Pre-modern citterns The cittern is one of the few metal-strung instruments known from the
Renaissance music period (others being gut-strung). It generally has four courses of strings (single, pairs or threes depending on design or regional variation), one or more courses being usually tuned in octaves, though instruments with more or fewer courses were made. The cittern may have a range of only an octave between its lowest and highest strings and employs a
re-entrant tuning – a tuning in which the string that is physically uppermost is not the lowest, as is also the case with the five-string
banjo and most
ukuleles for example. The tuning and narrow range allow the player a number of simple
chord shapes useful for both simple song accompaniment and dances, though much more complex music was also written for it. Its bright and cheerful timbre make it a valuable counterpoint to gut-strung instruments. The Spanish
bandurria, still used today, is a similar instrument.
16th to 18th centuries From the 16th until the 18th century the cittern was a common English
barber shop instrument, kept in waiting areas for customers to entertain themselves and others with, and popular
sheet music for the instrument was published to that end. :: HOLOFERNES: What is this? :: BOYET: A cittern-head. :: DUMAIN: The head of a bodkin. :: BIRON: A Death's face in a ring. Just as the
lute was enlarged and bass-extended to become the
theorbo and
chitarrone for
continuo work, so the cittern was developed into the
ceterone, with its extended neck and unstopped bass strings, though this was a much less common instrument. Gérard Joseph Deleplanque (1723-1784) was a luthier from
Lille who made a wide variety of instruments, including citterns. The instrument maker Johann Wilhelm Bindernagel (around 1770-1845), who worked in
Gotha, made a mixed guitar-cittern under the name "Sister" or "German Guitar", which was equipped with seven gut strings. The leading 18th-century Swedish songwriter
Carl Michael Bellman played mostly on the cittern, and is shown with the instrument (now in the National Museum, Stockholm) in a 1779 portrait by
Per Krafft the elder.
Modern citterns In Germany, the cittern survives under the names
Waldzither and
Lutherzither. The last name comes from the belief that
Martin Luther played this instrument. Also, the names
Thüringer Waldzither in Thüringer Wald,
Harzzither in the Harz mountains,
Halszither in German-speaking Switzerland are used. There is a tendency in modern
German to interchange the words for cittern and
zither. The term
waldzither came into use around 1900, to distinguish citterns from zithers. The cittern family survives as the Corsican
cetara and the
Portuguese guitar. The
guitarra portuguesa is typically used to play the popular traditional music known as
fado. In the early 1970s, using the guitarra and a 1930s archtop Martin guitar as models, English luthier Stefan Sobell created a "cittern", a hybrid instrument primarily used for playing folk music, which has proved to be popular with folk revival musicians. ==See also==