My point is: holding the risha puts the thumb curled under the index finger.You see this in countless old illustrations, and the manner of using the risha hasn’t changed since the days of Moorish Spain.

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One of the stranger techniques [from 16th century lute playing] which as far as I know hasn't survived is the "thumb-under-index -finger" for the picking hand.

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Adrian,I've been using that technique for years, in sort of a flat-picking style, works well for alternate picking too once you get it smooth...I don't know where I got it, it just sort of fell into place I think...I do have another old guitarist friend who I've noticed using it.
Sort of a useful bit of technique...works for me anyway...

Here three PNG tunings: F A D G C E (note that this is similar to standard, but useful in F, and particularly for quick moving bass melodies)

Here three PNG tunings: F A D G C E (note that this is similar to standard, but useful in F, and particularly for quick moving bass melodies)

I think there may be a great deal about Papua New Guinea that can’t be explained! I’m so envious you’ve been able to go there and explore.

Frederic Duvelle, a French guy who did some pioneering field recording in Madagascar in the 40s and 50s, also made a record for Larrikin of Australia of a PNG guitarist named Blasius To Una Turtavu, from East New Britain province. No date on the sleeve, but I would guess mid-late 60s. I bought it at a FNAC in the late 70s. Blasius started playing guitar in the early 1930s and his primary life influence was the Catholic missionary community he was raised in. He had an interesting life, and he was a town guy. Here’s more about his culture:

Starting in 1872 to Late 19th C., the missionaries arrived. They weren’t strictly European, but often Polynesian. They brought their music. Think what was already cooking out in the Pacific northeast of PNG at the time, and you can see where the influnces originated. In 1898, the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition visited and made the first recordings of Papua New Guinean music (I assume these were written transcriptions, but may have been Edison-type discs). It reportedly sounded like Hawaiian music, with guitars etc., and included some songs in Tok Pisin.

In the 1920s, Gramophones become popular in towns and on plantations, making the exposure of Western popular music much more prevalent.

In 1931, Jaap Kunst wrote A Study of Papuan Music, the first attempt to map the distribution of traditional musical instruments of PNG. This may turn up in a library somewhere and may be enlightening, although a lot of European scholars were focusing on the remnants of pre-contact music, conchshell orchestras, bamboo jews harps and so on, and avoiding the modern stuff.

In 1933, when Blasius was getting going as a musician (he was born in 1925), talking movies began to be shown in towns. Cowboy film music was later to influence guitar playing styles. Then WWII came along, and servicemen from Hawaii and Philippines introduced more guitars and musical input. So I think the guitar history of PNG is not too obscure. This is already about 50 solid years of tantalizing outside influence.

I don't think of open tunings as a "devolution" of standard, but as a logical place to go, as discovered by parallel, unrelated cultural groups. Anyway, it is all just speculation at this point. To pass the many airplane hours.

I think the open tuning thing started in Europe with the original guitars and kept that identity through the convoluted—but not obscure—byways it has traveled. This goes for Slack Key for sure, but it’s surely some of both.

A second read of this says you’re absolutely right, it *is* a logical place to go, logical if for no other reason than that’s where it started in the first place. Whether it is a present manifestation of an unbroken chain to early Iberian guitar tuning or spontaneously invented by parallel, unrelated cultural groups in multiple isolated sites around the planet, the logic is irrefutable.

It’s the EADGBE (or EADF#BE if you’re in lute brain) tuning that is only logical in terms of more harmonically evolved music. This probably explains once and for all why Eddie Lang never used DADGAD.

One thing I neglected to mention above: Blasius To Una Turtavu plays in standard tuning!

True, but in a MUCH THINNER and much slower sense than 50 years in a place like Hawaii. I am talking about villages where, to this day, there is no power, no roads, no recorded audio, very few guitars, and very few and infrequent outsiders. So we have a chance to hear something not at all pure pre-contact, but very gently contacted (musically). And left to percolate in slow isolation. There was an interesting musical 'conservatism" among most of the guys.

Thanks for all the good info in your last post!

Open tunings are best adaptable to diatonic scales. If we look at African traditions such as kora or Shona mbira we find that musicians are entirely aware of the diversity of tunings for different contexts. In many places (Congo, Nigeria) the first western instrument was the diatonic accordion - introduced for church music, but unable to stand the climate and eventually replaced by the guitar. In the 1870s British traders in South Africa reported that the two items most demanded by the Zulu were guns and mouth harmonicas. In Madagascar as well, a native string tradition also led to westernized open tuning adaptions.

"Well, as we all know, the guitar is a foreign instrument but in the time of Ranavalona III [the last Queen of Madagascar, exiled by the French in 1897], the guitar, viola, 'flûte traversière' and mandolin all arrived together. The vazaha played those instruments and people just watched. We realised that the guitar was only an accompaniment to the mandolin. So the Malagasy wanted the guitar to be independent. We wanted it to sing a song not to only accompany. The Malagasy sang in harmony a lot, with breathing technique and lots of melodies, so we wanted the guitar to do all these. The Malagasy guitar style was born!

"There was a competitive spirit because of the piano. The piano was brought here before the guitar by missionaries and its place was always in the royal court. In La Haute Ville, people had piano; 'les grand bourgeois' in Ambatovinaky and Faravohitra had harmonium, saxophone and accordeon, and in Ambodin'Isotry [the poor part of Antananarivo] they had the guitar wizards such as Rakotondrainibe. If you went down still further, what you would find in people's home were traditional instruments."

"When people down here heard that the piano made a really high sound, they put the capo on. When there was a very bassy sound they changed the bass strings by re-tuning it into C and G to get what we call today Malagasy style. I changed my bass string into D because it's just too much to change it to C. In Antananarivo, some people would even change that string into a piano wire to get that big bass note."

"Since the piano was used for theatrical pieces, that's what guitarists translated onto their guitar. Theatres were very French so actors and artists would even change their names to names like Rakoto de Mon Plaisir, Simon de l'Aurore. So the guitarists also changed their names to Ramistery [Mr. Mysterious], Rakasikety [Mr. Cap], Rajebo [Mr. Zébu] and that was how Razilina was made. In 1942, these guitarists would go out serenading. They wore caps, big clothes and scarves, and girls would come out. They had to stop around Faravohitra because if they continued upwards, they would get soaked because people from La Haute would throw dirty water on them. La Haute is a piano place. Faravohitra was the highest area a guitarist could go up to and then they had to go back to Ambodin'Isotry where they came from."

"In 1858, during the second empire, the guitar started to be famous abroad and it was a new thing here in Madagascar. The quadrille arrived in Madagascar because of the Napoleonic soldiers. The Malagasy people invented something out of that and one of the most famous things still known today is the Afindrafindrao."

"But you see, if you really want to find out about the Malagasy guitar style, it came from the way the Malagasy played the piano, but the piano was only copying the valiha. So the valiha is the origin of it all, then on to the piano and then on to the guitar. The piano did this little triplet and tremolo that it got from the valiha so whenever I teach guitar these days, all the students have to take a valiha lesson first. But the interesting thing is, where did this little style come from? Here is where we know that we really came from the East!"

"Things changed around about the second world war. The Malagasy got some style out of Charlie Kunz's songs, a German who ran away to England. During that time, we always thought of abroad as very far away and that things from there were as if from another planet because they took 21 days to get here. So guitarists started to copy that style."

It’s interesting to hear Lead Belly talk about how he too tried to imitate the piano with the guitar.

One guy who I tried mightily to include, but who declined because he had a feud going with another artist on the compilation (who also happened to be my Malagasy host) was Freddy Ranarison. He’s a true genius of the guitar. I saw him in a video recently about an Irish guy who received a vision he was a Malagasy marovany player and actually went there and utterly blended into the culture. Very rare. Anyway, as part of the video there’s a visit to Ranarison who, while he’s being interviewed and talking a blue streak about having produced the recordings of Rakotozafy, is also executing the most astounding guitar playing. I really hope someone records him!

Another Malagasy guitarist on Moon and several other albums I have either produced or helped produce is Germain Rakotomavo, who played guitar for the late Sylvestre Randafison, who was with Ny Anstsaly back in the 60s. Germain plays in an even more stretched out tuning that’s more fifth intervals than fourths, again, to offer greater range of pitch. This guy is a genius too.

I love asking people their ideas about the origins of this and that, and I have accumulated some zingers, but it may be a mistake to place too much stock in this one theory, as it misses the most important influence in Malagasy culture: singing. It is a society that is passionate about singing, and one that also incorporates extremes in vocal ranges. Walking through Tana after dark, people shutter their houses (against malarial mosquitoes) but houses throb with people singing très forte. The Sunday church services, where the men sing real low, and the women and kids sing real high, require earplugs. Another importance manifestation is the astounding singing in the hiragasy troupes that tour the island. Fiddles, trumpets, drums, but mostly singing that will peel your skin off. To me the remarkable singing is the cultural root of the Malagasy predilection for range. It sure didn’t come from a missionary’s hymnal either. It takes a guitar nut (and they have plenty) to focus on an instrumental root for the guitar tuning.

There’s a seminal song, known as Oay Lahy E! or by other names, that everyone in Mad sings. You can find a great version of it on a Shanachie 78 compilation or on a number of other more recent albums (Rossy recorded it with his band by another name I can’t recall right off; Germain Rakotomavo recorded it for me as an instrumental called Iasitera). This song has a typical male/female vocal arrangement that just occurs spontaneously; it’s how Malagasy people sing—and it’s not unlike some singing you hear in Polynesia and Fiji in particular, which is understandable considering the roots of Malagasy culture. My point is: the harmonizations, particularly the contrapuntal bass lines, are identical to much of the guitar playing you hear from the better guitarists who employ the CGDGBE tuning. The guitarists’ playing imitates the voices in the singing. The tuning makes that kind of familiar (to them) harmonization possible on the guitar.

That's always true. But you get into an emic/etic thing when you ask what does the musician think. He tells you "It's a copy of the piano" while in fact it may be a copy of the vocals. When I worked with Yoruba musicians (guys who worked with 'talking drum' frameworks) they tended to give musical examples for things that were entirely linguistic - and vice versa!

The first harp, named SHATA TANTREE VEENA, had 100 strings and was known to be in use 2500 years ago. The first bowing instrument was made out of hunters’ bows, in three thousand BC and was named as PINAKI VEENA. PINAK in Sanskrit means “bow.”
All these instruments were played with the side pad of the finger nail, via plucking, in association with vocal music. Throughout all of these years, the concept of the Tambura and the actually existence of the instrument have never faded. Even today, amid advancements in technology, the Tambura has adapted: Tambura software is very popular all over the world, adding to the newest forms and genres of music.

That being said, my belief concerns the similarity between "science of life" and "science of Sound" – I feel that everything is first born, then grows, leaves a ‘tail’ and ultimately fades out before fading into another life or sound.
The sound of any open tuning can perfectly produce a true quality of sound that can lift any instrument the world over. Acceptance of the use of open tuning really depends on each Human-Musician and his or her education.Education is vital as it empowers amusician with choice,
Sitar and Sarod can be seen as examples, being that they can be tuned in open DADG but in hundreds of ragas can only use D strings. In truth, the empathy towards the open string usage comes from the heart of the musician, whether guitarist, Cora player, or Harpist. The greater the scale length chosen within the instrument's scale (and obviously, open tuning is based upon Maximum scale length –i.e., non-fretting and playing the string with only the ‘right’ hand), the deeper –and more organic or intense-- the sound is.
I strongly believe that human enjoyment and resonating with open string tuning, comes from inside of us. To me, demand based upon socio-economic conditions, is secondary. Bob's observation is correct, but I would like to add that there are other ways to look at it.

I think string instruments with open tunings have been around a very long time. I think open tunings, however they might be defined, are the most logical way to tune such instruments.

So gentlemen, on a related topic....................

Music must have started in winter in a cave out of boredom and with lots of old bones lying around. It's certainly not that the better musician attracted more females, because that would mean that there would be (even) more good musicians around.

communication. stitching the individual humans into a larger organism. Connection.

I'm fairly certain that music predates language.

also, the experience of joy has evolutionary value.

I learned recently of an interesting and clever experiment relating to this question and the origins of rhythm. The idea was to make biometric measurements of a large population sample and then connect them to each person's preferred tempo for songs. The strongest correlation was between shoulder width and tempo. The theory is that shoulder width relates to the natural periodicity of a persons gait.

Now, hours of monkey watching has impressed me with how intelligent and social these little critters are, and how much humans have in common with our little banana and insect munching friends. But come to think of it, not even gorrilas or oranguatangs kept in university research centers can play even rudimentary lap steel. And although chimps can earn a fine living riding tricycles to circus music, little Bonzo never sneaks into the band truck after work and finds that he has a talent for improv jazz drumming.

Humans may hear musicality in bird songs or jungle sounds,but those are communicative strategies for animals, not music. It is possible that music evolved during the Ice Age, when Cro Magnons began developing a ritual life. [see Wehttp://swordandspirit.com/_STUDY/texts/artmusic.html] We find the first examples of art (carvings) and ritual (burials and cave paintings) going back around 25,000 years ago.

Australia has been populated for about 40,000 years. [http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993403] The Aboriginal people were, at that time, able to island hop though the Indonesian archepelago on boats or rafts without advanced navigational tools, relying on land-sight alone. After the Ice Ages ended, the oceans filled, island land masses became more distant from each other, the journey was no longer a matter of simple island hopping, and Australia remained isolated for a long time (cue Captain Cook!) We know that Australian natives have a fully developed musical culture, very closely intertwined with their ritual life. So that would suggest that Human culture already was fully musical at least 40,000 years ago.

I have a suspicion that speech and music developed symbiotically, when Homo Sapiens' larynx developed to allow speech, something an ape larynx cannot do (which is why they are taught sign language.) Somewhere in the early stages, some sounds were found to be pleasing without textual content. Rythym instruments probably followed - rythym sticks are the axe of choice in Australia, but no drums. North America shares the pan-boreal single head "shaman" drum tradition and flutes, but lacked native strings.

And in only a matter of millenia World Music A&R men were rushing to the scene.

Our close relatives, the chimpanzees (99% DNA match to Homo sapiens) can and do drum. Some chimps drum solo, others hoot while they drum. It appears to be a male behavior.

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1511/5_21/61692490/p4/article.jhtml?term=

From an evolutionary standpoint, music making could be millions of years old, pre-dating our concept of civilization by millenia. I suppose chimpanzees should be free to worship their creator too!

And where can we get the CD?

Back on topic (sort of). Perhaps the original impetus of music and rhythm was to recreate the environment of the womb. The ear and nervous system are developing then and are constantly exposed to the maternal heartbeat and the ebb and flow of blood through the placenta.

Here’s an article of womb as concert hall:
http://www.musica.uci.edu/mrn/V6I1W99.html

Back to Open Tunings:

The Hawaiians did of course use "Taro Patch" (DGDGBD - Open G) Tuning a lot, but they also modified the tunings lots of other ways such as F Wahine CFCGCE and C Wahine CGDGBE. These are certainly altered tunings, but hardly qualify as open tunings (or do they?) Is the use of these different altered tunings a recent phenomenon? Are there specific advantages to these and other unusual tunings (the Papua New Guinea tunings, for example)? It was mentioned above that it may be related to singing, but are there specific advantages for guitar playing? (Since many slack key songs seem to be instrumental, too.)