Chitarra battente

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Music of Italy
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The chitarre battente (Italian: lit. "beating guitar") is a musical instrument, a chordophone of the lute family. At a casual glance, it is similar to the everyday classical guitar, but larger and typically strung with four steel strings. It is typical of folk music in Calabria, the southernmost part of the Italian peninsula.

The people of the area consider it a folk instrument, though it may have non-folk origins as an import from elsewhere centuries ago. Musicologists refer to the "historical" as well as the "folk" chitarra battente; the latter is the one folk musicians in southern Italy mean when they refer to the instrument. There are versions of the historical 17th instrument in museums, but the commonly played folk instrument comes in three sizes: small, medium, large. The medium and large instruments are the most popular; the small instrument is a toy and has traditionally been used to train children to play (much as quarter- and half-sized violins are used).

Locals refer to the instrument, simply, as the "guitar," using the term “French guitar” for what is general called elsewhere “guitar,” meaning the classical guitar. That designation of “French” is almost certainly wrong, since all reliable sources claim a Spanish origin for the modern six-string six-course classical guitar. (A “course” refers to the note a string is tuned to. A mandolin, for example, has eight strings, but they are double-tuned; thus, it is an eight-string, four-course instrument.) Generally, then, the chittara battente, would be a four-string, four-course instrument; occasionally, if the bottom two strings are tuned in unison, that would make it a four-string, three-course instrument. There are also versions of the chitarra battente that are 10-string, 5-course, meaning that each pair of strings is tuned in unison.

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 progression from the bottom string to the top string does not simply go up in pitch, progressively. Here, in the four-string instrument, the third string (from the bottom) is lower than the second. Thus, a typical tuning of the four-string chittara battente, bass to treble, is A-D-B-E, where the third string, the B, is lower than the second string, the D.

The instrument is played without a plectrum, and the fingers achieve a wide of effects through plucking, strumming, beating the strings or the sound board, etc. The chitarra battente is typically used to accompany songs and dancing and is not used as a solo instrument. The most important center of production is in Bisignano in the province of Cosenza.