cittern

DEFINITION. small flat backed wire-strung plucked instrument; played with a plectrum; popular from renaissance to baroque times. Modern citterns are much bigger, and more like mandolins in shape.

In Italian Renaissance humanist culture the cittern was regarded as a classical revival of the ancient Greek kithara (from which its name derives; see Winternitz) (fig. 7), but it seems to have its direct development from the medieval citole and have likewise some similarities with the fiddle, as its plucked form.

The early playing technique is similar to that of a lute. During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, music published for the cittern was set in tablature and clearly indicates that the strings are to be plucked with the fingers. Later, the plectrum became more common for playing simple chords.

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 shape of a cittern is more like that of a modern banjo than that of a lute, with a body near circular in outline and a relatively long neck, but, like a lute, is constructed entirely of wood. However, it is a wire-strung instrument like the banjo, and unlike the lute.

The cittern, belonging to the lute family, is likewise a "composite cordophone" (Hornbostel-Sachs, see Lute). The string bearer (neck) and the resonator (soundboard) form an organic unity; the sound is produced by plucking the strings, in this case usually with a plectrum.

The shape of a cittern is more like that of a modern banjo than that of a lute, with a body near circular in outline and a relatively long neck, but, like a lute, is constructed entirely of wood. However, it is a wire-strung instrument like the banjo, and unlike the lute.

During the Shakespearean era, the cittern became extremely popular. The cittern and gittern were similar, and there wasn't much of a difference between the two instruments. The main difference was that the gittern produced a more powerful and crystal-clear sound than its counterpart.

And this is actually tuned. And as you can see this is tuned also in in five courses. And the courses are all in unison that's another thing that makes it a Citroen. At least in the modern parlance.

Cister, Sp. cistro, cedra, cítola) is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the Medieval citole (or cytole). Its flat-back design was simpler and cheaper to construct than the lute.

The cittern, belonging to the lute family, is likewise a "composite cordophone" (Hornbostel-Sachs, see Lute). The string bearer (neck) and the resonator (soundboard) form an organic unity; the sound is produced by plucking the strings, in this case usually with a plectrum.

Although the cittern seems to have developed in the Italian peninsula during the fifteenth century, it was particularly favored by the English from Elizabethan times through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.