Taking a leap.. - Arrived!

[Mick-7]

What lute player?

Oh, are those your pink jogging shorts? If so, sorry I said anything.

Note "Fragile" barely written in ball point.

Wait.... surely you're not suggesting that putting multiple Fragile warnings on a shipping package will not help insure its safe delivery, that delivery persons tend to ignore this directive? What a shocking revelation that would be!

[Woody Sound]

Oh, are those your pink jogging shorts? If so, sorry I said anything.

No, what I meant is, the instrument in the painting is a guitar, not a lute.

[Woody Sound]

NGL - that's a nice box. Are you going to learn all those cool strumming techniques and bust out some ribald Chaconnes?

Maybe time to move this thread to "other styles."

[jazzloverfat]

What is the defining difference? Is yours a lute or guitar?

This (and the one in the painting) is a Baroque Guitar. The body is hour-glass shaped and it usually has 4 pairs of strings + 1 single string.

A lute is pear-shaped and it resembles an oud more closely; it can have up to 12 or 13 pairs of strings.

[Woody Sound]

What is the defining difference? Is yours a lute or guitar?

[Mick-7]

This (and the one in the painting) is a Baroque Guitar. The body is hour-glass shaped and it usually has 4 pairs of strings + 1 single string.

A lute is pear-shaped and it resembles an oud more closely; it can have up to 12 or 13 pairs of strings.

Obviously this is not a subject I am knowledgeable about but I think there's more to it than the shape of the instruments body and how many tuning pegs it has. Rounded back construction is a key feature of lutes, and they need not be pear shaped, but usually are because the rounded back lends itself to that shape. The instrument the gent is playing in the painting has at least 10 tuning pegs so may have as many as 10 strings.

[jazzloverfat]

Obviously this is not a subject I am knowledgeable about but I think there's more to it than the shape of the instruments body and how many tuning pegs it has. Rounded back construction is a key feature of lutes, and they need not be pear shaped, but usually are because the rounded back lends itself to that shape. The instrument the gent is playing in the painting has at least 10 tuning pegs so may have as many as 10 strings.

It's courses, not strings

Regarding the instrument in the painting, we can only assume its specifics on account of the medium itself, but the number of pegs is not necessarily the right indicator since for traditional baroque guitars often one of the pegs is fake (probably having to do with the design aesthetics). Look at the headstock pics OP posted of his instrument and u can see the same.

As for the differences between lute and baroque guitar, why not keep it simple? Body shape is one of the most obvious and consistent characteristics of the instrument. While they do come in many shapes and sizes, they all have rounded backs vs. the almost flat back of the baroque guitar (tho I've seen instruments with a more pronounced curvature).
Apart from the shape and having more courses than a baroque guitar, another key difference to me would be the angle of the headstock which for lutes is extreme compared to that of a guitar. Neck length is not as consistent of a characteristic as the other 2 I mentioned, but it tends to be shorter than that of a guitar's. Maybe the soundhole could make for a 3rd defining factor since compared to that of a guitar it is not open and instead it has a carved pattern.

I'm not an expert either, but when I started learning classical guitar I did look up the history of the instrument and I came across pics and info about this stuff; plus I LOVE Arabic/Middle Eastern oud music so I did a bit of digging.

[Woody Sound]

The instrument the gent is playing in the painting has at least 10 tuning pegs so may have as many as 10 strings.

That's the baroque guitar.

[Mick-7]

That's the baroque guitar.

Actually, online sources suggest that it's a vihuela. It's pictured on the cover of this book. However, there appears to be little difference between the vihuela and the baroque guitar.





Cousins of the Guitar, Part 1: Lute & Vihuela

[grahambop]

The painting is by Watteau, a French Baroque painter. It’s far more likely he would paint a baroque guitar than a renaissance vihuela (which as far as I know was hardly used outside Spain).

[Woody Sound]

Actually, online sources suggest that it's a vihuela. It's pictured on the cover of this book. However, there appears to be little difference between the vihuela and the baroque guitar.





Cousins of the Guitar, Part 1: Lute & Vihuela

No, you're wrong. Vihuela is a completely different instrument (and period). I realize this is not an early music forum, but it would behoove you to do some further reading before making such uninformed proclamations.

[RJVB]

I realize this is not an early music forum, but it would behoove you to do some further reading before making such uninformed proclamations.

Heh, this is a forum where people have the habit of calling all kinds of things guitar because you can make noise with them using guitar(ish) technique.

You know, a bit like the definition of the border collie breed

[Christian Miller]

Actually, online sources suggest that it's a vihuela. It's pictured on the cover of this book. However, there appears to be little difference between the vihuela and the baroque guitar.





Cousins of the Guitar, Part 1: Lute & Vihuela

It's definitely a baroque guitar. 5 course instrument from the 1600 and 1700s

Viheula is earlier

4 courses and a smaller body IIRC - instrument from the Renaissance era. There's quite a few different variants on the viheula , but this is one that's most like a guitar (viheula de mano)

[Woody Sound]

It's definitely a baroque guitar. 5 course instrument from the 1600 and 1700s

Viheula is earlier

4 courses and a smaller body IIRC - instrument from the Renaissance era. There's quite a few different variants on the viheula , but this is one that's most like a guitar (viheula de mano)

Generally speaking: Renaissance guitar is 4 course, Vihuela is 6 course, and Baroque guitar is 5 course.

Also there is a more modern unrelated "Vihuela," which is a Mexican Mariachi instrument.

[Woody Sound]

Disclaimer: You can play jazz on any of them if you want to.

[Mick-7]

The painting is by Watteau, a French Baroque painter. It’s far more likely he would paint a baroque guitar than a renaissance vihuela (which as far as I know was hardly used outside Spain).

Argue with the author, he called it a vihuela, a baroque guitar is pictured on the cover of his other book:




And the angel must be misinformed too....

Vihuela-angel-G_Iberia - Detail of an angel-musician playing a vihuela from an anonymous 16th century Iberian fresco.

[Christian Miller]

Generally speaking: Renaissance guitar is 4 course, Vihuela is 6 course, and Baroque guitar is 5 course.

Also there is a more modern unrelated "Vihuela," which is a Mexican Mariachi instrument.

Apparently Renaissance guitar isn’t really a historical instrument. I know because I asked a renaissance guitar player once.

Etymologically it's messy. I get the impression modern early musicians and instrument makers divide instruments into more discrete categories than might have been the case at the time, especially considering how regional everything was (even in Bach's time there's good reason to think the Cello of the Cello suites may not have been the instrument we associate with that name today).

So today we divide the Viol family from the Violin family by string number, tuning and shape, with the former being slope shoulder instruments with 5 or 6 strings tuned mostly in fourths (like a guitar or lute) and the latter being flat shouldered instruments tuned in fifths. However, as with tenor guitars and six string banjos, the reality is more complex.

Furthermore IIRC viola often seems to refer to 'stringed instrument played with a bow' in Monteverdi's scores for example. The viola da gamma is an instrument of the viol family, and so on.

The vihuela and Portuguese name for the guitar, Vilao, retains this etymology. Vihuela de Mano being the finger-style one, de Peñola with a plectrum (quill) and de Arco the one that is played with a bow. Obviously the instruments became more specialised to these roles, so bowed instruments gained a curved bridge, but some design features overlapped - rob shared some pictures of vihuelas with f holes being played with a plectrum.

Of course, we can also see how unrelated instruments end up with the same name - the Chittarone being a completely different instrument to the Kithara of antiquity and both of them unlike the Spanish Guitarra.

In practice, from what I know, it seems instruments were often scored by role and how the sound was made rather than body shape and tuning, at last until things became more standardised. But even in the C19 (IIRC) there were many three string double basses tuned in fifths.

As well as the Mexican viheula, you also have things like the Cuban laud, which I assume is a name borrowed from the older Spanish laud, itself a based on a loan word from Arabic Oud, from which we also derive the name lute. All of these instruments are of course, different.

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[Woody Sound]

Argue with the author, he called it a vihuela, a baroque guitar is pictured on the cover of his other book:

No, the author(s) are correct. You are completely mixed up about this, without a clue. Please trust us.

[Christian Miller]

Well then I'm in good company with art historians, sorry if I'd rather trust their judgement over yours.

I doubt the authors had much say in the graphic design.


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[grahambop]

Well then I'm in good company with art historians, sorry if I'd rather trust their judgement over yours.

I think I would rather trust the catalogue entry at the National Gallery in London, where Watteau’s painting (The Scale of Love) resides. It cites a French art historian and musicologist who states that the instrument is based on a guitar made by Voboam of Paris.

[Litterick]

The catalogue says an art historian sees similarities between the guitar in the painting and an extant guitar by Voboam. Florence Gétreau specialises in the iconography of musical instruments, but one swallow does not makes a summer.

[grahambop]

the guitar in the painting.

agreed, it’s a guitar.

[RJVB]

Anyway, does the leap guitar play jazz, that's the big question, no?

[Mick-7]

Is a baroque guitar tuned differently than a vihuela or lute?


Another Watteau painting, the instrument in this one is obviously a lute:

[Litterick]

agreed, it’s a guitar.

Yes, but your statement about the National Gallery was wrong.