Medieval Lute 2

My reproduction 4-course Medieval Lute, commissioned from luthier Jo Dusepo, arrived in March of last year. It was beautifully made and I was very pleased with it. 

Unfortunately, I’ve had more pressing Folk and Old Time projects which I had to bring up to speed. As those projects have now stabilised, I can finally give the Lute more attention.

The Lute has a very different feel from my other instruments, mainly because of the bowl back and lightness, but all my stringed instruments are held slightly differently and it's just a question of getting used to it. 

The tuners are friction as on a violin, not geared, and these take some getting used to. I broke one string tuning up, and one of the tied frets came off and had to be replaced. 

It produces a very reasonable volume which will be augmented by thickening up the melody. Melody will be absolutely central. I won't be using any post-Medieval triad chords with thirds. There's no point in having something like this and then treating it like a modern guitar. 

So my options will include doubling notes to create a more rhythmical pattern, strummed polyphonic and alternately picked drones. And then there are embellishments like slides and hammer-ons which seem to come naturally on stringed instruments. All these will be played with a Risha rather than fingers.

I've got a selection of melodies I want to play and these have been tabbed out in Musescore, so learning them is pretty straightforward. The rest is just fun and experiment.

Medieval Lute

 

I fell in love with the handcrafted instrument in the video, a reconstruction of a 4-course Medieval Lute made and played by Jo Dusepo, so I have commissioned one from her. They take about two months to make but there is an eight month waiting list.

The Lute originated from the Middle Eastern Oud to which chromatic frets were later added, but many believe that a quite Eastern approach persisted. This has been a huge area of debate, as indicated here. Nobody  knows for certain how mediaeval instruments were played, so there is a lot of room for interpretation. Styles vary from Fine Art to Folky, and from foursquare European to Silk Road fusion.

Medieval music was modal and harmonised with Unisons, Octaves, Fourths and Fifths but Thirds were considered discordant so I won't be playing any modern triad chords. After a lot of discussion I've decided to have it tuned DADG, a drone tuning which Jo suggested. There is obviously a coincidence here with DADGAD guitar tuning and the Zouk (GDAD).