Cyclic Symmetry

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS374, Lisbon 2016

1. Cyclic symmetry – 74’00’’

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola (BACH.Bogen)

Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello (BACH.Bogen)

Carlos Santos - Field Recordings

Recorded in January 2016, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/cyclic-symmetry

Reviews

Ernesto Rodrigues, violon alto et Guilherme Rodrigues, violoncelle se retrouvent avec leur camarade (et graphiste maison Chez CS) , Carlos Santos, qui ici propose ses field recordings enregistrés à Lisbonne, S. Miguel Island, Açores et Bergen en Norvège. Le titre, à lui seul est tout un programme : Cyclic Symmetry. Une note des artistes : we advise the listener to ear the piece in a continuous loop. En français : nous conseillons à l’auditeur d’écouter la pièce dans une boucle continuelle. Un seul morceau de plus de 73 minutes joué sans interruption, si ce n’est des silences parsemant son exécution. Les deux cordistes jouent de longues notes soutenues sans solution de fin (drones) jusqu’à un silence blanc et émergent à nouveau en changeant la texture et en modifiant insensiblement l’attaque et la hauteur et créant un sentiment de glissando infinitésimal en agrégeant parfois un son plus aigu. La séquence silencieuse de quelques dizaines de secondes ressurgit après un léger fade out. La pochette est illustrée d’un paysage coloré et minimaliste avec une ligne d’horizon plane et droite, un ciel bleu, un soleil brun et une lune blafarde que traverse en parallèle un tracé rectiligne de deux tirets au milieu exact du dessin. Autour de cet axe horizontal central, s’articulent des ellipses inachevées et de mesures variées. On sait  que la mesure entre les deux foyers et tous les points du tracé d’une ellipse est équidistante. C’est ce feeling d’infini qui transparaît dans tout l’album avec de menus changements de dynamique et de timbre. De subtils gargouillis aquatiques quasi irréels des enregistrements de terrain interviennent par petites touches çà et là. Les Rodrigues ont investi l’improvisation radicale / expérimentale en essayant des idées et des concepts en constante évolution avec une réelle consistance et un supplément d’âme. Au lieu de chercher à caractériser leur démarche multiforme, je préfère écouter leurs différents enregistrements (souvent différents les uns des autres) avec attention en admirant les détails de leur exécution/ improvisation. Jean-Michel van Schouwburg (Orynx)

Finally, the newest of these releases is Cyclic Symmetry, a single long (more than 70 minutes) track recorded in Lisbon this past January. Cyclic Symmetry likewise features Rodrigues & Rodrigues (here noted as using curved "Bach.bogen" bows), this time with frequent collaborator Carlos Santos. (He does all the graphic design & much of the mixing for Creative Sources, for instance, including appearing on various earlier albums.) Santos is credited only with field recordings, but the album seems to have been his conception, and may have involved a fair amount of post-production. (Cyclic Symmetry is also an album with no "outside guest," a relative rarity of late on Creative Sources.) The string duo sounds, which would fit neatly enough on a Scelsi album, come in waves, perhaps literally epicycles, as depicted by the graphics. There seems to be quite a bit of precision to how the sounds enter & exit across the long temporal canvas, although to what degree it's actually mathematical is unclear. Similar concerns to those of Chant seem reflected once more, but here with pre-recorded examples of crickets & running water, etc. There are also extended periods of silence (although when the strings play, they are generally audible). In other words, abstraction is set against environmental sounds according to a complicated temporal involution. The ultra-brief notes suggest simply leaving Cyclic Symmetry on loop, meaning (I guess) that it's conceived to be background music. Personally, although it's so similar in conception to the results of some of my actual listening (which includes sounds "from the environment" whether I want them or not), I didn't find having the environment packaged in this way to be particularly compelling: It's an interesting idea, but didn't really work for me in practice. (This discussion also reminds me to revisit Ohio as background listening, as I had intended.) As I remarked to my partner, we have our own crickets. Still, Cyclic Symmetry does mark an overlapping exploration of everyday listening. 26 October 2016. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

Cyclic Symmetry begins at its most active. All three musicians take part, Ernesto Rodrigues scraping the strings on his viola, Guilherme deriving deep drones from his cello, and Carlos Santos providing pulsing tones. After three minutes of development, the music fades to a several-second silence which is broken by the sound of a buzzing field, followed by muffled strings. The cello gradually increases in volume but, after another few minutes, fades in tandem with the viola. The chirping persists, and Rodrigues and Rodrigues re-enter, splashing their monotones against cricketed backdrop. All three musicians fade to a silence that is abruptly broken once again by the strings. The album repeats in this manner: several minute intervals of sound — sometimes musical, other times field recordings, most often both — punctuated with silence. Then the process starts again and repeats, in a series of differentiated loops.

It is difficult to determine a lead on this album. If anything, however, it seems Santos provides the backbone, choosing the ambiance over which Rodrigues and Rodrigues drag their bows and spread their drones. It is not as if the field recordings never occupy the foreground. They do. For the most part, however, they provide a sonic landscape through which the strings waft, wade, and weave, in a seemingly endless series of cycles and somewhat symmetrical potentialities. The effect is subtle. Cycles gradually build on each other for several minutes, then fade. As individual fragments, each one seems underdeveloped and underrealized. As a whole, however, they take the listener on a journey that is at once terrestrial — Santos' contributions offer this grounding — and temporally disorienting. Though the technological restrictions of the CD and digital formats force a de facto start- and endpoint, this album has no musical beginning and no definitive conclusion. Or, rather, it has numerous potential beginnings and conclusions that make for equally coherent experiences. One can begin in a cricket field or an aviary, one of numerous lakes and rivers, or a drizzling rain wherein droplets seem to intermittently fall on and interfere with the microphones. Or, one can begin with the silent backdrops, with or without strings. There is no narrative, though there is both familiarity and mystery. There is no musical progression or directionality, though there is change and subtlety. If you listen to Creative Sources recordings, such a description is likely not a surprise. The precise method and means of achieving such an effect, however, are what makes Cyclic Symmetry so distinctive and absorbing. Nick Ostrum (The Squid’s Ear)

amoa hi

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS367, Lisbon 2016

1. omama - 09'17''

2. yõrixiama - 08'15''

3. ayokora - 10'55''

4. sitipari si - 05'06''

5. rõrõ konari - 13'08''

6. remoremo moxi - 09'04''

Marco Scarassatti - Kreiser (self-made instrument)

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola

Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello, Pocket Trumpet

Nuno Torres - Alto Saxophone

Recorded in March 2016, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/amoa-hi

Reviews

É com músicos portugueses que o improvisador e inventor de «esculturas sonoras», como lhes chama, Marco Scarassatti assina o seu trabalho mais próximo da mística indígena do Brasil, e se “amoa hi” não reproduz propriamente a música dos índios do Amazonas, adopta o espírito desta de forma brilhante. Com um forte cariz imagético – poderia funcionar como a banda sonora de um filme etnográfico ou, melhor ainda, de ficção –, os seis temas (todos improvisações) reunidos não só têm como títulos expressões autóctones (exemplos são “ayokora”, “rõrõ konari” ou “remoremo moxi”) como nos induzem imagens da floresta profunda, “entregando-nos” as mesmas com uma aura de mistério e um carácter onírico que nos leva a querer parar tudo o que estamos a fazer para nos deixarmos transportar por este mundo acústico muito próprio.

Fica imediatamente claro que, se os nomes de Ernesto Rodrigues, Guilherme Rodrigues e Nuno Torres figuram ao lado do de Scarassati na bela capa (de Carlos Santos), este é, sobretudo, um disco do artista sediado em Belo Horizonte. As coordenadas derivam da tendência reducionista da improvisação, como esta dando primazia aos timbres e às texturas, mas a permanente agitação distingue a proposta de tudo aquilo que se fez sobre a bandeira do “near silence”. Em termos de filiação estética, terá mais que ver com as abordagens de um Hugh Davies, uma das referências maiores da criação musical com novos instrumentos, na associação deste com músicos que utilizavam instrumentos convencionais com técnicas extensivas e vocabulários alternativos. Mas tem algo mais que se lhe diga, e isso é, aqui, o essencial: uma espécie de neoprimitivismo que procura regressar à origem da organização dos sons para propor outro caminho que não o tomado pela música ocidental. Sublimes momentos vos esperam. Rui Eduardo Paes (Jazz.pt)

Após Rios Enclausurados e Rumor, Scarassatti lançou este ano Amoa Hi, também pelo selo português Creative Sources, também gravado em uma sessão de improviso, desta vez ao lado de Ernesto Rodrigues, Guilherme Rodrigues e Nuno Torres. Mais atmosférico e musicalmente direcionado do que os anteriores— percebemos de fato um conjunto de músicos construindo uma estrutura musical, com momentos e progressões — Amoa Hi é também mais diversificado na paleta de sons. Serialismo drone, em que cada linha se entrelaça com a outra, e assim por diante. Bernardo Oliveira (O Cafezinho)

"Amoa Hi" é a busca por um tipo de música originária (a indígena) que sumiu na cristalização da produção contemporânea. É essencial ouvir isso. Henrique Barbosa Justini (Anthem Albums)

Fort heureusement, Creative Sources publie des compacts insérés dans des pochettes cartonnées nettement plus plates et commodes à ranger que les anciens jewel-box plastiques cassables et moins esthétiques.

 En effet, la production CS, au départ un micro label radical responsable du développement du réductionnisme, new silence, lower case et autres tendances expérimentales minimalistes (de tout acabit), est devenue exponentielle. Elle frise aujourd’hui les 400 numéros avec une quasi absence de personnalités « d’envergure » au point de vue de la notoriété. On note ici et là, une fois et par hasard, les noms de Paul Lovens et John Edwards avec Paul Hubweber. Un grand nombre des artistes du catalogue CS sont le plus souvent peu connus en dehors de la région où ils opèrent et une bonne partie des « minimalistes » qui avaient été publiés aux premières heures du label ne s’y manifestent plus. Aussi CS publie (toutes ?) les nombreuses sessions et des concerts d’Ernesto Rodrigues et de son fils Guilhermo en compagnie d’improvisateurs portugais et étrangers et  quelques grands ensembles très cohérents sous sa direction qui réunissent un nombre impressionnant de musiciens portugais (Variable Geometry Orchestra, Ensemble IKB). Pour une ville comme Lisbonne, c’est remarquable vu les difficultés avec lesquelles se débattent les improvisateurs radicaux. Ses enregistrements  ont souvent le bonheur d’illustrer ses tentatives réussies à improviser librement en suivant des démarches et cheminements diversifiés. En ce qui me concerne, Ernesto est devenu un des improvisateurs incontournables  des années 2000 et suivantes avec Jacques Demierre, Urs Leimgruber, Rhodri Davies, Michel Doneda , Birgit Ulher etc…. parmi ceux qui apportent de l‘eau au moulin de la scène. Enregistré au plus près de l’émission du son, le groupe d’Amoa hi révèle les interstices, l’épiderme, les craquements, le souffle dans l’acte de jouer en dématérialisant la spécificité de l’instrument de musique. Chacun d’eux est devenu un générateur de sons, un objet sonique envisagé plutôt comme une sculpture sonore, pour en exposer les propriétés timbrales et texturales de leur mécanique vibratoire. La forme musicale qui s’échappe de leur pratique est essentiellement une expression bruitiste. Les valeurs harmoniques, pulsations et accents sont soigneusement évités. La tension du corps, des doigts ou de la bouche, en est fort relâchée et l’humeur et les intensions expressives qui affecte les sons dans le jeu instrumental sont neutres, indifférenciées. Plutôt qu’expression du corps des musiciens et de leurs émotions dans l’échange, l’improvisation se focalise sur la machinerie instrumentale comme si on en révélait la nature de ses composants : bois, vernis et crin (les Rodrigues), tube, anche et air (Torres) et la matière d’un curieux instrument fait maison (Scarassati). À suivre. Jean-Michel van Schouwburg (Orynx)

My discussion of Chant from a couple of weeks ago seems like a good starting point for a discussion of some recent releases from Ernesto Rodrigues & Creative Sources. The first album I want to mention especially is Amoa hi, recorded in Lisbon this past March by a quartet consisting of Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues (the latter also on pocket trumpet, in addition to his regular cello), frequent collaborator Nuno Torres on alto sax, and Marco Scarassatti (b.1971) on self-made instruments. The instrument (or instruments) is called the "kraiser" on the album, and whereas I wasn't able to determine exactly what that is, there is a Youtube (a site I do not suggest that you support) video of Scarassatti in a duo improvisation with a Marcelo Kraiser, and I assume that the sorts of objects they use are similar, perhaps identical. Scarassatti is a professor in Brazil, and "amoa hi" is the (mythical, if you will) "song tree" of the Yanomami (described elsewhere as "forest people") of Northwest Brazil. Whereas Chant includes explicit invocations of serial music & other contemporary "classical" techniques, Amoa hi is more generally evocative of an environmental setting & human activity. It's not an exploration of audibility, but there is a definite sense of emergent sound amidst a breathing-like pulse of tension & relaxation. In this case, what we might imagine as sounds of the forest are mediated more by distant human banging or traffic than by classical abstraction, and such "echoes" can mark a change of scene. The plucking & rubbing & such involved might suggest something of the "energized surfaces" of Gino Robair (such as on The Apophonics On Air, an album that comes off sounding much more like a standard sax trio in this context), and the overall texture & pace of the quartet remind me a bit of the Sandra Weiss Quintet on Ramble. In all three cases, I imagine that actually watching the performers would be illuminating, and the kraiser of Amoa hi does remain something of a mystery as it intersects with some of the more standard concerns of the Rodrigueses. (And I have watched people play some rather elaborately home-welded objects here in California, so might have some reasonable guesses as to what's involved.) Much of the mood, including a focus on strings, does seem rather similar to that of Chant, although here involving more the hustle of modern industrial life (at a distance) than an abstract literary pole. 26 October 2016. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

Titled for the Amazonas Indians, Brazilian sound sculptor Marco Scarassatti performs on his self-made instrument the Kraiser in a quartet with Creative Sources regulars Ernesto Rodrigues, Guilherme Rodrigues, and Nuno Torres for a dream-like set of improvisations named with indigenous expressions, blending neoprimitivism with creative acoustic improvisation. (Squidco)

The world of the American maverick composers and performers, including still controvertial figures such as Harry Partch, Henry Brant and Anthony Braxton, bears intergenerational fruit on this fascinating and beautiful quartet session. Marco Scarassatti's self-made instruments are placed in the service of Creative Sources stalwarts Ernesto and Guilherme Rodriguez along with Nuno Torres, wielding their standard viola, pocket trumpet and cello to create luscious but sparse soundscapes that traverse the no-man's land between Spontaneous Music Ensemble and much of what the Wandelweiser label releases.
Whatever the ethnic concerns that dictate the cryptic titles, these are pieces imbued with an unerring sense of continually changing soft-focus clarity. There's almost a guilty pleasure gained from luxuriating in the triadic opening of "Omama." It swells, looms larger than life but softly, addictively sweet yet foundationally rock-solid, only to prove ephemeral, fading into a post-Cagian silence that nearly erases the sonority from memory in anticipation of what follows. Superficially similar, the drones on "Remoremo Moxi" are shot through, beneath the tranquil surface, with pointillistic clangs, scratches and metallic twangings, suggesting the kinds of wire-and-bar configuration of the instrument Scarassatti is playing on this extraordinary improvisation; but the piece is important for another and deeper reason: part of the way through, the vastly reverberant space the quartet is creating fades to near black, and suddenly, especially on headphones, the room in which the recording is actually taking place swims into sharp focus. The space is not small but not overly large, but it's completely different than the picture painted by the various instrumental configurations would imply.

Repeated listening reveals a constantly shifting world of minute changes amidst a background of quasi-discomfort similar to that in Faure's Requiem. The experience of inhabiting these six diverse planes of sound is both disembodying and somehow disquieting. Pitch becomes a matter of as much relativity as timbre and duration, while the surface timbres shift with the softness of butter, and what transpires beneath can take on the strength of steel or the durability of stone. The quartet doesn't reveal its secrets easily, but once glimpsed, they are not soon forgotten. Marc Medwin (The Squid’s Ear)

Siete Colores

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS355, Lisbon 2016

1. 23°44′00″S 65°29′00″O - 16'46''

2. 4170m - 31'28''

Fernando Perales - Electric Guitar & Electronics

Abdul Moimême - Prepared Electric Guitar

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola

Recorded in January 2016, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/siete-colores

Reviews

Siete Colores presents a trio of Rodrigues’ viola and the dual electric guitars of Moimême and Argentinean Fernando Perales (perhaps best known for the group Reynols with Anla Courtis). As “23º44'00"S 65º29'00" O” opens what’s immediately notable is the reverb, which lends the impression the music was recorded in a cavernous environment. However, as the piece moves on, there are hints this might be an illusion—effects applied to Perales’ guitar—and that your brain has been fooled in the way reverb easily fools it: into imagining the great open space required to produce what are only artificial reflections of sound. For their part, Rodrigues and Moimême inhabit this imaginary cavern, sounding its depths, generating music with the odd quality of being both ominous and bright.

At the start of “4170 m”, Rodrigues touches bow to string with such lightness that it sounds like the faintest breath through a horn, a remarkable evocation of respiration via vibrating string. The guitars sound so distant, it’s as though they are in another room, or part of another recording altogether that someone is listening to somewhere else far away. Listening feels like a suspension—like walls and floors have dropped away and no matter which direction you reach, nothing solid, tangible will ever be touched. Sound waves may travel through the medium of air, but this music produces a kind of synesthesia, a mental image of prismatic light rippling through the aether, or sunrays splayed upon Seven Colors Hill in northwest Argentina, from which the album takes its name. Dan Sorrells (The Free Jazz Collective)

Deux longues pièces pour un total de 48 minutes avec des titres chiffrés dont je vous passe le détail. Deux guitaristes : Fernando Perales, electric guitar & electronics et Abdul Moimême : prepared electric guitar avec Ernesto Rodrigues au violon alto. Dans la lignée de Keith Rowe (A Dimension of Perfectly Ordinary Reality 1989) et de Fred Frith qui prolongea brillamment le travail de son aîné lorsque Keith avait pour un temps abandonné la scène musicale (Live In Japan Vol 1 & 2). Restée longtemps une pratique marginale, cette manière de traiter la guitare en objet sonore, couchée sur une table, environnée d’objets, d’effets, chambre d’écho, trafiquée, préparée, malmenée est devenue un lieu commun de la scène expérimentale et improvisée, ou noise. Mais je dois dire que la manière très présente et exceptionnelle de comment c’est enregistré, la dynamique et la relation / intégration entre les deux guitaristes et leurs jeux respectifs, le sens harmonique, tout concourt à rendre la musique de Siete Colores séduisante et requérante. Et Ernesto Rodigues, me direz-vous ? Son jeu s’insère dans le pandemonium des guitaristes de manière discrète comme si son alto et son archet faisait partie intégrante des installations de ses compères. On devine des frottements lents qui semblent être produits par l’alto. Et bien sûr au  n° 2 vers les minutes 22/ 23. Qui joue quoi d’ailleurs importe peu. Le paysage sonore évolue sans cesse, scories du son des cordes frottées à l’éponge métallique ou avec d’autres ustensiles, altération du son vers une densité réverbérante, frottements métallisés, chocs subits et notes tenues, voix irréelles et multipliées, bruissements industriels, grattages minutieux, crissements amples, feedback ténu, sustain irisé, cycles lents, flottements de vibrations métalliques, machineries du rêve. Ce que j’apprécie particulièrement est la profonde qualité sonore et l’absence de faux pas / vulgarité amplifiée comme trop souvent. Un excellent disque d’une musique en constante évolution où l’apparence statique est sublimée par une sensibilité sonore contagieuse. Jean-Michel van Schouwburg (Orynx)

Gravity

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS361, Lisbon 2016

1. Gravity - 39'36''

STRING THEORY

Ernesto Rodrigues - viola, harp
Raquel Fernandes - violin
Maria do Mar - violin
David Maranha - violin
Guilherme Rodrigues - cello
Yu Lin Humm - cello
Helena Espvall - cello
Miguel Ivo Cruz - viola da gamba
Bernardo Álvares - double bass
João Madeira - double bass
Abdul Moimême - classical guitar, 12 string acoustic guitar, mandolin
Flak - acoustic guitar
Emídio Buchinho - acoustic guitar
John Klima - acoustic bass guitar
Adriana Sá - zither
Joana Bagulho - harpsichord
Simão Costa - piano

Recorded in March 2016, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/gravity

Reviews

Sans nul doute, un des plus beaux projets réalisés par la galaxie des improvisateurs portugais fédérés autour de l’altiste Ernesto Rodrigues et de ses amis. Tous les instruments utilisés par les dix-huit musiciens présents sont « à cordes » qu’elles soient frottées (violons, violes de gambe, violoncelles, contrebasses), pincées (guitares, cithares, harpes) ou frappées / pincées par un mécanisme à clavier (piano, clavecin). Gravity est une longue improvisation qui occupe toute la durée du compact, excellemment enregistrée et préparée pour le disque par Ernesto lui-même. Quand on imagine les difficultés rencontrées pour trouver un lieu décent, rassembler autant de musiciens, les focaliser sur une idée bien précise comme cet orchestre à cordes, on peut d’ores et déjà saluer le travail extraordinaire de ces musiciens portugais réunis par Ernesto Rodrigues, lui-même venant de produire en 2016 pas moins de dix-huit albums avec ses collaborations. Un disque avec 18 musiciens et 18 albums Creative Sources, dont quatre présentent la musique d’ensembles collectifs plus imposants tels le présent String Theory, Théatron, IKB et Variable Geometry Orchestra, ces deux derniers ensembles n’étant pas à leur coup d’essai. Les effectifs du Variable Geometry Orchestra dans Quasar leur nouvel album culminent à 46 musiciens. Collectivement et musicalement, il s’agit donc d’une œuvre et un travail de longue haleine et on peut d’ores et déjà considérer la personnalité d’Ernesto Rodrigues, l’animateur infatigable de Lisbonne aussi incontournable que celles d’Eddie Prévost, Rhodri Davies, Michel Doneda ou Franz Hautzinger, par exemple, parmi les artistes qui ont contribué à renouveler la pratique de l’improvisation libre ces vingt dernières années vers des formes empreintes de minimalisme, mot qualifiant grossièrement les tendances lower-case, réductionnistes, new silence, etc... Et quoi de plus exemplaire que ce Gravity qui, débutant par un ostinato fantomatique, visite les agrégats de sons, de frottements, de pincements, de curieuses vibrations, de grincements dynamiques dans une vision kalidéoscopique et arachnéenne de l’action instrumentale cordiste. Violoncelle ou guitare préparées, miasmes de violon, grattages, sons fantômes, bruissements mystérieux.Bien qu’il semble qu’un parcours obligé soit tracé, certains instruments interviennent de concert comme si le moment était choisi : l’improvisation libre et leurs qualités innées d’écoute mutuelle, d’action et de réaction simultanées et de finesse dans l’empathie, permettent aux compagnons de String Theory de tracer un chemin, de construire un univers à la fois homogène et hétérogène suivant le point de vue sur lequel on se place. En effet, une communauté de sentiment, une température ambiante partagée par chacun se dessine et relie toutes les spécificités sonores, timbrales, les dynamiques, les affirmations franches et les connivences enjouées qui affleurent au long des trente neuf minutes trente cinq secondes. Les actions des musiciens peuvent se révéler très diversifiées ou concentrées dans un même élan selon le feeling de chacun. Gravity est un enregistrement unique dans les annales de la musique improvisée et c’est pourquoi je vais m’attarder par la suite sur les projets sœurs IKB, Variable Geometry Orchestra et Théatron dans les chroniques suivantes. Ce n’est pas tous les jours que des formations orchestrales aussi étendues soient documentées dans le domaine de l’improvisation contemporaine. Jean-Michel van Schouwburg (Orynx)

A sense of both lightness and weight drawn from Portuguese viola player's Ernesto Rodrigues' 18-piece String Theory, in a large and detailed improvisation using an incredible array of string sources, including viola, harp, violin, cello, viola da gamba, double bass, classical, acoustic and 12-string guitars, mandolin, zither, harpsichord, and piano. (Squidco)