{"id":60096,"date":"2012-05-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-student-combines-passions-for-music-history-to-build-ancient-roman-instrument\/"},"modified":"2012-05-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-29T00:00:00","slug":"uri-student-combines-passions-for-music-history-to-build-ancient-roman-instrument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2012\/05\/uri-student-combines-passions-for-music-history-to-build-ancient-roman-instrument\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 student combines passions for music, history to build ancient Roman instrument"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tLincoln resident\u2019s cithara is instrument Nero played as Rome burned<\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 29, 2012 \u2013 Steve Craveiro initially hoped his passion for music would lead him to a successful performance career, but instead it has led him down a completely different path, one that found him building an ancient instrument that Emperor Nero famously played as Rome burned in the first century.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe 溏心vlog免费B站 senior has become somewhat of an expert on the cithara, and with his father\u2019s help, he even built one by hand in the way the Romans would have.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI started playing guitar when I was 12, and I worked for a while in California doing session work, but it was more of a business there and not the passion that I loved,\u201d said Craveiro, a resident of Lincoln. \u201cSo I enrolled at 溏心vlog免费B站 for a degree in history, my second passion.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tBridget Buxton, 溏心vlog免费B站 assistant professor of history, encouraged Craveiro to combine his interests for an independent study project by researching a historic instrument. Together they identified the cithara as an instrument that deserved new attention.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThis was the virtuoso\u2019s instrument, the rock star guitarist\u2019s instrument of the time,\u201d Craveiro said. \u201cIt was looked down upon by the elders and the elites as a perversion of an ancient art, sort of like rock music was not too long ago. But it appealed to the masses.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe 11-string instrument resembles a lyre and can be strummed like a guitar or plucked like a harp. When Buxton suggested he build one, Craveiro was uncertain he had the skills to do so.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cMy father has an auto body shop, and I have some experience there working with my hands, but not building something from scratch,\u201d he said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t so much the building of it that I was worried about, it was conceptualizing how to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAccording to Craveiro, in Roman times the instrument was built from parts from old furniture. When his father came home with an antique hickory chair, Craveiro knew it would be the basis of his cithara. <\/p>\n


\nThe back of the chair became the instrument\u2019s frame, and its legs were incorporated into the design as well. The sound box is a cigar box made of mahogany, a wood that Craveiro said is often used to build acoustic guitars. The addition of tuning pegs and nylon strings from some of his old guitars completed the job.<\/p>\n


\nBuxton was so pleased with the finished product that she invited Craveiro to play it in one of her history classes on the last day of the semester.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cSteve is a talented musician, and he produced an excellent paper about the cithara,\u201d said Buxton. \u201cHe has even tuned it to the same chord structure that the ancients used. The instrument is a gorgeous piece of craftsmanship and the result of some very sophisticated research.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWhen asked what his next step is, Craveiro was uncertain.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI\u2019m still absorbing the fact that I made it,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know if I was cut out for this kind of directed study. I had a lot of anxiety about it, but I feel good about it now and want to learn more. It really showed me what I\u2019m capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWith a few more classes to complete before he graduates, Craveiro thinks he may want to pursue graduate school to continue his studies of ancient instruments, though he has other ideas percolating in his head as well.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThis thing started out as an academic exercise, but when it started coming to fruition, it became much more than that,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to make it a playable instrument. We\u2019ll just have to wait and see where else it takes me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lincoln resident\u2019s cithara is instrument Nero played as Rome burned KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 29, 2012 \u2013 Steve Craveiro initially hoped his passion for music would lead him to a successful performance career, but instead it has led him down a completely different path, one that found him building an ancient instrument that Emperor Nero […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}