Battente guitar

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The guitar battente (chitarra battente) is an important string instrument in Italian popular music. The chitarra battente is smaller than a classical guitar, now usually played with four or five metal strings and used mainly in Calabria to accompany the voice. The guitar is common in the southern Italian popular folk music of Cilento, which is very similar to traditional Italian music. The Guitar has double metal strings and the frets are in gut with a decorated soundhole. The strings of this Italian baroque guitar extend past the bridge all the way to the end of the guitar where it is anchored. "Battente" in Italian means "beating" or "strumming", as this was the main use of the instrument. In France, though, the translation was "guitare en bateau" meaning "boat guitar" or "boat-shaped guitar". Apart from the guitar perhaps resembling the hull of a ship the reason for this was that the French had not a word in their vocabulary that meant "strumming". Being a contemporary of the lute and classical light-weight guitars, this was regarded as the only guitar of this era (17th and 18th century) that could cope with the tension of wire steel for strings.