Strung Theory I: Cordage/Chordage

This is the first in a short series of episodes and interviews about how we turned cordage into chordage. According to the Hornbostel-Sachs System for Musical Instrument Classification, the guitar is in the Chordophone category. And it wouldn't be there if it weren't for something we found, and manufactured, over tens of thousands of years, called cordage.The story of cordage is under-told and overlooked, but it's everywhere, and it's one of our most important tools and materials. We take it for granted, but we shouldn't do that. It holds your shoes together. It's the stuff your clothes are made of. It's the thing that burns in the center of a candle. One type of cordage, called string, turns silent bows, boxes and slabs into stringed musical instruments, and that's why we're here. Here's a link to a complete interview with a scholar mentioned in the episode, which should make for good supplemental reading.Click here to support A People's History of the Guitar with a one-time or recurring contribution, or maybe both. If you want to see where this goes as much as I do, you can help me to produce unique new content and reach more people with a broader perspective on an instrument that changed the world. Go back and check out the previous episodes in order if you haven't already, and thanks for being curious about what I'm trying to do here. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy