My ongoing lame attempts to purchase a CITTERN.

Many years ago, on the radio, I heard a short documentary about the Cittern, the (warning: vast & dramatic oversimplification) renaissance-era forerunner of the guitar.

I was at the time really taken with the sound of the instrument, and the pieces played, and I've fancied one ever since. A couple of years, I asked the guy at my favourite guitar shop about them, and if he could get me one, and how much one would cost. The one that he could get was by Fylde, a very well respected luthier, based in Cumbria. They do 2 models, one at about 950 uk pounds, one at about 1250, which is great, I mean it's a handbuilt instrument, but it is also a lot of cash to scrape up.

In the meantime, there's always ebay. First thing I found was this guy:

http://www.troubadour.uk.com/

He was, and is selling an instrument called a "cittern guitar", a six-string instrument suitable for regular guitar tuning or dadgad, with a little teardrop-shaped body. I bought one, it was quite ridiculously cheap, and when I was talking the guy on the phone, I asked about the fylde cittern, and so on, and he was pretty helpful. I got, and get a lot of pleasure out of playing the little instrument, it sounds nice, and I've recorded it a couple of times, and it complements the tone of a full-sized acoustic GUITAR pretty nicely, I've found. But, it is a diversion, I mean it's a little guitar really.

So, I keep looking on ebay, and one day I discover the Waldzither, an instrument I'd never heard of before. The instrument in the auction looked amazing! It had a star-shaped scratchplate around the soundhole, a glass bridge (!) and a weird-shaped assymetric headstock for its nine strings. It was a five course instrument, the bass sting being a single string, the other four courses being pairs. I'd just bought the daisy 12-string, so I couldn't afford it. It didn't go for very much money in the end, like 250 quid or something.

I read up a bit about Waldzithers, and found a few pages like this one:

http://www.mandolin-player.com/instruments/waldzither/index.html

...which suggests that the "modern" waldzither is the closest instrument to the renaissance cittern, if it is actually possible to say what a renaissance cittern actual was, it appears to refer to a family of stringed fretted instruments for fingerpicking/plucking/strumming, rather than one "standard" type. This page:

http://www.flatpicker.com/bullock/article02.htm

Suggests that the modern "cittern" is in fact some kind of weird hybrid/recently created instrument, that has somehow come to resemble the ren version. (I'm really running on here, I know. It's a quiet day at work) Kind of a tandoori chicken massalla instrument! On the one hand, it's easy to get all r*ck*st about it, buy a waldzither, and turn yer nose up at the bouzouki-derived variant, but otoh, the story told at the flatpicker site is awesome! Irish musician buys greek bouzouki out of curiosity, tries it out in his music, and it works, it catches on a bit, the design of the instrument changes, someone gets an instrument built with an extra course, and the luthier notices that it now resembles a cittern. That's a pretty awesome chain of events.

Anyway, over the last few months, I notice that Waldzithers are pretty common items on ebay, and as long as yer not after a vintage Boehm model:

http://rocky.itasca.net/~corrie/cittern/

...which I don't really like the shape of too much, they do seem to go for quite reasonable money - 200 - 300 uk pounds. A few times I've had spare cash, and there's either been nothing, or intruments I don't like the look of, or which appear in crappy condition, other times I've had no money when something nice has turned up. Once or twice the money/nice instrument thing has lined up, but I've done my usual ebay thing of pulling the trigger too early, and getting beat out at the last minute.

Currently on ebay is this, which is a little more ornate than usual, but pretty typical. I like the twee sctatchplate, with its little inlaid butterflies, and the bonkers marquetry work on the back, not so keen on the dorky-looking slotted headstock. I might bid on it, though they're common enough (especially from this seller) that I might hold off for a better-looking example.

Also up on ebay is this wow, man what an amazing-looking piece!" Look at the headstock, and the extra frets, so you can play quartet tones between the semitone & wholetone, and the major and minor third! The minimum bid is a bit more than I can afford, bummer.

The plan at the moment is this: dump the twin neck in the guitar shop (something I've been meaning to do for abt 1yr), and use the money raised to pay a lump off a Fylde cittern. In the meantime, check ebay for a nice Waldzither. If I get a Waldzither, I can get a Telecaster with the money from the twin neck.

This is a thread, where apart from droning on endlessly and boringly ^, I link to cittern-related instruments on ebay that I fancy, and you can all point and laugh at my pitiful attempts to win one internet auction. Also, any stuff about citterns, bouzoukis, mandolas and other related instruments that you think is interesting, plz go ahead and post right up.