History, Facts and interesting information about Medieval music, specifically, Gittern
Definition and Description of the Gittern
Definition and description of the Gittern: The Gittern can be described as being similar to a modern guitar. Description: An instrument like a small guitar, the gittern was a relatively small, quill-plucked, gut strung instrument. Its back was rounded like that of a lute ,however, the gittern was much smaller, and had no clear division between the body and neck. "Harps, lutes, and giternes" is a quote taken from the writing of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Family of Instruments: The Gittern belongs to the family of String instruments.
Medieval Musical Instruments - Gittern
Medieval Musical instruments, including the Gittern, would be used by the musicians of the period including the Waits, Minstrels or Troubadours. There were three categories of musical instruments in the Middle Ages - wind, string and percussion. Terms of description were Bas instruments and Haut instruments. Bas referred to soft instruments (literally, "low," but referring to volume, not pitch) which were suitable for the chamber which included the vielle, rebec and other bowed strings, the lute and other plucked strings. Haut referred to loud instruments (literally "high" but referring to volume, not to pitch) which were suitable for outdoors which included the shawm, sackbut, pipe and tabor. Read the above history, facts and information about the Gittern.
Medieval Music - Gittern
The Medieval Times website provides interesting facts, history and information about the musicians and styles of music which scatter the history books including Gittern. The Medieval Life and Times Sitemap provides full details of all of the information and facts about the fascinating subject of the lives of the people who lived during the historical period of the Middle Ages. The content of this article on Gittern provides free educational details, facts and information for reference and research for schools, colleges and homework for history courses and history coursework.