Strung Theory (Part One)

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.

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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.