Explore the vast range of titles available.

The role of the lute in the 17th-century Dutch Republic can be compared to that of the piano in the 19th century. It was not only the universal instrument for solo music-making, but it was also widely used in ensembles and to accompany singers. The lute was mainly the instrument of the social elite, the aristocracy and prosperous burghers. It was frequently represented in the literature and painting of the period, in which it was used to symbolize a wide range of things, from the most lofty to the most down-to-earth. This richly illustrated book is the first overview of the history of the lute during the Republic's 'Golden Age'. Every aspect of the instrument is covered: famous and obscure lutenists, professional musicians and more or less gifted amateurs, the lute music that was transmitted in printed books and manuscripts, lute makers and the international lute trade. Furthermore, the instrument's place in the Dutch literature and painting of the period is explored. The book thus contributes to our knowledge of the lute and of the rich culture of the Republic, especially its musical aspect, which has been relatively neglected to date.

The Tamburitza Tradition is a lively and well-illustrated comprehensive introduction to a Balkan folk music that now also thrives in communities throughout Europe, the Americas, and Australia. Tamburitza features acoustic stringed instruments, ranging in size from tamburas as small as a ukulele to ones as large as a bass viol. Folklorist Richard March documents the centuries-old origins and development of the tradition, including its intertwining with nationalist and ethnic symbolism. The music survived the complex politics of nineteenth-century Europe but remains a point of contention today. In Croatia, tamburitza is strongly associated with national identity and supported by an artistic and educational infrastructure. Serbia is proud of its outstanding performers and composers who have influenced tamburitza bands on four continents. In the United States, tamburitza was brought by Balkan immigrants in the nineteenth century and has become a flourishing American ethnic music with its own set of representational politics. Combining historical research with in-depth interviews and extensive participant-observer description, The Tamburitza Tradition reveals a dynamic and expressive music tradition on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, illuminating the cultures and societies from which it has emerged.

The ‘Krakow lute tablature’ (c.1553–1592) is preserved among the little-explored collections of the Ivan Franco National University in Lviv, Ukraine. This article is devoted to the 21 unique hand drawings on the tablature folios. Did such illustrations have any significance for readers of tablature in the 16th century? Were the hand-signs intended to convey information about the pieces to which they were obviously assigned, or even about the manuscript as a whole? Were they of didactic importance, and do they relate to performance practice around 1550 in the Polish–Lithuanian region? Could they have been used to help with the memorization of pedagogical instructions, or were they perhaps entered alongside the tablature ‘just for fun’?

The hasapi of the Batak Toba from Sumatra, Indonesia is a plucked bowl-lute chordophone. Hasapi is a fretless chordophone with two strings. The tuning for the hasapi used in this study is based on the transcription of the song ‘Horbo Paung’ played in F major by Sam Sitio. The tuning used for the 2nd string is C4 (Do for open string) followed by D4, E4, and F4 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd finger, respectively. The 1st string was tuned to G4 (So for open string), followed by A4, B4, and C5 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd finger, respectively. At higher notes (1st string) the spectra did not display many harmonics, i.e., less partials compared to the lower note (2nd string). Both strings showed a regular signal, whereas the highest note C5 (the highest fundamental frequency from the 1st string) showed an irregular pattern with no significant overtone frequency. The intensity of the partials in both strings displayed the reduction in amplitudes i.e. not proportional to increasing harmonic frequency. The timbre from Adobe Audition showed that the time frequency analysis (TFA) was in accordance with the Picoscope spectra. Only TFA from C5 showed irregular pattern with respect to the Picoscope output.

This study determines the note for a sundatang, a traditional musical instrument in Borneo. The sundatang originated from two different ethnics so the strings were tuned differently as well as frets and it clearly produces more than one note. The sound was recorded using a microphone which was connected to a PicoScope and analyzed using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). The string 1 and 2 for sundatang A are tuned to E4(330Hz) and E3(161Hz) respectively, and sundatang B are tuned to C4#(277Hz) and C3#(138.59Hz) respectively. Open string 1 and the fret from sundatang A was tuned to E4(330), G4#(410), A4#(465), C5#(546), D5(569), and F5(692) where E4-G4#:2Tone, G4#-A4#:1Tone, A4#-C5#:2Tone, C5#-D5:1Tone, D5-F5:2Tone, simplified become 2TT2TT2T. Open string 1 and the fret from sundatang B it was tuned to C4#(277), E4(329), F4(340), F4#(361), G4(389), G4#(425) where C4#-E4:1.5Tone, E4-F4:1Semitone, F4-F4#:1Semitone, F4#-G4:1Semitone, G4-G4#:1Semitone simplified become 1.5TSSSS. The note interval for string 1 and 2 for sundatang A and B can be formulated as y = 67.6x + 332.8 and y = 30.2x + 272.1, respectively. The time frequency analysis of the open strings 1 and 2 displayed a dense distribution of partials while fret 1 to 5 showed a distinct distribution which decrease with fret number.

The lute played a central role in the rich musical culture of the seventeenth-century 'Golden Age' of the Dutch Republic. Like the piano in the nineteenth century, the lute was not just a popular instrument for solo music making, but was also used widely in ensembles and to accompany singers. Though mainly an instrument of the social elite and the aristocracy, it was also played by the numerous and prosperous burgher class. The first part of the book deals with psalm settings for the lute; the way professional lutenists coped with the harsh rules of the free market; Leiden as a veritable international lute centre; and the different types of lutes that can be reconstructed on the basis of the Dutch paintings of the period. The second part of the book is dedicated to Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), the well-known poet and statesman, and avid player of, and composer for, the lute. The third and final section deals with Dutch sources of lute music, printed as well as those in manuscript. Taken together, this volume provides a broad and many-layered overview of the lute in the seventeenth century. Collectively, the articles will further the reader's understanding of the lute in its social and cultural context, not only in the Netherlands, but also on the wider European canvas.

In this article I investigate how musical concepts were transmitted in the manuscript culture of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century lute music in England. Using material from the Mynshall and ML Lute Books I will suggest that a mental map of music theory is built through physical process in a way that might help to explain – at least in England – the gap between the theory books and the working methods of players and composers. Exploring the physical imprint which a piece of lute tablature represents, I will demonstrate that archaeological concepts such as the relationship between materiality and memory are potentially more useful than more textually based historical ones in exploring much of the instrumental music of the past. The books document a process of tailoring musical ideas to an individual's physical strengths and weaknesses, which has priority over transmitting a 'good' version of a musical text. The processes behind different kinds of left and right hand ornamentation demonstrate not only the individual player's skills but are related to the meaning of the different sides of the body in a wider cultural context. This has performance practice implications: should a player transmit or embody a musical idea?

The musical signal produced by plucked instruments often exhibits non-stationarity due to variations in the pitch and amplitude, making pitch estimation a challenge. In this paper, we assess different transcription processes and algorithms applied to signals captured by optical sensors mounted on a pipa—a traditional Chinese plucked instrument—played using a range of techniques. The captured signal demonstrates a distinctive arched feature during plucking. This facilitates onset detection to avoid the impact of the spurious energy peaks within vibration areas that arise from pitch-shift playing techniques. Subsequently, we developed a novel time–frequency feature, known as continuous time-period mapping (CTPM), which contains pitch curves. The proposed process can also be applied to playing techniques that mix pitch shifts and tremolo. When evaluated on four renowned pipa music pieces of varying difficulty levels, our fully time-domain-based onset detectors outperformed four short-time methods, particularly during tremolo. Our zero-crossing-based pitch estimator achieved a performance comparable to short-time methods with a far better computational efficiency, demonstrating its suitability for use in a lightweight algorithm in future work.

Closely associated with the social elite, the lute occupied a central place in the culture of the Dutch Golden Age. In this first comprehensive study of the instrument's role in seventeenth-century Netherlands, Jan W. J. Burgers explores how it functioned as the universal means of solo music making, group performance, and accompaniment. He showcases famous and obscure musicians; lute music in books and manuscripts; lute makers and the international lute trade; and the instrument's place in Dutch literature and art of the period.Enhanced by beautiful illustrations, this study constitutes an important contribution to our knowledge about the lute and its Golden Age heyday.

This laboratory study was conducted to evaluate and compare the resin bond strength of different adhesive resin systems in different combinations and the durability of their bonds with zirconia ceramic. Materials and methods: One hundred and twenty-eight specimens were milled from 3Y-TZP zirconia ceramic. The bonding surfaces of all disks were wet polished, steam cleaned, airborne-particle abraded and ultrasonically cleaned in 99% isopropanol. The specimens were randomly divided into four main groups according to the applied resin system; two conventional and two self-adhesive systems were used. Each group was further subdivided into two subgroups; the first was conditioned with the specified primer for conventional luting resins or not conditioned for the self-adhesive systems, whereas the second subgroup of each was conditioned with the same phosphate monomer-containing primer (Alloy Primer). The zirconia specimens were adhesively bonded, using the allocated luting resin, to plexiglass tubes filled with self-curing composite resin (Clearfil FII). Half of the specimens of each subgroup were stored in distilled water at 37 °C for 3 days, whereas the other half were subjected to artificial aging, 150 days of storage and additional thermal cycling. Thereafter, all specimens were subjected to TBS testing using a universal testing machine. Statistical analysis was conducted using two-way ANOVA followed by separate one-way ANOVAs. The Games–Howell post-hoc test was applied for pairwise comparisons. Results: All specimens survived storage with thermal cycling. The mean TBS values ranged from a minimum of 43.4 ± 5.0 MPa to a maximum of 66.4 ± 3.5 after 3 days and from a minimum of 13.6 ± 2.5 MPa to a maximum of 50.1 ± 9.4 MPa after 150 days. Conclusions: Artificial aging had a significantly negative effect on all test groups. The chosen adhesive-resin system had a significant effect on the resulting TBS values. The highest TBS values were achieved for the self-adhesive luting resin G-Cem One but were statistically comparable to the results obtained for the dual-cure luting resin G-Cem LinkForce.