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The crwth (, also called a crowd or rote or crotta) is a bowed
lyre The lyre () is a stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the lute-family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it is a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke ...
, a type of
stringed instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the st ...
, associated particularly with
Welsh music The Music of Wales (Welsh: ''Cerddoriaeth Cymru''), particularly singing, is a significant part of Welsh national identity, and the country is traditionally referred to as "the land of song".Davies (2008), pg 579. This is a modern stereotype ba ...
, now archaic but once widely played in Europe. Four historical examples have survived and are to be found in
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(
Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...
);
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Aberystwyth Aberystwyth () is a university and seaside town as well as a community in Ceredigion, Wales. Located in the historic county of Cardiganshire, means "the mouth of the Ystwyth". Aberystwyth University has been a major educational location in ...
);
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; and the
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(US).


Origin of the name

The name ' is Welsh, derived from a
Proto-Celtic Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed through the compar ...
noun ''*-'' ("round object") which refers to a swelling or bulging out, a pregnant appearance or a protuberance, and it is speculated that it came to be used for the instrument because of its bulging shape. Other
Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...
words for
violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
also have meanings referring to rounded appearances. In Gaelic, for example, "" can mean "hump" or "hunch" as well as
harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
or
violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
. Like several other English loanwords from Welsh, the name is one of the few words in the English language in which the letter W is used as a
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
. The traditional
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
name is crowd (or rote), and the variants ', ' and ' are little-used today. In
Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...
it is called the ''chorus'' or '. The Welsh word ' means a performer on the crwth. The
Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
word is ''cruit'', although it also was used on occasion to designate certain small
harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
s. The English
surname In some cultures, a surname, family name, or last name is the portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family, tribe or community. Practices vary by culture. The family name may be placed at either the start of a person's full name ...
s Crewther, Crowder, Crother and Crowther denote a player of the crowd, as do the Scottish names MacWhirter and MacWhorter. In this article ''crwth'' denotes the modern, or most recent, form of the instrument (see picture).


History

A variety of string instruments so designated are thought to have been played in Wales since at least
Roman times In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
. Continuous, clear records of the use of ''crwth'' to denote an instrument of the
lyre The lyre () is a stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the lute-family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it is a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke ...
(or the Byzantine bowed lyre) class date from the 11th century. Medieval instruments somewhat resembling the crwth appear in pictures (first in Continental Europe) as far back as the 11th century, shortly after bowing was first known in the West. In Wales, the crwth long took second place to the
harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
in the musical hierarchy. Schlesinger in the ''
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica A notable ongoing event was the Comparison of the Amundsen and Scott Expeditions, race for the South Pole. Events January * January 1 – A decade after federation, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory ...
'' mentioned the crwth in an article about transition of instruments from the lyre to plucked and bowed instruments:


Physical description and playing technique

The crwth consists of a fairly simple box construction with a flat,
fret A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical instrume ...
less
fingerboard The fingerboard (also known as a fretboard on fretted instruments) is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The stri ...
and six gut strings, purportedly tuned gg´c´c´´d´d´´. The original report of that tuning (Edward Jones, ''Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards''; London: 1784), from which most subsequent others appear to draw their information, uses arbitrary pitch designations for illustrative purposes. Jones also states that the tuning procedure began by tightening the highest string as much as possible without breaking it, subsequently tuning the others to it intervallically. Such was not an uncommon practice in the days before standardized pitch and was, in fact, mentioned in other manuals on string instrument playing. While Jones's report was widely read and used as the basis of a number of subsequent accounts, and therefore today is often considered to be evidence of a standard tuning, it is more likely that a variety of tunings were experimented with and in some cases employed, as was and still is the case with many other string instruments, particularly those within
folk culture Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, r ...
s. A second tuning, reported by William Bingley (''A Tour Round North Wales''; London: 1800), features the drones tuned in octaves, with the strings over the fingerboard tuned in paired fifths rather than seconds. However this tuning is almost certainly derived from later violin playing and is impractical given that the crwth is equipped with a flat bridge and therefore designed to play all six strings simultaneously. Traditionally the
soundbox A sound box or sounding box (sometimes written soundbox) is an open chamber in the body of a musical instrument which modifies the sound of the instrument, and helps transfer that sound to the surrounding air. Objects respond more strongly to vib ...
, or resonator, and a surmounting yoke in the shape of an inverted U (see picture of player), were carved as a single unit from a block of
maple ''Acer'' () is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated since http ...
or
sycamore Sycamore is a name which has been applied to several types of trees, but with somewhat similar leaf forms. The name derives from the ancient Greek ' (''sūkomoros'') meaning "fig-mulberry". Species of trees known as sycamore: * ''Acer pseudoplata ...
. The soundboard, or
belly Belly may refer to: Anatomy * The abdomen, the part of the body between the pelvis and the thorax; or the stomach ** A beer belly, an overhang of fat above the waist, presumed to be caused by regular beer drinking ** Belly dance * The fleshy, cen ...
, a separate piece (the upper surface, nearest the strings), was most often made of
deal A deal, or deals may refer to: Places United States * Deal, New Jersey, a borough * Deal, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * Deal Lake, New Jersey Elsewhere * Deal Island (Tasmania), Australia * Deal, Kent, a town in England * Deal, ...
or some other soft wood, and the
bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
was usually made of
cherry A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The nam ...
or some other fruitwood. Two
soundhole A sound hole is an opening in the body of a stringed musical instrument, usually the upper sound board. Sound holes have different shapes: * round in flat-top guitars and traditional bowl-back mandolins; * F-holes in instruments from the v ...
s, or circular openings about an inch to an inch and a quarter in diameter, were cut into the soundboard to allow pulsating air from the soundbox to escape and strengthen the tone. The two G strings (to use Jones's terminology – see above) ran parallel to the fingerboard, but not over it, so those strings were used as fixed-pitch drones which could be plucked by the player's left thumb. The remaining strings, which were tightened and loosened with metal
harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
wrest-pins and a tuning key or
wrench A wrench or spanner is a tool used to provide grip and mechanical advantage in applying torque to turn objects—usually rotary fasteners, such as nuts and bolts—or keep them from turning. In the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealan ...
, were usually bowed with a
horsehair Horsehair is the long hair growing on the manes and tails of horses. It is used for various purposes, including upholstery, brushes, the bows of musical instruments, a hard-wearing fabric called haircloth, and for horsehair plaster, a wallc ...
and wood bow. One characteristic feature of the crwth is that one leg of the
bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
goes through a soundhole (see picture of player) and rests on the back of the instrument (the bottom of the soundbox). Although it has been conjectured that this is a primitive attempt at a
sound post In a string instrument, the sound post or soundpost is a dowel inside the instrument under the treble end of the bridge, spanning the space between the top and back plates and held in place by friction. It serves as a structural support for an arc ...
, or ''anima'', something the instrument lacks, it is equally likely that it is designed to take some of the downward pressure of the tightened strings off the soundboard. Since that piece is flat, unbraced, and usually made of soft wood, it is much weaker than the belly of a violin. All surviving pictures of crwth players show a playing position with the lower end of the crwth braced against the chest, supported with a strap around the player's neck (see picture). The sound of the crwth was described by medieval poet Gruffydd ap Dafydd ap Hywel as 'in the hand a hundred voices' (yn y llaw yn gan llais'), referring to the rich sound of six strings sounded simultaneously in harmony. Along with the harp and timpan, the six-stringed crwth was one of the three main string instruments of the Welsh according to the medieval Triads, and an instrument of the aristocracy with its own native repertoire and a strict examination system though which a master crwth player had to pass. A three-stringed version also existed which required less skill and was played by minstrels. The tone of the crwth is softer and rougher than the modern violin, and has a comfortable melody range of an octave by the use of third position, although it is possible to reach an octave and a half by the use of higher positions. It's sound that goes well with the
timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or musical tone, tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voice ...
s of the
harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...
and pibgorn (
hornpipe The hornpipe is any of several dance forms played and danced in Britain and Ireland and elsewhere from the 16th century until the present day. The earliest references to hornpipes are from England with Hugh Aston's Hornepype of 1522 and others r ...
). For all its technical limitations, the crwth has great charm, and is much more than a historical curiosity. Research over about the last thirty-five years, and particularly experimentation with tunings, have shown it to have been much more versatile and facile than was once assumed, although it definitely was not a prototype of modern orchestral bowed string instruments, which emerged from an altogether different branch of the complex string family tree. Historically, it represents the logical end of a line of development, not an early stage of another.


Welsh legends

There are a number of legends in Wales related to '' Crythor Du'' or "The Black Crwth Player", the most notable of which is "Y Crythor Du a'r Bleiddiaid" or "The Black Crwth Player and the Wolves", where the main character escapes attack from a pack of hungry wolves by playing in turn forcefully, melodiously and gently. Another legend has a player and his servant dying of cold in
Beddgelert Beddgelert () is a village and community in the Snowdonia area of Gwynedd, Wales. The population of the community taken at the 2011 census was 455, and includes Nantmor and Nant Gwynant. It is reputed to be named after the legendary hound ...
, noted by Welsh antiquarian
Edward Llwyd Edward Lhuyd FRS (; occasionally written Llwyd in line with modern Welsh orthography, 1660 – 30 June 1709) was a Welsh naturalist, botanist, linguist, geographer and antiquary. He is also named in a Latinate form as Eduardus Luidius. Li ...
. There is also the "Cave of the black crwth player" near
Criccieth Criccieth ( cy, Criccieth ) is a town and community on the Llŷn Peninsula in the Eifionydd area of Gwynedd in Wales. The town lies west of Porthmadog, east of Pwllheli and south of Caernarfon. It had a population of 1,826 in 2001, reducing ...
, which is said to have been the inspiration for the tune ''Ffarwél Ned Puw'' or 'Farewell Dick the Piper'.


Today

A number of modern reconstructions of the crwth have been made; makers include Guy Flockhart, Nial Cain, Michael J. King, Hank Taylor and Gerard Kilbride. A handful of folk musicians are reviving the tradition of playing this instrument, among them Cass Meurig, who is the best-known modern player and who in 2004 released the album ''Crwth'', the world's second CD of crwth music, in 2004 on the Fflach:tradd label. (Meurig also plays with the groups Fernhill and Pigyn Clust.) Other musicians include Bob Evans (
Bragod Bragod is a duo giving historically informed performances of mediaeval Welsh music.North Atlantic Fiddle Convention page abouBragod/ref> The members are Robert Evans and Mary-Anne Roberts. Their music ranges over a very wide timescale, from verses ...
), Dan Morris (
Cilmeri Cilmeri is a village and community in Powys, mid-Wales, United Kingdom in the historic county of Brecknockshire, two and a half miles west of Builth Wells on the A483 to Llandovery. The village is served by Cilmeri railway station on the Heart ...
), and Sedayne. The repertoire of surviving crwth tunes is very small, although many other traditional tunes can be adapted for the instrument and new tunes are being written for it. It is also used by several early music groups, including
Cancionero A chansonnier ( ca, cançoner, oc, cançonièr, Galician and pt, cancioneiro, it, canzoniere or ''canzoniéro'', es, cancionero) is a manuscript or printed book which contains a collection of chansons, or polyphonic and monophonic settings o ...
.


See also

*
Tromba marina A tromba marina, marine trumpet or nuns' fiddle, ( Fr. ''trompette marine''; Ger. ''Marientrompete, Trompetengeige, Nonnengeige'' or ''Trumscheit'', Pol. ''tubmaryna'') is a triangular bowed string instrument used in medieval and Renaissance ...


References


External links


Website of Bob Evans (Bragod)





Fflach record label



Website AuraInstruments of Medieval Instruments makers (Slovakia)


Bibliography and scholarly literature by J. Marshall Bevil
Article about last remaining crwths and their sound chamber beneath the fingerboard.
{{Authority control Bowed lyres Early musical instruments English musical instruments Welsh musical instruments Celtic musical instruments String instruments with sympathetic strings Welsh music history