The violin of 400 years ago looked outwardly very similar to today’s violin, but there are a number of subtle differences. Violins in the 16th and 17th centuries used gut strings rather than the steel strings favored by today’s players, creating a warmer and quieter sound, and the Renaissance violin doesn’t have fine tuners or a chinrest as modern violins usually do. The bow used in the Renaissance was shorter, lighter, and straighter than today’s modern violin bow, without the re-curved “Tourte” design (invented in the 19th century) that aids modern players in maintaining even bow pressure throughout the entire bow stroke. This makes up-bows and down-bows on the Renaissance violin sound quite different, and also makes the middle of the bow stroke inherently stronger than the beginning or end. Perhaps the greatest difference in the Renaissance violin, though, is in playing technique—rather than using a shoulder rest and chin rest to support the instrument on the shoulder, violinists of 400 years ago generally played with the violin resting lower down on the arm, held against the body of the player, and this is how Karen usually plays with Seven Times Salt. Karen plays a violin made by Warren Ellison of Jericho, VT.

While iconography depicts transverse (side-blown) flutes being used throughout the Middle Ages, unfortunately no flutes from that era survive; fortunately we have several extant Renaissance flutes, though, dating from about 1500 to 1630. The Renaissance flute was made of a variety of woods, with six finger holes, no keys, and a very small embouchure hole; like other Renaissance instruments, they were made in families of different sizes (the three most common sizes being descant, tenor, and bass), and like the recorders they were popular for both instrumental music and instrumental performances of vocal pieces. The cylindrical bore and small embouchure and finger holes of the Renaissance flute make it a very flexible instrument with a quiet but beautifully nuanced sound. The tenor Renaissance flute is used as the only wind instrument in the English Consort, and it often plays in a higher register than the other instruments, requiring some sensitivity on the player’s part in order to blend with the rest of the ensemble. Dan plays Renaissance flutes by Boaz Berney (Montreal, QC) and Patrick Olwell (Massies Mill, VA).

While whistles or duct flutes are among the oldest instruments known to man—a recent instrument of this type, made from the leg bone of a bird, has been dated at almost 40,000 years old!—the recorder as we know it today developed during the late Middle Ages. Made of wood with seven finger holes and a thumb hole, the recorder has a somewhat limited range compared to other instruments; Renaissance recorders could only play about an octave and a sixth. Like viols and other instruments, though, they were often produced in families of different sizes, ranging from the tiny sopranino to the seven-foot-tall contrabass, allowing consorts of recorders to play most kinds of Renaissance music. While the recorder has a small dynamic range, it makes up for it by a huge variety of possible articulations compared to other woodwinds, allowing a skilled player to almost “speak” through the instrument. In the Renaissance, recorders were equally popular for dance music, instrumental fantasies, and instrumental interpretations of vocal pieces, and the recorder was sometimes used as a substitute for the Renaissance flute in the English Consort. Easy to learn but difficult to master, it was a popular instrument with amateurs and professionals alike and remained in frequent use until the middle of the 18th century, when the greater dynamic and tonal flexibility of the Baroque flute caused the recorder to fall out of favor. Dan plays recorders made by Jean-Luc Boudreau (Montreal, QC), Tom Prescott (Hanover, NH), Francesco Li Virghi (Orte, Italy), Bernard Junghänel (Gütersloh, Germany) and Patrick von Huene (Boston, MA).

Originating in the late Middle Ages as a direct descendent of the Arabic oud (the word “lute” comes from the Arabic “al-‘ud”), by the Renaissance the lute had become extremely popular throughout Europe, both as a solo instrument and for accompanying the voice. Like the viol, the lute’s frets are made of gut and tied onto the neck, and a Renaissance lute can have anywhere from six to ten courses of gut strings, with each course being either a single or double string; often the highest string is single, and the rest of the courses are double, with the strings tuned either in unison or in octaves depending on the lute. Unlike the guitar, the lute has a rounded, bowl-shaped back made of strips of wood laminated together. In Renaissance England, lute songs written for solo voice with lute accompaniment were extremely popular (Queen Elizabeth herself was said to have been a decent lutenist), and the lute was also used in the English Consort as a featured solo instrument, playing elaborate and virtuosic lines against the slower-moving parts of the other instruments. Unlike the modern classical guitar where the strings are plucked with the fingernails, lutenists pluck the strings with the pads of the fingers instead, making a quieter and more subtle sound than a guitar. The lute can also be strummed, and this is especially effective for dance music. Matt plays a 6-course lute made by Daniel Larson of Duluth, MN.

The viola da gamba, usually called just “viol” in English, means “viol of the leg”; the instrument is held between the legs while playing and at first glance may seem like a cello, but in fact it’s a very different instrument. The cello is a member of the violin family and is in many ways a large violin, but the viol is very different in construction and makes up its own family of instruments. Invented sometime in the 15th century, by 1600 the viol was considered one of the premier instruments in Europe for chamber music, and English composers wrote elaborate and intricate pieces for consorts (ensembles) of three to six viols. The Renaissance viol has a flat back, six gut strings (a seventh was added in the late 17th century), and gut frets that are tied onto the neck. The frets are movable and can be slanted or even split to facilitate playing in different temperaments, and stopping the strings against the frets rather than the fingerboard gives every note the sound of an open string, creating a complex halo of resonance around a group of viols playing together. The viol also has a flatter bridge than most modern bowed string instruments, facilitating the playing of multiple stops and chords. Perhaps the greatest difference between a viol and modern string instruments, however, is the bow technique; the bow is held by the player in an underhand grip with the fingers pressed against the bow hair, allowing extremely fine control of bow tension and articulation. In the Renaissance viols came in three sizes—treble, tenor, and bass—with the bass and occasionally the treble being used in the English Consort (when the treble was used, it substituted for the violin). Josh plays a “great double bass” viol by John Pringle of Efland, NC, and Karen plays a treble viol by Gabriela Guadalajara of New York and a tenor viol by Karl Dennis of Warren, RI.

One of the few instruments from the Renaissance with metal strings instead of gut, the cittern is the 16th-century descendant of the Medieval citole. Like the lute, the cittern has frets, although they are often made of metal and inlaid into the fingerboard. Most Renaissance citterns have four courses--three courses of two strings each, and one course of three strings—and use re-entrant tuning, where the bottom course is not actually the lowest-pitched (much like a ukulele). The bright, articulate sound of the instrument is usually enhanced by using a plectrum or pick to pluck the strings, rather than the fingers. Smaller, more portable, and easier to build than a lute, the cittern was popular in England with both amateurs and professionals. In the English Consort, the cittern often plays rhythmic chordal accompaniment parts along with the bandora. Matt plays a cittern by an unknown maker.

The other popular wire-strung instrument of the 16th and 17th centuries, the bandora was sometimes played solo but was more often used as the lowest-pitched instrument in the English Consort, where it typically plays strummed or plucked chords to provide a rhythmic foundation and fill out the harmony. Pitched lower than the lute, the bandora usually has 7 courses of wire strings, and can be played with a plectrum, the fingertips, or the fingernails depending on the preferred technique of the player. It enjoyed a relatively brief period of popularity from about 1560, when it was invented, until the 1630s. The name of the instrument is sometimes also spelled “pandora” by English composers, and a slightly smaller version, the orpharion, was frequently used for solo playing. Matt plays a bandora made for Seven Times Salt by William Good of Somerville, MA.

The Renaissance guitar evolved in 16th-century Spain as a variation of the vihuela, a plucked, flat-backed instrument related to the lute and viol, but more popular than the lute in Renaissance Spain. While the vihuela commonly had eight courses, though, the Renaissance guitar usually had only four; a fifth course was added in the late 16th century, and the six-string guitar that most people are familiar with developed in the mid-19th century. Like the cittern, the Renaissance guitar uses re-entrant tuning, and in fact is usually tuned exactly the same as a soprano ukulele. Like most Renaissance stringed instruments, though, the Renaissance guitar uses gut strings. It is usually plucked or strummed with the fingers. Karen and Matt play a Renaissance guitar made by Mel Wong of San Francisco, CA.

Though most people in the 21st century think of Scotland when they think of bagpipes, in fact bagpipes are one of the most universal instruments in Europe, with almost every country across the continent having at least one native bagpipe tradition. Bagpipes were similarly popular across Europe in the Renaissance, with a huge variety of instruments being used—some as high-pitched and loud as the modern Great Highland Bagpipes (Scottish pipes), and some so quiet or low-pitched that they could easily be played with recorders and viols. Bagpipes use either double reeds (like an oboe or bassoon) or single reeds (like a clarinet) to make sound, and most Renaissance bagpipes consist of a single chanter (melody pipe) with a range of nine notes, and one or more drones (pipes that play a single, constant note). Bagpipes are limited in some ways—they have no dynamics other than “on” or “off” (they can’t get louder or softer) and all of the articulation has to be done with the player’s fingers rather than the tongue, since the piper has no direct connection with the reeds. Thanks to the bag, though, they can play indefinitely with no interruption in the sound, and although many types of Renaissance bagpipes are quiet enough to be played with other instruments, the drone gives the pipes their own ready-made accompaniment and makes them an excellent solo instrument as well. Dan plays Renaissance bagpipes made by Joel Robinson (Wilsonville, OR), Paul Beekhuizen (Den Haag, Netherlands), and Toru Sonoda (Wartenberg, Germany)

An ancient instrument found in some form from 3500 BCE onwards across every inhabited continent, by the Renaissance the European harp had evolved to have a roughly triangular wooden frame strung with either gut or finely drawn wire strings. While it was not as popular as other plucked string instruments for art music, it was used throughout the British Isles (particularly in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland) as one of the premier instruments for folk and traditional music, as well as for accompanying the voice. Renaissance harps typically had two or three rows of strings to facilitate playing in a variety of keys without retuning the instrument, but in the late 17th century a lever mechanism was developed allowing the pitch of individual strings to be raised or lowered by a half-step while playing. This style of lever harp is still used by modern folk harpists throughout the British Isles. Karen plays a 23-string harp made by Dan McCrimmon of Fort Collins, CO.

Although technically two separate instruments, in the Renaissance the three-hole pipe (also called a tabor pipe) and the tabor (a light double-headed drum ranging from four inches to over three feet deep) were almost always played together. The three-hole pipe is built much like a recorder, but with only three holes covered by the index and middle fingers and the thumb. By varying fingerings and breath pressure, the player can produce a range of about an octave and a fifth while using only one hand to play the instrument. This leaves the other hand free to strike the drum with a small stick, which provides a rhythmic counterpoint to the pipe’s melody. The drum usually has a leather strap allowing it to be hung from the player’s arm or shoulder, and often has one or more gut strings stretched across the head in order to produce a buzzing sound, much like a modern snare drum. In the Renaissance the pipe and tabor was considered ideal for low-budget dance music, allowing only one musician to provide both tune and rhythm. In the English Morris Dancing tradition, pipe and tabor was used as the standard instrumental accompaniment until the mid-19th century, when it began to be replaced by the concertina and/or button accordion. Dan plays tabors made by Ben Harms of New Marlborough, MA and three-hole pipes made by Tom Prescott of Hanover, NH and Marie Hulsens of Almoster, Spain.

Unfortunately there is very little written in primary sources about the use of percussion in the Renaissance, although paintings and woodcuts show musicians playing a variety of percussion instruments with both hands and sticks. The assumption by most historians, due to the almost complete lack of written parts for percussion, is that when percussion instruments were used in the Renaissance they were played in an improvisatory fashion. This is the assumption we work from when using percussion with Seven Times Salt, and we use a variety of frame drums, tambourines, and other hand percussion (all shown in iconography of the period) to add improvised percussion parts to some of our music. Dan (and sometimes all the other members of the band as well!) play drums and other percussion instruments by (among others), Ben Harms (New Marlborough, MA), Cooperman Drums (Bellows Falls, VT), and Norbert Eckermann (Vienna, Austria).