Bandora (instrument)

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The Bandora is the bass of the wire section in a Morley consort and as such can be regarded as a bass cittern. However it does not have the re-entrant tuning typical of the cittern family of instruments. It has six courses, or (unison) pairs, of strings tuned like the bottom 5 strings of the bass viol but with an extra C-string so that the bottom two courses are a tone apart being a low C and D. (This means as the top viol like string is missing playing the bandora feels a bit like the familiar modern guitar tuning rather than lute/viol tuning.)

As well as being one of the two bass instruments in the Morley consort it is also a solo instrument in its own right. Anthony Holborne wrote many pieces for solo bandora. The ethereal buzzing sound of a bandora solo is not really describeable if you have not heard Holborne's Lullaby played on one. In a consort it adds a a peculiar spice to the texture without being obviously audible. (The infamous, (because of the numerous printing errors in the original), multiple lute settings of Paccaloni exists in publications with and without optional wire strung instruments and the wire version has a quality unmatched by the pure gut strung multiple lute version.)