Seven string guitar
A seven-string guitar is a guitar with seven strings instead of the usual six. Such guitars are not as widespread as the six-string variant, but a minority of guitarists have used them for more than 150 years. Some types of this instrument are specific to certain cultures, such as the Russian and Brazilian guitar.
At present, seven-string electric guitars are mainly used in metal (bands like Dream Theater , Morbid Angel ) and nu-metal (e.g. Limp Bizkit , Korn ).
history
During the Renaissance , the guitar was generally strung with four pairs of strings. In the baroque era there were five pairs of strings and a wide variety of moods were used. During the 18th century, guitars with six pairs of strings became popular and after 1800 the current version with six single strings became the standard. This development illustrates the striving of the player to expand the range of the instrument.
The seven-string guitar is another result of this development and has been used for around 150 years. The French guitarist Napoléon Coste composed some works for seven-string guitar, the lowest, free-floating string on D, sometimes also tuned to C.
construction
Additional strings are usually added to add a few bass notes to the range of the modern six-string guitar. These strings are generally attached in two different ways: The first and more common way is to widen the fretboard so that the free swinging bass string can be stopped with the left hand. The second method is to leave the fingerboard unchanged and instead attach strings close to the existing bass strings free from the fingerboard, such as strings of the theorbo or arch lutes . These intangible bass strings are historically referred to as drone strings .
The Russian guitar
The classical and acoustic seven-string guitar reached Russia at the beginning of the 19th century, most likely as a further development of the kobsa (a traditional Ukrainian lute) or the baroque lute . In Russia it is known by the name semistrunnaya gitara (семиструнная гитара) or simply semistrunka (семиструнка).
Her invention is attributed to Andrei Sychra , who wrote more than a thousand compositions, seventy-five of which were republished by Stellovsky in the 1840s and again by Gutheil in the 1880s. Some of them were republished in 1926 during the Soviet Union .
This type of guitar is called the Russian guitar because it was originally played in Russia and later in the Soviet Union. in the 1970s and 1980s it was far better known there than the regular six-string guitar, but has since disappeared and is now difficult to find.
The Russian guitar is traditionally played without a pick. Instead, the fingers are used to pluck or strike. In contrast to the Spanish guitar, it is tuned in thirds to an open G major chord (D, G, B, d, g, b, d ').
One of their composers was the doctor and guitarist Wasil Sarenko (1814–1881), a student of Sychra. The famous singer-songwriter Vladimir Vysotsky is known to have only played the seven-string version of the guitar until the end.
The Brazilian seven-string guitar
The Brazilian seven-string guitar is an acoustic guitar mainly used in choro and samba music. Its origin in Brazil is not clearly established. The introduction of the instrument in choro music in the 1930s is generally attributed to the guitarist Tute (Artur de Souza Nascimento, 1886–1957), who added a low C string to the six-string guitar. A special accompaniment technique such as the "Baixaria" counterpoint style was developed and refined during the 20th century, in particular by Dino 7 Cordas and Raphael Rabello . Luiz Otávio Braga plays an important role as a guitarist as well as a music teacher for the Brazilian seven-string guitar. The guitar virtuoso Yamandu Costa has contributed a lot to the popularity of the instrument for some time.
The seven-string Brazilian guitar is usually tuned like the classical guitar, only with an additional low C under the low E-string (CEADGhe), but some musicians also tune the C down to Contra-B so that they are in the same tuning as a seven-string E. -Guitar reach (H 1 -EADGhe).
The seven-string electric guitar
Hollow body and semi-resonance electric guitars
In the United States , jazz guitarist George Van Eps developed a seven-string guitar in 1939, which Epiphone Guitars custom-made for him . The guitar was basically a regular electric guitar with an added bass string, usually tuned to A.
Several jazz guitarists began to use seven-string guitars after Van Eps, including Bucky Pizzarelli , Howard Alden , Ron Eschete , Lenny Breau as well as Mary Pizzarelli and her brother John Pizzarelli . The latter is the author of the Foxwoods casino theme and the son of jazz legend Bucky Pizzarelli.
The first seven-string electric guitars were built as hollow or semi-hollow bodies, so that the guitar had a central resonance body or a central block with individual resonance chambers on the sides.
The seven-string solid body electric guitar
The first seven-electric guitar, which consisted of a solid-state, was in 1990 with Steve Vai - Signaturemodell by Ibanez in commercial production, the Ibanez Universe . At that time Steve Vai was on the one hand generally captivated by the number seven , on the other hand - like the classical and jazz guitarists - by the possibilities offered by the new pitch range offered by the additional string. After initial experiments with a high A, a low H was added (H 1 -EADGhe). At the same time, George Lynch was also experimenting independently with seven-string designs, but decided against further development due to some problems with the removable pickup system. Vai began touring with Whitesnake , using a prototype of the seven-string guitar and then using the guitar for his 1990 release Passion and Warfare , which became a landmark in the history of instrumental rock.
In the early 1990s , several metal guitarists began using the seven-string guitar, such as John Petrucci of Dream Theater and Trey Azagthoth and Erik Rutan of Morbid Angel . They saw in the instrument the possibility of playing deep riffs without retuning, but at the same time being able to use tones in the normal range for solos.
In the late 1990s, the instrument became more widespread when nu-metal bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit began using the seven-string guitar. With a clear use of the seventh string - mostly tuned to the low B or A - these bands combined features from metal music with rap influences. Many guitar manufacturers added the seven-string guitar to their range.
In the jazz field, some guitarists use seven-string instruments with an additional low A-string ("jazz tuning").
The special design Springtime
For Laura-Mary Carter from the band Blood Red Shoes , Yuri Landman invented the Springtime , a seven-string triplo electric guitar, in 2008 . The electric guitar is 3- stereophonic with three rotated pickups and works similar to an electric baritone guitar , electric guitar and electric bouzouki via three guitar amplifiers .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Leif Christensen: Days with Sarenko. In: Guitar & Laute 8, 1986, No. 1, pp. 13-16.
- ↑ Oleg V. Timofeyev: The golden age of the Russian guitar: Repertoire, performance practice, and social function of the Russian seven-string guitar music, 1800-1850 . Duke University, Department of Music, 1999, pp. 1-584, University Microfilms (UMI), Ann Arbor, Michigan, number 9928880.
- ↑ Tamara Elena Livingston-Isenhour, Thomas George Caracas Garcia: Choro: A Social History of a Brazilian Popular Music . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2005, ISBN 978-0-253-21752-3 . P. 89 f.
- ^ Luiz Otávio Braga: O violão de 7 cordas, teoria e prática . Lumiar Editora, Rio de Janeiro 2002, ISBN 8585426-84-5 .
- ↑ Alexander Schmitz: The guitar in jazz. Supplementary considerations on JE Berendt's article. In: Guitar & Laute 5, 1983, Issue 1, pp. 82-84; here: p. 83 f.
- ↑ Gitaarbouwer Landman levert nieuw product af ( Memento of 12 June 2008 at the Internet Archive ) press release in Dutch