Ceiling (string instrument)
The top is a component of string instruments , of plucked instruments from the lute family and of harps . As a ceiling, the separately manufactured is top of the body referred to, on the sides rests or instruments with solid body ( solid body ) lies flat on this and is glued over the whole area. In the case of instruments in which a strongly curved back replaces the sides, the top rests directly on the arched edges of the body bottom. This applies to most modern harps and bowl-neck lutes (for example Neapolitan mandolin , Arabic oud and Indian sitar ) as well as to some acoustic guitars , such as certain instruments made by Ovation .
Especially with acoustic instruments with resonance bodies , the material and shape of the top have a major influence on the sound of the instrument, as the top has to absorb the vibrations of the strings via the bridge , but it should also affect the vibration behavior of the strings as little as possible. In the case of instruments with a sound box, the top usually has one or more sound holes in addition to the bridge . With string instruments of European origin, these traditionally have an F or C shape (see also F hole ) and are located on both sides of the bridge; For lutes, concert guitars and concert mandolins, a single, round or elliptical sound hole immediately below the strings is most common.
Designs
There are various shapes and manufacturing processes for instrument racks, some of which instrument makers have used almost unchanged for centuries. Two different types of instrument ceiling can be distinguished: flat ceiling ( English : Flat Top ), the acoustic guitars, lutes, among others Balalaikas and are used in most types of mandolins, and vaulted ceilings ( archtop ) , typical of most Instruments from the violin family are, however, also used in acoustic and electrically amplified guitars as well as in some mandolins.
Flat ceilings
Flat instrument covers usually consist of a workpiece that is either sawn out of plywood or , in the case of high-quality instruments, from one or two pieces of solid wood. Solid wood ceilings are generally attributed better sound shaping. A widely used tonewood for flat tops is spruce ; Cedar wood is also used on some instruments . Depending on the size of the instruments, flat ceilings are usually reinforced on the inside with glued-on wooden struts or strips , the material thickness, number and arrangement of which have a great influence on the sound of the instruments. A special shape is the cross -shaped bracing used on acoustic guitars with steel strings (X-bracing) . This technique was first used in acoustic guitars around 1850 by the US guitar manufacturer C. F. Martin . Other forms of bracing are various fan-like and parallel braces.
Vaulted ceilings
(→ main article archtop )
The traditional production method for vaulted instrument tops is to carve the component out of one or two pieces of wood (English: carved top ). Here, too, due to its resonance properties, spruce is often used as the top material. The most laborious method is carving by hand; For some years now, computer-controlled CNC milling machines that work with the highest precision have also been used for this demanding production step . Carved ceilings usually have a greater material thickness in the middle than at their edges (“graduated” ceilings). A less elaborate and far cheaper method than carving is pressing solid or laminated wood (e.g. plywood) into the curved shape. For guitars and mandolins, vaulted ceilings based on the model of string instruments were first used at the beginning of the 20th century by Orville H. Gibson (1856–1918), founder of The Gibson Mandolin Guitar Company . Gibson also used the construction principle adopted from string instruments for the backs of his musical instruments.
Covers for instruments with a solid body
Also in solidbody - electric guitars and - basses , the material has a separately applied to the body ceiling effect on tone shaping; However, the decorative character of the wood used for the ceiling also plays a major role in many of these instruments. Wood with a particularly noticeable and even grain is often used, which is often to be emphasized by a high-quality transparent or semi-transparent coating. The first solid body electric guitar that was provided with a separately manufactured and domed top was the Gibson Les Paul, introduced in 1952 .
Integuments
Many plucked and bowed lute instruments have a top made of dried, untanned animal hide. In the Indian sarod , the body is covered entirely with goat skin; likewise with their role model, the Afghan Rubab . The top of the string instruments Sarinda in India and Ghichak in Central Asia, with the upper part of the body open, is divided into two parts. The Indian sarangi is covered with parchment made from goat skin. The Persian tar and the Japanese shamisen , both long-necked lutes, also have covers made of animal skins.
In Africa we can distinguish three types of skittles, all of which are covered with animal skins. In West Africa these are plucked shell skewers (also inland skewers) of the Ngoni type . They correspond to the tidinite and tahardent found in the western Sahara . The American banjo comes from a special West African spit lute with a round calabash body . The Tuareg spit lute Imzad is an example of the many single-stringed string instruments . The tubular violins, which like the Ugandan endingidi, are covered on one side with animal skin, are correspondingly widespread in East Africa . Your Chinese role model is the erhu . The hides of cows, sheep, young goats, lizards and snakes are generally used. The skin-covered box skewers include the plucked Moroccan gimbri and the Ethiopian fiddle Masinko .
All forms of ancient Indian harps presumably had a skin covering stretched over the body, at the latest since the turn of the times, below which the strings were attached to a wooden strip. Harps had disappeared from India by the 12th century, the only remaining Asian harp is the Burmese Saung gauk , the skin of which goes back to Indian models. String support strips under the skin were also used in ancient Egyptian harps. The African bow harps, which are still played today, have the skin coverings, to which the Ugandan Ennanga and Kundi in the northeast of the Congo and in Mauritania the Ardin belong in their distribution focus in the east of the continent . It was not until the medieval European harps that the membrane was replaced by a wooden ceiling, under which a wooden strip continues to run to attach the strings.
Special designs
On some plucked instruments with resonance bodies , the tops are wholly or partially made of materials other than wood: on some resonator guitars , the top (or even the entire hollow body) with the named resonators are made of metal, which should give the instrument a louder sound.
literature
- Tony Bacon, Dave Hunter: Totally Guitar - the definitive guide . Backbeat Books, London 2004. ISBN 1-87154-781-4
- George Gruhn & Walter Carter: Electric Guitars and Basses . Presse Projekt Verlag, Bergkirchen 1999. ISBN 3-932275-04-7
- Franz Jahnel: The guitar and its construction - technology of guitar, lute, mandolin, sister, tanbur and strings. Erwin Bochinsky publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 1963, 7th edition 1999. ISBN 3-923639-09-0
- Carlo May: Vintage guitars and their stories . MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 1994. ISBN 3-927954-10-1
- Alexander Schmitz: The guitar . Eilert & Richter Verlag, 1988
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bacon / Hunter: Totally Guitar , p. 16.
- ↑ a b c Alexander Schmitz: The guitar , p. 101
- ↑ Bacon / Hunter: Totally Guitar , p. 14 ff.
- ↑ Alexander Schmitz: The guitar , p. 82 f.
- ↑ May: Vintage Guitars , p. 34
- ↑ Laurence Picken : String / Table angles for harps, from the Third Millennium BC to the present. In the S. (Ed.): Musica Asiatica 3. Oxford University Press, London 1981, pp. 41-43