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Braguesa


Wil
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I bought a Braguesa t'other day:

[url="http://www.hobgoblin.com/bigpicswebsite/gr3614.jpg"]http://www.hobgoblin...site/gr3614.jpg[/url]

It's rather nice! 10 strings in courses (3 octave pairs and 2 identically tuned pairs), and traditionally tuned CGADG - this tuning didn't really appeal so I've since retuned it DGCFA (D standard guitar tuning minus the high D).

Soundwise it's somewhere between a mandolin and a 12 string guitar, and it packs a remarkable punch for such a small bodied instrument. I'll be using it on the album me and a friend are currently recording, so once I have some recordings I'll be sure to post them up if anyone is interested.

Has anyone else delved into the world of slightly obscure acoustic instruments? If so, what have you got?

Edited by Wil
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  • 4 weeks later...

Slightly obscure acoustic instrument ?

A friend gave me a Dilruba last summer , she had brought it back from Northern India a few years ago .
Here it is next to my NXT EUB for scale ;







It is made from one piece of tun wood ,and the camel bone bridge sits on a goatskin stretched over the hollow body .
The neck is hollow with a thin soundboard of it's own nailed on with thorns from the Honey Locust tree .
The movable frets are brass tied on across the back .
It has 21 strings ; one main playing string , 3 drones and 17 sympathetics .
The sympathetics run through holes in the bridge and under the hoop frets .



It is played with a bow . ( I use a double bass french bow )

This is a bridge from another , not sure if it is camel hip-bone or ivory (!) but you can see how the sympathetics run through the bridge , while the drones and main string sit on top ;
( Damaged on top left )

The best demo I have found in english is the first video on this page ; [url="http://www.chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/dilruba.html"]http://www.chandraka...ic/dilruba.html[/url]

66cm from nut to bridge . ( I am saving up for 20 metres of 0.12 guage string :P , and I need to make one bone peg for the soundboard that the sympathetics divert around .)

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Fantastic - very cool. I'll check that demo out when I get home tonight, cool looking thing.

I've actually now decided I have no use for the Braguesa, so it's up for sale if anyone wants to dabble in something a bit different!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just picked up another slightly obscure acoustic instrument this afternoon , a Dulcitone made in 1895 in Glasgow .

It is the same as the one in this video , but with different fold-up legs and without the artwork on the front .

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39-5qIl5hKU[/media]

Sounds like an unplugged Rhodes so I shall experiment with one or more piezos , phaser , overdrive etc :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I played an 8 course Renaissance lute for a while a few years back, that was fun! Although the tuning pegs were a bit dodgy, and after I'd tuned 15 strings umpteen times, it was a bit of a chore. And also, the frets were bits of nylon tied onto the fingerboard, which meant that tuning was an ongoing nightmare. But it made a gorgeous (although very quiet) sound, and playing John Dowland songs was amazing! I eventually sold it as I got bored and got an EUB instead...

It's like that old joke about harpists - they spend half their time tuning their instrument, and half their time playing out of tune... :rolleyes:

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Years ago, while travelling in western china, I bought two uyghur instruments: a "[url="http://www.meshrep.com/Music_instruments/Rawap/rawap.htm"]rawap[/url]" and a "[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxhocZurU5Y&feature=related"]duttar[/url]". My duttar is half the size as the one in the video, with two cloth strings. fun for a few minutes, but my inability to grasp uyghur musical styles shows almost immediately :)

The rawap is a nearly impossible to tune, so it tends to stay on the shelf and look pretty and exotic...

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I got the chance to use the Braguesa on a rough demo t'other day, in case anyone was wondering what it sounds like:

[attachment=107279:Weirddemo 18th April.mp3]

Nice to see all these out of the ordinary instruments on BC :)

*Edit - cant seem to get the file to attach...

Edited by Wil
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Couldnt get it to attach, so uploaded to bandcamp instead - here's the braguesa in all it's braguesa-ey glory:

[url="http://wilmiles.bandcamp.com/track/4-4-5-4"]http://wilmiles.bandcamp.com/track/4-4-5-4[/url]

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[quote name='Wil' timestamp='1331906173' post='1580737']
I bought a Braguesa t'other day:

[url="http://www.hobgoblin.com/bigpicswebsite/gr3614.jpg"]http://www.hobgoblin...site/gr3614.jpg[/url]

It's rather nice! 10 strings in courses (3 octave pairs and 2 identically tuned pairs), and traditionally tuned CGADG - this tuning didn't really appeal so I've since retuned it DGCFA (D standard guitar tuning minus the high D).

Soundwise it's somewhere between a mandolin and a 12 string guitar, and it packs a remarkable punch for such a small bodied instrument. I'll be using it on the album me and a friend are currently recording, so once I have some recordings I'll be sure to post them up if anyone is interested.

Has anyone else delved into the world of slightly obscure acoustic instruments? If so, what have you got?
[/quote]

I have a balalaika and an Appalachian Dulcimer. The bala is a cheap, nasty thing I bought in Moscow about thirty years ago, I know the basics but that's about it. The dulcimer I can/could play reasonably well but time just seems so short.

I also play bandoneon which is great fun and leads to slightly puzzled looks of the "what the hell is that?" variety. It's really an overgrown anglo concertina, two notes to a button, a five octave range and where, when they decided to add more notes, they put the buttons where they'd fit rather than be logical. Each scale has a totally different fingering and is also totally different depending on whether you're opushing or pulling the bellows.

Steve

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