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As a
History Detective, Tina Chancey looks to the past to find
out where the violin came from. We all have grand parents
and great-grandparents; why shouldn’t the violin have
them to? She looks in her closet to find the closest relative,
ancestor, of the violin, armed with three clues: it should
be made of wood, have strings, and be played with a bow.
First
she finds the VIELLE (not V-8 but V-L), an instrument
from the middle ages, and introduces a jongleur named Marie
de Ventadorn who tells the story of how Richard the Lionheart
was imprisoned while on Crusade, and his court jongleur found
him by playing his favorite tune at every prison in the Holy
Land.
Next she
comes upon the REBEC (not Rabbit but Rebec), a Renaissance
instrument something like a turkey leg, held in the armpit.
Guillaume de Machaut (William from Machaut) talks about how
courtly love was invented to keep the knights out of trouble,
and sings one of his own songs (translated into colloquial
English) while walking around the audience to demonstrate.
The third
instrument she discovers is the GAMBA (not Gumbo...),
her favorite instrument (and a favorite of the Pilgrims) because
it plays high and low, melodies and chords, and even accompanies
songs like a piano although it’s much more portable than
the piano. The students observe that the gamba is very much
like a bowed guitar.
Last,
she muses on the violin, which Thomas Jefferson called a FIDDLE,
and demonstrates Jefferson’s favorite tune, which she
played for President Bush just last week.
Finally,
the students become her “quiz show audience” and
vote on which instrument is the closest ancestor of the violin.
It seems that the gamba is closest, but how can it be since
the students themselves told her that it was a close relative
of the guitar? These instruments must all be second cousins
with the same characteristics: wooden body, strings and bow.
Obviously Ms. Chancey isn’t finished detecting yet, but
before continuing on she asks for questions and stays for
a verse of Yankee Doodle
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