According to expert player Rob MacKillop - www.musicintime.co.uk - there are only six players of the guittar in the world and if I learn to play this, I'll be the second in Scotland. According to others, the "English guitar" is quite common. There are no marks or dates inside the body, or on it. It has been tentatively identified as made by Simpson, around 1770, from its fine woods, ornamentation and slim body. You can compare these pictures with Rob's instrument. For more information on citterns of many types, see Andrew Hartig's links page.
It was found in an Ontario junk shop. The colour is a beautiful honey shade - not dark - with very strong quilting patterns. It is made from European maple or sycamore with a bookmatched fiddleback quilting, and a spruce, pine or fir top. I don't think the top is cedar or redwood, as is suggested for many of these instruments. It is not really dark enough, for the age, to be anything other than a white conifer wood originally.
The wood appears darker inside the instrument where air has reached it, and slightly pinkish compared to the yellower colour under the varnish. Internally the bracing seems to be the same wood as the back and ribs. The back has been carved or thicknessed using a toothed plane.
There is a slight twist to the neck. I've been able to reset sprung frets very easily, and to clip and dress sharp fret ends which were well beyond the edge of the wood. The fingerboard is a core of something like boxwood with 1/32nd ebony veneer on top.
The neck has four holes made as standard for the type of capo used at the time, and I could do with finding a source to make a new capo to fit. The holes support the authenticity of the instrument, as they are slightly off-centre to cope with the asymmetrical string positioning.
I have dealt with some non-threatening cracks in the top from the inside using tanned salmon skin which I get from a local craftsman. It is like using a vellum strip. The cracks look just the same as they did but I feel safer. As for the old damage on one side, and more recent scraped off varnish on the binding, this needs an expert to analyse the original finish and repair it.
It has a brass rose insert with bone or ivory (unsure) rim which was cracked in several places but sound enough to refit without glueing, for the time being, with a little (easily removable) milliput white epoxy clay to fill the gaps.
There is an ivory strap endpin. It uses ten tiny ivory string pins, which I have replaced with newly made ones since the photo was taken, where missing. There is an ivory strip where the strings cross the binding.
The nut is perfect, and the No 9 watch-key Preston's patented tuning mechanism (gold plate) is also perfect and in 100 per cent working order. The binding is rope pattern, two woods, but all other ornamentation is by stained varnish or painting below the varnish layer in red and black. It has a nice ivory endpin 'strap button', and a replacement headstock seems to have been made. This slightly resembles a Portugese fado guitarra in style, but John Pearse, the English folk singer and expert in old instruments now living in the USA and owning Breezy Ridge Instruments, says that a Simpson English guitar was supposed to be the instrument taken to Portugal and adopted as a pattern. There is some dispute about this, but my instrument certainly resembles 19th century Portuguese guitarras in many respects.
The old pearwood bridge has twisted, been heightened once in the past, and after adding 1/4 inch of rosewood to the legs and still not really got a decent action I saw that the top curve was a poor match for the fingerboard radius. I have made a quickly (3 hours) carved ebony bridge shown above, which works perfectly but is not right in sound terms being rather crude and heavy, so the original bridge will get some further extensions and a reshape of its top curve - the bone inset seems to go deep enough to allow this. If the marks on the instrument top are anything to by the bridge was never correctly positioned for a true octave (so many old instruments show that their owners must have been tone deaf!).
There are two gold plate brass sockets either side of the strings at the tail (seen above), and marks on the top varnish which indicate a Smith's Patent Box was once used on the guitar. This was a kind of keyboard which operated hammer to hit the strings, from five small piano-style keys. There was an alternative patented box which operated plectra or quills, and some instruments apparently had a mechanism inside to do this. The box was not with the guitar, so if anyone finds a mysterious oval wooden casing with two metal rods on the bottom and six small keys... let me know!
The instrument is remarkably strong and well made. It would probably take more tension than I would dare throw at it, and a safe tension has no effect at all on the top. I have measured and drawn a plan of all the braces and struts. I'm impressed - asymmetrical X-bracing on the top. The top is 1/16th inch thick and the body is 12 inches wide by 15 inches to the neck block, 3 inches at the thickest point and 2 inches at the heel. It is obvious how the construction creates the remarkable sound this instrument produces. The two surviving strings which were on the instrument were examined by Ephraim Segerman, and pronounced to be 19th century mandola strings, probably because this guittar had been forced into service as a mandola during the mandolin orchestra craze 100 years ago. I have temporarily used some Italian Dogal mandola and controlato mandolin strings which are low tension and traditionally made, but intend to obtain wire strings of a more appropriate type.
I need an expert to identify the type of varnish used on the instrument, and to make some finish repairs. A section of one edge has no finish left and the binding is vulnerable; this could do with touching in. There is one badly worn patch, and some loss of finish round the string pins. The finish on the neck and heel (above) is worn away or has been interfered with, looks like some attempt to scrape an area off, or even remove it in the past, perhaps when the new headstock was made. Most of this can probably be left as it is - whether you call it an English guitar or a Scottish guittar, it's probably one of the best instruments you could expect to find for its age.
I keep the instrument in a Spanish laud case, which is a slightly better overall fit than a Portuguese guitarra case due to the odd shape of the headstock. I have no idea what it is worth or will be in future, only that it cost me much less than similar English guitars go for in London.
The instrument does have 'six strings' of which the top four are
double
courses rather like a mandolin (but it does not sound anything like a
mandolin).
My tuning is AC#Eac#e, officially CEGceg but lowered for safety and
possibly closer to the typical original pitch. However, I have had it
up to concert pitch in C without problems. The sound is very different
from the 'slack' tuning at lower pitch.
It is usually played fingerstyle, not with a plectrum and not strummed,
though there is no reason why these techniques should not have been
used.
There is a well-known printed repertoire of Scottish traditional and
court
music written for the guittar by James Oswald and Robert Bremner, and
since I got this instrument, Doc Rossi has published a compendium of
researched music which is invaluable. Many people dismiss the galant
airs and simple tunes of the period, but I like them. They require
input from the player to come back to life.
I have recorded a couple of tracks using this instrument. One is a fingerstyle (as instructed) version of 'Tweedside' from Robert Bremner's 1758 Instructions for the Guitar; the second is a plectrum style - mentioned at this time as a normal past method - Scottish Border march tune.
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