The chitarra battente (in Italian "strumming guitar", however "battente" literally means "beating" related to the fact that this guitar thumps the rhythm of the music) is a musical instrument, a

chordophone String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the st ...

of the

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

family. It is similar to the 5-course

baroque guitar The Baroque guitar (c. 1600–1750) is a string instrument with five courses of gut strings and moveable gut frets. The first (highest pitched) course sometimes used only a single string. History The Baroque guitar replaced the Renaissance lut ...

, but larger and typically strung with five double strings, traditionally made of brass, but currently - steel. Nowadays it is typically used by folk musicians, mainly in the southern Italian regions of

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, and

Campania Campania (, also , , , ) is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islands and the i ...

, as well as in other areas of southern Italy; in past centuries the instrument was found in most of central and southern Italy.

History

It is considered a folk instrument, though it has its origins in the Italian court music in the early

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

era. Musicologists refer to the "historical" as well as the "folk" ''chitarra battente''. There are many extant historical 17th century instruments in museums. Though now associated with Southern Italy, the chitarra battente has been built and played as far north as Ponte Caffaro in

Lombardy Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...

until the turn of the 20th century. The chitarra battente comes in three sizes. The medium and large instruments are the most common. The instrument may have five or four courses of strings. These courses are typically double or triple, a“course” being a group of 2 or 3 strings plucked as a single unit. Thus ''chitarra battente'' is typically a five or four-course instrument. There is great variation in the size of the bouts (the rounded “hourglass” curves of the body of the instrument), kinds of wood, shape of the back, decorations, number of frets, etc. The strings are tuned in what is called a “re-entrant” system; that is, unlike a modern classical guitar, the lower strings may be tuned to higher pitches. The instrument is played without a plectrum, and the fingers achieve a wide range of effects through plucking, strumming, beating the strings or the sound board, etc. The ''chitarra battente'' is typically used to accompany singing or dancing and can be played in an ensemble or as a solo instrument. The most important center of production is in

Bisignano Bisignano ( Calabrian: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Cosenza, part of the Calabria region of southern Italy. It is situated on hills in the Crati valley, between the Pollino and Sila National Parks. The town has historically been se ...

in the province of

Cosenza Cosenza (; local dialect: ''Cusenza'', ) is a city in Calabria, Italy. The city centre has a population of approximately 70,000; the urban area counts more than 200,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Province of Cosenza, which has a populati ...

. Traditionally the instrument has been made locally in the region from which its characteristics derive, often being constructed by non-professional craftsmen or simple carpenters.

Tuning

From the first to the fifth courses of strings, the tuning is usually: E (Mi), B (Si), G (Sol), D (Re), A (La), like one of the three tunings of the

Players

Notable virtuosos on chitarra battente are

Marcello Vitale Marcello Vitale (born in 1969 in Benevento, Italy) is a performer and recording artist on the chitarra battente and baroque guitar, as well as a composer and a teacher of these instruments.http://www.alfonsotoscano.it/Prontuario-Pierfilippo2.pd ...

, Francesco Loccisano, Marcello De Carolis and Alessandro Santacaterina.

References

Sources

Tucci, Roberta and Antonello Ricci. (1985). "The Chitarra Battente in Calabria". The Galpin Society Journal (vol. 38, Apr. 1985): 78-105.

External links

Suoni della TerraBottega Campitiello - Chitarra battente - Italian luthier from Cilento
*https://web.archive.org/web/20080412065858/http://www.accordo.it/dillo/06/06/22/1440213.shtml *https://archive.today/20130219001758/http://www.cupacupa.it/articoli/Articolo.asp?art=355
''Chitarra battente'' videos
http://francescoloccisano.com

https://www.marcellodecarolis.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Chitarra Battente Italian musical instruments Early musical instruments Guitars Acoustic guitars