henry VIII (possibly)
• Queen Elizabeth (definitely)
• Courtiers
• Spying Courtiers that used the instrument to carry a cipher
• Nobles
• Merchants
• College Men
• Taverners
• Young Wastrels

It was fascinating to read about these people, the import trade on gitterns (instruments mostly came from France), evidences in the visual record, music that was played, and many interesting appendices. Well worth the time. A great book. Five stars. *****

Post filed under All UkulelePlay! Blog Posts.