Re-entrant tuning.

A term used to describe the tuning of string instruments in which successive strings are tuned not to successively higher pitches but to a pattern of rising and falling intervals. Re-entrant tunings are found, for example, in the Renaissance four-course guitar (g'/g'–d'/d'–f'/f'–b'), the Baroque five-course guitar (a/a–d/d'–g/g–b/b–e'/e'), the ukulele (g'–c'–e'–a'), the five-course cittern (d–a–g–d'–e') and the South American charango (g'/g'–c''/c''–e''/e'–a'/a'–e''/e''); Cerreto, Praetorius and Mersenne described various re-entrant tunings for the lirone (see Lirone, §1). They are also found in certain instruments that have a short string to one side of the fingerboard (uppermost in instruments held horizontally, nearest to the player’s face in instruments held vertically), such as the five-string banjo, the sitar and West African lutes of the konting and khalam family.

Such tunings produce characteristic effects of timbre and colour, including bright chordal accompaniments and clarity of delineation in melodic passages. Their widespread use, both historically and geographically, suggests that they have many inherent advantages, especially for smaller and more intimate plucked instruments such as the Baroque guitar and the ukulele, where brilliance of attack rather than sustained tone is required.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

E. Pohlmann: Laute, Theorbe, Chitarrone (Bremen, 1968, enlarged 5/1982)

B. Tonazzi: Liuto, vihuela, chitarra e strumenti similari nelle loro intavolature, con cenni sulle loro letterature (Ancona, 1971, 3/1980)

H. Turnbull: The Guitar from the Renaissance to the Present Day (London and New York, 1974)

J. Tyler: The Early Guitar (London, 1980)

G. Wade: Traditions of the Classical Guitar (London, 1980)

GRAHAM WADE