Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Full Version)

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Steelhead -> Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 16 2018 13:40:37)

Compañeros - I am trying to properly translate an essay on an old Torres guitar, and the Spanish is too hard for me. I wonder if some of the experts here could help.
(1) The essay refers to the "junquillos" along the edge of the body. "Yellow floral patterns"?
(2) "El placado de la cabeza"?
(3) "Varetas"? Actually this whole sentence: "El vientre de la tabla armónica conforma un leve peraltado gracias a la adición de un abanico de cinco varetas (estas muestran un degradado en altura en las puntas, más acusado en la zona del puente)." Which I render something like: "The belly of the soundboard of the guitar has a slight peraltado [??] due to the addition of a fan of five varetas, whose height declines slightly, and more markedly near the bridge. "
(4) And then this sentence: "La guitarra que nos ocupa admite una restitución compositiva decididamente ARMÓNICA, revelando una aproximación de las dos 'mandorlas' o bulbos del 'ocho', prácticamente de homotecia geométrica". Yikes. "Mandorlas"? ""Bulbos de ocho"?
I would be most grateful for any help!



Steelhead -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 16 2018 13:51:51)

Oops - forgot to add: "El mástil se une a la caja mediante un zoque " What is a "zoque"? (I suppose I could translate it as "thing")



RobJe -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 17 2018 10:16:23)

John Ray might be able to tackle this. He lives and works in Spain and has made at least one Torres replica.

I can spot some obvious ones

El placado de la cabeza // The head plate – ie the veneer(s) covering the head

Junquillos // Strips of light coloured wood – presumably the bindings

Rob



RobJe -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 17 2018 10:21:44)

I am intrigued by some of this stuff. Here is some speculation about one obscure bit.


‘Mandorla’ is the Italian word for ‘almond’ but it is also used for the shape of the frame surrounding pictures of the entire body of some religious figures such as Christ or the Virgin Mary. Although usually a pointy-almond shape it is sometimes a shape based on two intersecting circles (see we are getting guitar shaped now). So for mandorla read ‘bout’ – he/she is trying to make a point about the shapes of the two bouts which are also described as ‘bulbos de ocho’ – the two shapes that make up the bulbous figure 8.

‘homotecia geométrica’ - a homothetic transformation in geometry is one that (among other things) preserves symmetry. That is if you transform one shape into another, one will look like an enlargement of the other. You could make a guitar outline by overlapping two different sized circles (all circles are mathematically similar to each other). If you imagine that you are making a guitar shape by overlapping two slightly different shapes that are roughly similar to each other I think you have arrived at what is being stated.


We had some interesting discussions here a few years about how to draw a guitar shape

Rob



Morante -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 17 2018 14:56:58)

quote:

What is a "zoque"?


Heel.



Piwin -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 17 2018 15:43:37)

and the two bits that weren't answered yet:

leve peraltado = slightly curved
vareta = strut

(I think...)



RobJe -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 17 2018 23:20:43)

quote:

leve peraltado = slightly curved


Peraltada is used for 'banking' or 'hump' so a fairly literal translation could be


The belly of the harmonic table forms a slight hump/dome thanks to the addition of a fan of five struts (these show a gradient in height at the tips, more pronounced in the area of the bridge)

Rob



Stephen Eden -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 18 2018 7:58:30)

quote:

El mástil se une a la caja mediante un zoque


The Zoque is not just the heel but the whole system that attaches the neck to the body. We use the term spanish heel construction. So no just the outside but the inside too, so that's the slipper aswell.

They're basically saying that the neck is attached to the body using the spanish heel method.



Piwin -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 18 2018 8:50:10)

quote:

forms a slight hump/dome


That makes sense. "hump/dome" gives you a more precise 3D image of what's going on than just "curved", which I suppose could mean curved any which way. Thanks for the correction!



Steelhead -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 18 2018 17:09:57)

Many thanks for al this help!



estebanana -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 19 2018 0:15:40)

For arch or done I've heard 'bambato' also- could be italian



johnguitar -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 19 2018 6:58:37)

I think all of your questions have been answered. What is strange about this is that the spanish used is very academic and uses none of the specific terminology of the guitar-maker. I would suggest that is was written by someone who knows very little about guitars or that is was translated from some other language into spanish by a lay person. Do you have any information about the author or the translator?



RobJe -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 19 2018 9:02:27)

I had the same feeling – or possibly the work of an organologist (so-called expert in the history and classification of musical instruments) who really has expertise in just one branch of instruments. This often gives rise to unhelpful information at musical instrument auctions, often just the length of the body.

The use of “mandorla” is relatively common. I found this

“In one design, by Arnault de Zwolle (15th century), the entire body of the lute was inscribed into the mandorla - the figure formed by the two intersecting circles of the vesica piscis.”
http://violoncellodaspalla.blogspot.com/2012/01/why-badiarov-violin-bridges-are-always.html

Rob



estebanana -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 19 2018 13:33:36)

I'll have an order of those pulpos de ocho and a few beers.



RobJe -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 19 2018 19:34:11)

May I recommend the vesica piscis Sir? Fresh in today.



El Burdo -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 19 2018 22:09:08)

Sounds good. And I'll finish with the vejiga glándula, por favor.



estebanana -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 20 2018 1:37:41)

There are few things finer in the guitar world than braised mandorlas followed by bodegon of country rioja.



RobJe -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 20 2018 9:30:32)

Enough already! You can see that you have whetted our appetites Steelhead – so please tell us who wrote this stuff.



Ricardo -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 20 2018 16:08:37)

quote:

ORIGINAL: estebanana

For arch or done I've heard 'bambato' also- could be italian


https://youtu.be/aMOlWmeWG5A



Steelhead -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 22 2018 14:23:29)

This essay is part of the liner notes for a forthcoming CD produced by flamencologa María Luisa Martinez (with some input of mine), focusing on 19th-c. versions of rondenas, including some previously undiscovered notations of El Murciano that she unearthed and analyzed. (Cf my earlier queries about rondenas in this forum). Some of the "grabations " were done with an old Torres in a museum in Granada. I'll inform when the cd is out. I think it makes a nice contribution. (I'm not sure who authored this short essay on the guitar.) Many thanks to ppl here for their input.



Morante -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 22 2018 14:46:46)

quote:

María Luisa Martinez


Flamencólogos in Andalucía generally know how to use computers and databanks but don´t even know how to play palmas (Faustino Nuñez is the exception), and cannot distinguish one palo from another.

I hope María is on another level.



johnguitar -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 23 2018 8:06:02)

It all becomes clear now, for publishing in academic journals that is exactly the language demanded. Furthermore, we can't expect the musicologists to necessarily be familiar with the guitar-maker's terms.



Ricardo -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 24 2018 21:38:47)

quote:

ORIGINAL: johnguitar

It all becomes clear now, for publishing in academic journals that is exactly the language demanded. Furthermore, we can't expect the musicologists to necessarily be familiar with the guitar-maker's terms.

Or even the playing and singing [:D]



estebanana -> RE: Spanish translation help - guitar terminology (Jun. 25 2018 0:04:23)

In musicology the subdiscipline of instrument ID is called organology.

Guitars are in the chordophone family...
Lordy.



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