Lute: Chad musical instrument

Lute is a generic name for any string instrument that have the strings running in a plane parallel to the sound table, more specifically to any plucked string instrument that has a neck and a deep round back or more specifically to an instrument that is from the category of the European lutes. The European lute and the modern near-eastern oud both came from a common father through diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a specific type of instrumental music from the medieval to the late Baroque eras and was the most essential musical instrument for secular music in the Renaissance. It is also an accompaniment, mostly in the vocal works often realizing a basso continuo or performing a written-out accompaniment. The player of this musical instrument is known as letenist or lutanist and a maker of the musical instrument is known as the luthier. The word ‘lute’ and ‘oud’ are derived from the Arabic word ‘al-ud’. Recent research made by Eckard Neubauer opined that the ‘ud’ may turn to be an Arabized version of the Persian name ‘rud’ that means ‘string’, ‘string instrument’ or ‘lute’. It has also been said that the wood in the name may have differentiated the instrument by its wooden soundboard from skin-faced predecessors.

source: shipbrook.net

Lutes are made almost from the wood; the soundboard of the instrument is a teardrop-shaped thin flat plate of resounding wood. In all lutes, the soundboard has a single ornamented sound hole under the strings known as the ‘rose’. The sound hole is not open rather it is covered with a grill in the form of an intertwining vine or a decorated knot that is carved completely out of the wood of the instrument’s soundboard. The shells of the instrument are gathered from thin hardwood called ribs and are joined edge to edge to create a deep rounded body for the instrument. There are braces that are put inside the soundboard of the instrument that gives it strength.

The neck of the instrument is produced of light wood with a veneer of hardwood to make available the durability that is need wed by the fretboard underneath the string of the lute. The lute’s fretboard unlike most othe modern string instruments is mounted flush with the top. The pegbox for lute  prior to the Baroque era was wired back from the neck of the at almost 90 degree to help in holdfing the low tension strings firmly against the nut that is traditionally gummed in place, although it is held in place by strings pressure only. The tuning pegs of the instrument are simple pegs of hardwood that could be tapered and are held in place by friction in holes drilled through the pegbox of the lute. Just like other instruments that use friction pegs, the wood for the pegs is important. As the wood undergoes the unpleasant dimensional changes through age and loss of humidity, it must be have a reasonably circular cross-section to perform properly- as they are no gears or any other mechanical aids for the tuning of the instrument. The shape of the lute belly is almost complex, having a system of barring in which braces are placed perfectly vertical to the strings at a particular lengths along the overall length of the belly, the ends that are angled quite precisely to be adjacent the ribs on any side for structural motives. The thickness of the belly differs, but generally is made at about 1.5 mm to 2 mm. Some luthiers tune the belly of the instrument as they build, and they remove mass and adapt bracing to manufacture desirable sonic results. The belly of the instrument is almost never finished, although in some cases, the luthier may size the top of the instrument with a very thin coat of shellac or glair to help keep it neat. The belly of the lute joins directly to the rib without having any linning gummed to the sides and a cap and the counter cap are gummed to both outside and inside the bottom end of the bowl to give rigidity as well as gluing surface.

The bridge of the instrument is sometimes made with a fruit wood, which is attached to the soundboard specifically at 1/5 to 1/7 the length of the belly. The bridge does not have any separate saddle but holes that are bored into it to which the strings of the instrument attach directly. The bridge of the instrument is made to be reduced in height and length with the small end grasping the treble and the higher and wider end carrying the basses. The bridges are usually ornamented black with carbon black in a binder that is usually shellacked and often have printed decoration. The scrolls or any other decoration on the end of the instrument bridges are integral to the bridge of the lute and are not added afterward as on some renewed guitars.

The frets of the lute are produced of loops of guts that are tied around the neck of the musical instrument. They fray with use andshould be replaced from time to time as they fray. A few axtra partial frets of woods are usually glued to the body of the instrument and this permits the stopping of the highest pitched courses up to a full octave that is higher than the open string, but these are considered anachronistic by some. Handed down the choice between nylon and gut, many luthiers prefer the use of gut as it is acceptable to the sharp angle at the edge of the fingerboard.

The strings of the instrument were historically produced of animal gut, often from the small intestine of sheep; sometimes with the combination of a metal, and are still produced of gut or a synthetic replacement with the metal windings on the lower-pitched strings of the lute. Modern producers of the instrument make both gut and nylon strings and is both in common use by the players of the instrument. Gut is more trustworthy for playing period pieces, but unfortunately it is also more easily affected to irregularity and the pitch lack of firmness due to the changes in humidity. Nylon gives better tuning firmness, although it is seen as chronologically wrong by purist because the tone quality varies from the sound of earlier gut strings. The strings of the lute are tuned in courses of two strings each, but the highest-pitched course often made up of only a string that is called ‘chanterelle’. In the later Baroque lutes, two upper courses are single. The courses of the instrument are numbered serially starting from the highest pitched to the lowest so that the chanterelle is the first course and the next pair of string is the second course. The course of the instrument are tuned in notes of the same pitch for high and intermediate pitches, although for the lower pitches one of the two strings is normally tuned to an octave higher. The two strings of a course are almost stopped and plucked together as if they are one string.

The origin of the lute is difficult to understand because of not being clearly stated and the organologist Curt Sachs differentiated between the short-necked lute and the long-necked lute variety: both are said to be chordophones with a neck as differentiated from the harp and the psalteries. Smith and others disagreed that the long-necked variety is not supposed to be called lute because it existed for at least a century before the invention of the short-necked instrument that suddenly evolved into what is now known as the lute. The lon-necked lute was not called lute until after the 19^th century. Many types of necked chordophones were being used in the old Greek, Egyptian and Iran also the Hittite, Roman, Bulgar, Turkic, Chinese and Armenian cultures. The lute built its familiar look as Barbat in Persia, Armenia and in Byzantium starting in the early 7^th century when it was replaced with a wooden soundboard. As early as the 6^th century, the Bulgars took the short-necked type of the instrument that is called ‘Komuz’ to the Balkans and in the 9^th century, Moors took the ‘oud’ to the Spanish empire. In about the year 1500, much Spanish, Catalan and the Portuguese lutenist took to the ‘vihuela de mano; this is a viol-shaped instrument that is tuned like the lute, although both instrument continued in co-existence. This musical instrument also found its way into the parts of Italy that were under the Spanish domination where it was called the ‘viola da mano’. Another essential thing to know about the transfer of the lute from Arabian to the European culture might have been in the largest island of the Mediterranean Sea, where it was brought either by Byzantine or later by Saracen musicians.

Medieval lutes were 4 or 5 course musical instruments that are plucked with the use a ‘quill’ as the plectrum. There were of many sizes and by the end of the renaissance, about seven sizes of the instrument were recorded. The primary function of the lute was the accompaniment of songs in the middle ages, although very small music that is securely attributed to the lute survives from the time before 1500. In the past few decades, probably in the 15^th century, to play the renaissance polyphony on a single musical instrument, the players of the lute slowly abandoned the quill to choose the plucking of the instrument with the fingertips of the hand and the number of the courses was increased to six and more. The lute was seen as the premier solo musical instrument of the 16^th century, although it continued with the accompaniment of the singers also. By the end of the renaissance, the number of the courses of the instrument increased to ten and during the baroque era, the number continued to increase until it reached 14.

Over the courses of the Baroque era, the lute was highly relegated to the continuo accompaniment and was suddenly superseded in that role by the keyboard instruments. The lute almost stopped being used after 1800. Some kind of lute was still being used for some time in Germany, Ukraine and Sweden.

The lute enjoyed a revival with the growing of interest in historical music over the world and throughout the century. That renewal of interest was further boosted by the early music movement in the 20^th century. The revival of this musical instrument was engineered by some people such as “JulianBream, Hans Neemann, Walter Gerwig and Suzanne Bloch. During the early days of the known music movement, many lutes were built by available luthiers that specialized on the classical guitars. Such lute were produced with the construction that is similar to the classical guitar with fan bracing, heavy tops, fixed fret and lined sides and all of them are anachronistic to that lutes that has existed. The lutes that are carved in the present day are undeniably quite similar to those that survived and were kept in the museum or private collection. They are custom made and that is why they are much more expensive than the mass produced modern instruments like the guitar even though it is not more expensive than the violin. Different from the past, there are many types of lute that are seen today; 5 courses medieval lutes as well as the renaissance lute which has 6 to 10 courses in many pitches for solo and group performance of the renaissance works. In the 13^th century, the lutes were in widespread use in Europe till today and documents opined numerous early performers and composers of music with this musical instrument.

          The lute as a musical instrument has many shapes and sizes with differing strings and courses and with no particular standard for tuning them. Meanwhile, the following seems to have been usually true of the renaissance lute. A 6 course renaissance tenor lute can be tuned in the same pattern and intervals as a tenor viol, with intervals of a perfect fourth between all the courses of the instrument except the 3^rd and the 4^th that varies only by a major third. For lutes that have more than six courses, the extra courses would be added on the low end of the instrument. Due to the large number of the strings, lutes possess very wide necks and it is hard to stop the strings of the instrument beyond the sixth course, so any additional course on the instrument were normally tuned to pitches useful as bass note instead of continuing the regular pattern of fourth and these lower courses and usually played without stopping during any performance. As such, 8 course tenor renaissance lute can be tuned to [(D'D) (F'F) (G'G) (Cc) (FF) (AA) (dd) (g)], and a 10-courselute can be tuned to [(C'C) (D'D) (E♭'E♭) (F'F) (G'G) (Cc) (FF) (AA) (dd) (g)].

Modern lutenists tune to a specific type of pitch standards starting from the A = 392 to 470 Hz depending much on the type of instrument they are playing with. No attempt of a universal pitch standard has existed during the era of the lute’s historical fact of being well liked. The standards differed over time and also from place to place.