Russian guitar
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The Russian guitar, a seven-string acoustic guitar tuned to the Open G tuning, arrived in the beginning of the 19th century in Russia, most probably as a development of the cittern, kobza and torban. It is known in Russia as the semistrunnaya gitara (семиструнная гитара), which translates to seven string guitar or affectionately as the semistrunka (семиструнка).
A version with two necks was also popular, with an 11 or 12-string set-up (one with seven fretted strings, and another with four or five unfretted strings). There are also some rare specimens that were built with an oval body.
Its invention is attributed to Andrei Sychra, who also wrote a method for the guitar, as well as over one thousand compositions, seventy-five of which were republished in the 1840s by Stellovsky, then again in the 1880s by Gutheil. Some of these were published again in the Soviet Union in 1926.
This type of guitar has been called a 'Russian guitar', as it has been primarily played in Russia and later the Soviet Union.
The Russian version of the seven-string guitar has been used by professionals, because of its great flexibility, but has also been popular with amateurs for accompaniment (especially Russian bards) due to the relative simplicity of some basic chords and the ease of playing alternating bass lines.
The Russian guitar is traditionally played without a pick, using fingers for either strumming or picking.
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[edit] Popularity
For many years, the seven string Russian guitar was far more popular than the regular six-string Spanish guitar, the latter was a rarity in Russia before the revolution of 1917. The Russian guitar gained significant popularity in the latter half of the 19th century with the increasing popularity of guitar oriented "city romance" songs.
During the early Soviet eras of Lenin and Stalin, all guitar music fell in the disfavor of the Soviet government which had branded the instrument (together with the violin) as "bourgeois", favoring mass orchestration instead. However, the old Russian school of classical guitar continued to exist, continuing the seven string tradition.
The six string first came to serious prominence in the Russian classical guitar world when Andrés Segovia toured Soviet Russia in 1926. Possibly looking for something new and exciting to give life to their repressed craft, many Russian classical guitarists began making a switch to the six string and EADGBE tuning. Classical guitarist Pavel Agafoshin made the switch, and wrote a Russian book on six string technique that remains a standard to this day.
The Russian guitar remained the standard for popular musicians until the 1960s, with the emergence of a strong underground interest in jazz and Western rock groups such as the Beatles and Elvis Presley. However, the parallel emergence of Russian bard music (which relied heavily on popular Russian guitar technique used for "urban romances") kept the seven string relevant.
A Russian guitar could be owned for as little as 12 rubles in the 1970s. Soviet factories continued to manufacture the seven string exclusively for quite a long time before making a gradual switchover to accommodate six string demand in the mid to late 1970s. Prior to that, western pop and rock oriented guitarists had a tradition of modifying cheap factory made Soviet seven string guitars to six strings (or sometimes to bass guitars) and retuning them to EADGBE.
Conversely, Russian emigre guitarists living in western countries where only six string guitars were available have been known to modify six string (and sometimes twelve string) acoustic guitars to seven string instruments, in order to better play their favorite Russian songs.
Recently, the repertoire for the Russian guitar has been treated to new scholarly examination and performance in the work of Dr. Oleg Timofeyev, who has unearthed and recorded works by the composer Matvei Pavlov-Azancheev (1888−1963).
[edit] Russian tuning
A Russian seven string is tuned differently from the Spanish guitar. It is tuned in thirds instead of fourths, resulting in a G major chord as follows: D', G', B, D, g, b, d'. This tuning is thought to have derived from that of the torban, a Ukrainian variety of theorbo, as one of its tunings was also based on major triads.
The A major chord can be played most easily as a barré on the second fret, the B major as a barré on the fourth, C major on the fifth, D major on the seventh, and so on (although other, more involved major shapes are employed as well for a variation in voicing).
Although the Russian guitar has seven strings versus six, a fair amount of open G chord shapes use six or five strings which requires the player to mute or not play certain strings (see chords below).
Perhaps the most audible difference between the Spanish and Russian tunings is in the ability to play chords with a more tighter, piano like voicing on the latter. For example, an E minor chord on a Spanish guitar (as 022000) is usually played in the order, from low to high, of E (root), B (fifth), E (root), G (flat third), B (fifth) and again E (root). On a Russian guitar it is possible to play the E minor (2002002) as E (root), G (flat third), B (fifth), E (root), G (flat third), B (fifth), and E (root) - or to play it with the same voicing as the six string E minor (using 99X9989).
This tighter voicing is particularly audible with seventh chords, including the root-less seventh chord (seventh chords without a root note, often used as a diminished chord).
It is fairly common for Russian guitar players (particularly those accompanying themselves singing, such as bards) to bring the tuning up or down several steps as desired, either to accommodate the voice or for varying string tension. Vladimir Vysotsky often tuned down a whole step, sometimes even a step and a half to an open E. Also, variations in the open G tuning were fairly common, i.e. Bulat Okudzhava would use the tuning of D'-G'-C-D-g-b-d' to play songs written in C, while bard Sergei Nikitin tuned his guitar to a minor open G: D'-G'-C-D-g-b flat-d'
[edit] Six string adaptations
A common practice for six string guitar players of Russian romances and bard music is to retune their guitars using variations of the seven string tuning, such as: G'-B-D-g-b-d' (no bass string, also known as "Dobro open G"), D'-B-D-g-b-d' (no low G), D'-G'-D-g-b-d' (no low B, the standard six string 'open G tuning' used by bard Alexander Rozenbaum), D'-G'-B-g-b-d' (no middle D, used by Bulat Okudzhava in his latter years when he adopted a six string), and so on.
[edit] Common chord shapes for the Russian 7 string guitar
These chord shapes are for the standard Russian seven string tuning of D'-G'-B-D-g-b-d'
The numbers indicate the fret which must be depressed (X = mute string or do not play, 0 = open string). The thumb is frequently required with Russian chord shapes, as is depressing two strings with one finger.
The order of the numbers is written in Russian convention, tenor (thinnest) to bass (thickest) string:
Major:
A 2222222 (the "barre")
B (H in Russian notation) 44440ХХ, 4444444
С 21021ХХ
D 4320ХХХ, 4324ХХХ (the "reverse staircase")
E 654Х5ХХ, 20120Х2
F# 4234XXX (the "staircase", depicted above with optional thumb on bass D string)
G 0000000, 5345000
Minor:
A minor 2122X22
B minor (called H minor in Russian): 43440ХХ (the "little star"), 43440Х4 (depicted above, thumb depresses the low D while muting the low G)
D minor 33233Х0 (the "big star")
E minor 443440Х, 4434402, 2002002
G minor 533530X, 5335335
7th
А7 5222222
B7 (called H7 in Russian notation): 74440ХХ, 44240ХХ, 7444444, 44244ХХ (minus root)
D7 ХХ54320
F#7 2234ХХХ, 2232234
G7 3345000
