Saturday, January 14, 2012

Cittern: The Instrument of the Future


Those not familiar with the ModeExploratorium are bound to ask three very good questions.  


First of all, What's up with these "Modes" anyway?  Secondly, What's with this obsession with Fifths-tuning?  And finally, What in the world is a "Cittern?" (And why should I care?)
Simply put, it's really all about proposing a really, really good strategy for improvising music on stringed instruments.


The "Modes" part of the question is referring directly to Music Theory. Modes are scales. Scales have component chords. These are essential to effective improvising.  To select the right notes to play over a set of chord changes, or to select chords to play over a melody, we need to know how it all fits together.  We call that "Chord/Scale Theory." And that's usually what you're using (whether consciously or not) when you improvise in music.
So that's why this is a ModeExploratorium.  This is where we explore the universe of melody and harmony so we can do this music thing better, through Modes.


Fifths-tuning?  It's a funny thing - Since guitar has become a predominant vehicle of Western Pop Music over the last hundred years, its tuning became pretty ingrained in the culture: EADGBE.  Licks, chops, tunes, and even genres have been based on what's expedient for that tuning. But very few players question its usability, or whether or not there's a better tuning for guitar - They just become proficient at navigating the "fourths with a major-third speed bump" tuning, regardless of its asymmetry, regardless of whether it makes sense, or models music well, or maps well to the staff. (In our opinion it doesn't do well in these areas.)  On the other hand, fifths-tuning has been around for centuries, tried and true in the orchestra, and it is symmetrical, it does, in fact, make sense, model music well, and map well to the staff.  That's why we're biased toward fifths-tuning.


And what about this "Cittern" thing?  The cittern we're talking about here is the 10-string long-scale bouzouki, probably first named as such by Stefan Sobell, the famous luthier. This instrument, when tuned in fifths like a mandolin/mandola, CGDAE, becomes an extraordinary jazz instrument in that it models music theory very, very well. The extra course really extends and helps to illustrate the wonderful symmetries available in fifths tuning, and makes chord building and scale visualization a breeze. So much so that, we can imagine a day when fifths tuning is the standard, and the mighty Cittern rules the world!  Recall that Robert Fripp popularized a thing he called NST a couple decades ago for the guitar. Guess what - That's basically fifths-tuning, the same thing used on mandolins, violins, cellos, and so on, for centuries.  It makes the guitar into a Cittern, you might say. (With an added string at the top.)


Fifths-tuning in the range of the guitar, with all its symmetry, predictability and simplicity?  It's the instrument of the future. In view of its inevitability, we think it's time to start preparing now.


Proposing really, really good strategies for improvising music on stringed instruments. That's what the ModeExploratorium is all about.  For mandolin family players, or NST guitarists, it's about applying chord/scale theory to organize your arsenal of chops.  For old Standard Tuning guitar players, it's about discovering the ease and simplicity of fifths-tuning for stringed instruments.  


Welcome to the ModeExploratorium.

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