VIHUELA

reproduced by Khalil Gibran in the mid20th century

The vihuela is a guitar-shaped string instrument from 15th and 16th century Spain, Portugal and Italy,
usually with five or six[citation needed] doubled strings.

The vihuela, as it was known in Spanish, was called the viola de m in Catalan, viola da mano in
Italian and viola de mo in Portuguese. The two names are functionally synonymous and
interchangeable. In its most developed form, the vihuela was a guitar-shaped instrument with six
double-strings (paired courses) made of gut. Vihuelas were tuned identically to their contemporary
Renaissance lute; 4ths and mid-3rd (44344, almost like a modern guitar tuning, with the exception of
the third string, which was tuned a semitone lower).

Plucked vihuelas, being essentially flat-backed lutes, evolved in the mid-15th century, in the Kingdom
of Aragn, located in north-eastern Iberia (Spain). In Spain, Portugal, and Italy the vihuela was in
common use by the late 15th through to the late 16th centuries. In the second half of the 15th
century some vihuela players began using a bow, leading to the development of the viol.

There were several different types of vihuela (or different playing methods at least):

Vihuela de mano: 6 or 5 courses played with the fingers

Vihuela de penola: played with a plectrum

Vihuela de arco: played with a bow (ancestor of the viola da gamba)

Tunings for 6 course vihuela de mano (44344):

GCFADG

C F B D G C

The vihuela faded away, along with the complex polyphonic music that was its repertoire, in the late
16th century, along with the other primary instrument of the Spanish and Portuguese Renaissance,
the cross-strung harp. The vihuela's descendants that are still played are the violas campanias of
Portugal. Much of the vihuela's place, role, and function was taken up by the subsequent Baroque
guitar (also sometimes referred to as vihuela or bigela). Today, the vihuela is in use primarily for the
performance of early music, using modern replicas of historical instruments. Today, instruments like
the tiple are descendants of vihuelas brought to America in the 16th century.

Vihuela bodies were lightly constructed from thin flat slabs or pieces of wood, bent or curved as
required. This construction method distinguished them from some earlier types of string instruments
whose bodies (if not the entire instrument including neck) were carved out from a solid single block
of wood. The back and sides of common lutes were also made of pieces however, being multiple
curved or bent staves joined and glued together to form a bowl, made from cypress with a spruce or
cedar top.

Vihuela (and violas da gamba) were built in different sizes, large and small, a family of instruments.
Duet music was published for vihuelas tuned one step, a minor third, a fourth, or a fifth apart, as well
as unison tuned.

The physical appearance of vihuelas was varied and diverse; there was little standardization and no
mass production. Overall and in general, vihuelas looked very similar to modern guitars. The first
generation of vihuela, from the mid-15th century on, had sharp cuts to its waist, similar to that of a
violin. A second generation of vihuela, beginning sometime around 1490, took on the now familiar
smooth-curved figure-eight shaped body contours. The sharp waist-cut models continued to be built
into the early-to-mid-16th century, side by side with the later pattern. Many early vihuelas had
extremely long necks, while others had the shorter variety. Top decoration, the number, shape, and
placement, of sound holes, ports, pierced rosettes, etc., also varied greatly. More than a few styles of
peg-boxes were used as well.

Vihuelas were chromatically fretted in a manner similar to lutes, by means of movable, wrapped-
around and tied-on gut frets. Vihuelas, however, usually had ten frets, whereas lutes had only seven.
Unlike modern guitars, which often use steel and bronze strings, vihuelas were gut strung, and
usually in paired courses. Gut strings produce a sonority far different from metal, generally described
as softer and sweeter. A six course vihuela could be strung in either of two ways: with 12 strings in 6
pairs, or 11 strings in total if a single unpaired chanterelle is used on the first (or highest pitched)
course. Unpaired chanterelles were common on all lutes, vihuelas, and (other) early guitars (both
Renaissance guitars and Baroque guitars).

Example of numeric vihuela tablature from the book Orphenica Lyra by Miguel de Fuenllana (1554).
Red numerals (original) mark the vocal part.

The first person to publish a collection of music for the vihuela was the Spanish composer Luis de
Miln, with his volume titled Libro de msica de vihuela de mano intitulado El maestro of 1536
dedicated to King John III of Portugal. The notational device used throughout this and other vihuela
music books is a numeric tablature (otherwise called "lute tablature"), which is also the model from
which modern "guitar tab" was fashioned. The music is easily performed on a modern guitar using
either standard guitar tuning (44434), sometimes called "new lute tuning", or by retuning slightly to
Classic lute and vihuela tuning (44344). The tablature system used in all these texts is the "Italian"
tablature, wherein the stopped frets are indicated by numbers and the lowest line of the staff
represents the highest-pitch course (or string), resembling the neck of the instrument in playing
position; Miln's book also uses numbers to indicate the stopping of the courses but exceptionally it
is the top line of the staff that represents the highest-pitch course, as in "French" tablature.