Matt, thanks - you have just made my point. To coin a phrase: One man's "dora' may be another man's "lino". My introduction to the mandora came from the Ronn McFarlane Scot's Lute book. Most of his pieces are from the Straloch Lute Book (1627-29) and the Rowallen Lute Book (c. 1620). But there are others from the Skene Mandora Book (c. 1615). (And that latter he got as microfilm from LSA, who seems to call it Skine - I've looked it up as I want to get the original - but I'm not sure what I'd do with microfilm, so I await the librarian's answer). It gets more complicated, some of the "mandora" pieces he transcribes are in lute tuning, but most are in a tuning from the Skene Book, and the instrument is described as 5 courses.
So perhaps I'm right, the name of the instrument is not necessarily the nature of the instrument. Names change over time and space (and as one moves from one language to another). The ukelele is a vihuela da mano, except that it isn't. The "My Dog Has Fleas" tuning is a guitar tuning with the 4th course up an octave. It is generally played as a strummed/chorded instrument. > May I add that your obvious notion of what a mandora should be does not > congrue with what it was in 18th century, namely 6c mandora (tuning: > F-G-c-f-a-d', also G-A-d-g-b-e', with its 6th course retuning as > required), aka calichone (bass tuning: C-D-G-c-e-a). Cf. Pietro OK, there is only one absolute for stringed instruments and that is the intervals between the open strings. The pitch may vary by the length (and within limits one's choice). All starting at the "bass", the intervals. Using the pitches above your first 18th c. mandora (6 course); 1-4-4-3-4. Your second; 1-4-4-3-4. The calichone is 1-4-4-3-4. The 7 course lute is 1-4-4-3-4-4, and the guitar is 4-4-4-3-4. Do these numbers look similar? The mandora in the Skene Mandora Book (admittedly as interpreted by McFarlane, I haven't seen the original facsimile yet) has a tuning of 4-5-4-5. (Choosing d" as the treble, as I have since that seems to be a comfortable level for the VL of 36cm., that gives me d, g, d', g', d", What can I say, nothing is absolute when it comes to naming. The Scot's mandora of the Skene Mandora Book may have been a borrowed name from the active cultural centers of Italy, a name lost in the wilderness of the north. I spent many years in NYC, I was born there and grew up in the culture. I'm probably the only one on this list who has ridden the subway for a nickel. I also spent many years living in the village (the green one, Greenwich Village is a redundancy as the "wich" means village in the early language). The point, never let the words define the substance. The music of intabulation can be played on any instrument that is tuned to the same intervals, but if one mandora has a different tuning than another the intabulation is useless - and the Skene Book apparently uses two different tunings. I rather like that 4-5-4-5 , it doesn't work well for three finger chords, but it is great for melody with an easy open chord. Which makes one wonder if the Skene Book was taking early instruments of the lute family and backtracking into the music. The fuller chordings of the guitar (and I'm convinced, but haven't tested, that the shift from the lute 4-4-3-4-4 to the guitar 4-4-4-3-4 is a matter of the chord fingering - moving from the historical melody instrument into the dual voice polyphony, and then to the vertical harmony). No one could have been more enamored of an easy fingering for the particular music than the real players. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
