Seven-string Guitar - The Russian Guitar

The Russian Guitar

Main article: Russian guitar

The Russian guitar, a seven-string acoustic guitar tuned to the Open G tuning, (DGBDGbd), arrived in the beginning of the 19th century in Russia, most probably as a development of the cittern, the kobza and the torban. It is known in Russia as the semistrunnaya gitara (семиструнная гитара) or affectionately as the semistrunka (семиструнка).

Its invention is attributed to Andrei Sychra, who also wrote a method for the guitar, as well as over one thousand compositions, seventy-five of which were republished in the 1840s by Stellovsky, and then again in the 1880s by Gutheil. Some of these were published again in the Soviet Union in 1926.

This type of guitar has been called a 'Russian guitar,' as it has been primarily played in Russia and later the Soviet Union.

The Russian version of the seven-string guitar has been used by professionals, because of its great flexibility and its sound, but has also been popular with amateurs for accompaniment (especially Russian bards) due to the relative simplicity of some basic chords and the ease of playing alternating bass lines.

The Russian guitar is traditionally played without a pick, using fingers for either strumming or picking.

• Tuning of the Russian guitar

• An F# major chord

• A B minor chord

The earliest music published for a seven-string guitar was in St. Petersburg, Russia, on 15 December 1798. The school was owned by Ignác František Held (1766, Třebechovice pod Orebem, Bohemia – 1816, Brest-Litovsk, Russia).

Alternate tunings include:

• G-C-E-G-C-E-G ("Big guitar")
• F-A#-D-F-A#-D-F (1/3rd guitar)
• E-A-B-D-G-B-D
• E-G-B-D-G-B-D
• C-G-B-D-G-B-D
• D-G-C-D-G-A#-D
• B-F#-B-E-A-D-f#
• A-E-A-D-G-B-E