I've recently discovered a way of playing the ukulele with a violin bow to get four note chords. This is not exactly the most original idea ever, but i'm thinking about how this "instrument" could be improved to be more suitable for this kind of playing. This got me wondering, what kind of historical precedent is there for bowed string instruments made for playing chords of three or more notes at a time?
I know of the technique for playing four note chords on violin by unscrewing the bow and wrapping it around the entire body, but that is of course not a purpose made instrument, but i'm pretty sure with all the experimentation that has gone on, in the Renaissance and Baroque especially, with weird bowed instruments, there must have been one made for playing chords at some point!
Tuning and scale length is not really an issue now, but i would be going with the same re-entrant fifths tuning i'm using on the ukuleles for now, and four strings is probably the best choice as well. The biggest question is what kind of playing position would be the ultimate for this, as the bowing technique required is rather different from that of conventional, melody oriented fiddle playing. And i'm pretty sure it should be a fretted instrument.
The other main difference would be that the bridge has to be flat, but i'm wondering if anyone has concieved of this type of instrument before. I can really see some use for this type of instrument already....
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