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A seven-string guitar is a Guitar with seven strings instead of the usual six. Such guitars are not as common as the six string variety but a minority of guitarists have utilised them for at least 150 years. Some types of these instruments are specific to certain cultures (i.e. the Russian and Brazilian guitars). There are Eight-string and ten string guitars in use as well, but these are even less common. HISTORY AND CONSTRUCTION In the Renaissance period the guitar was generally strung with four pairs of strings, termed courses. By the Baroque period it had five courses and used a variety of tunings, some of the tunings re-entrant. During the eighteenth century six courses became common and the modern practice of using six single strings became the standard practice after 1800. These developments illustrate an ongoing desire on behalf of players to increase the range of the instrument. Seven-string guitars arose from such a desire and have been in use for over 150 years. French guitarist Napoleon Coste (1805-1883) composed works with a seven-string guitar specifically in mind. Extra strings are usually added to extend the bass range of the modern six string guitar. These strings are commonly added in two different ways. The first and most common construction is to increase the width of the fingerboard such that the extra string (or strings) may be stopped by the left hand. The second method is to leave the fingerboard unchanged such that the extra bass strings lie next to the existing bass strings and free of the fingerboard in the same fashion in which the Archlute and Theorbo are constructed. Such unfrettable bass strings were historically known as diapasons or bourdons. The Italian guitarist Mario Maccaferri (b 1899) was a celebrated advocate of the second type of construction. THE RUSSIAN GUITAR Main article: Russian Guitar The Russian guitar, a seven-string acoustic guitar tuned to the Open G tuning, (DGBDGbd) arrived in the beginning of the 19th Century in Russia , most probably as a development of the Cittern , the Kobza and the Torban . It is known in Russia as the semistrunnaya gitara (''семиструнная гитара'') or affectionately as the semistrunka (''семиструнка''). 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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