Brad McEwen wrote: > Rob: > > True. Most likely, but not necessarily. The point was though, that > neither instrument originated in the countries indicated. > > Brad > > It's not entirely clear where the English guitar originated. Germany is the usual suspect. But at the time when the English guitar was popular (and when related instruments where popular in other European countries) there was not much happening in Germany. There were some small, C-tuned, triple-strung arch-citterns with the music at least sometimes in tab in manuscript. In contrast music for the English guitar (and related ones) was in published collections and in standard notation.
German instruments that look very like English guitars (Waldzithern etc), don't appear until the early 19th C when the English guitar was well out of fashion. So if the English guitar did originate in Germany, perhaps from the cinrinchen, someone made some very distinctive alterations to arrive at the English guitar. And was this done in Germany? Or in England...or, bonny Scotland or somewhere else! To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
