Baroque guitar bourdons

[Baroque Guitar]

There is little prove of the placing of the bourdons in inner or outer position.

In the Encyclopedie methodique, arts et metiers mechanique (Paris, Liege 1788) there is a picture of a guitar that makes it clear that the bourdons are placed in the inner positions. The article also mentions that de Visee did not use the A bourdon.

 

Hans

 

[Harry Jess]

Interesting, Hans! This position of the bourdons also facilitates campanellas.
Harry

[Jelma van Amersfoort]

But where do we find campanellas in French guitar music of 1788?

[Akira Sakamoto]

Well, based on my very humble experience with the renaissance guitar and eight-string electric bass (four-course, octave strung), the courses with bourdons on the treble side are simply much more comfortable to hold than those with bourdons on the bass side. Wouldn't that be also the reason?

[Monica Hall]

This is interesting. Is this encyclopedia a later edition of Diderot's dictionary which appeared in France in 1757? This gives the same information. There is a reference to the practice of placing the bourdons in the inside position in Ruiz de Ribayaz' s "Luz y Norte musical" printed in Spain in 1677. The practice is also illustrated by Merchi in 1761. And there is a paper pattern of the fingerboard of the chitarra atiorbata in the Stradivarius Museum that also show this arrangement. This dates from the early 18th century. Most of the references are comparatively late possibly because in the 17th century the guitar more often had a re-entrant tuning so that it wasn't necessary to reverse the strings.

Monica