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





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