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Building a Medieval Lute
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![]() ![]() The lute bridge is carved from a piece of Swiss Pear and capped with a thin piece of English boxwood. The bridge is made with a removable wedge underneath in order to create a precise angle. The treble end of the bridge will be slightly lower than the bass end. This is a Renaissance refinement--we don't know if Medieval lute makers did this or not, but since this particular lute had six courses instead of five, it is really a late Medieval, early Renaissance lute. | |
![]() ![]() The pegbox is cut from the same wood as the body and neck in order to achieve a matching figure and color. At left, a chamfer is being cut to let the strings pass easily into the pegbox. At right, holes are being drilled for the pegs on a fixture that holds the pegbox at the precise angle required to keep the pegs parallel to the fretnut. | |
![]() ![]() I chose a rosette with four-fold symmetry, which is often seen in medieval inconography. This painting by Melozzo da Forli, c. 1480, is now in the Vatican Museum (Pinsocoteca), and depicts a common medieval rose design. Later Renaissance lutes would typically have roses with six or eight-fold symmetry. | |
![]() ![]() In the absense of extant medieval lutes, I had to guess at a bracing pattern. I simply took a Renaissance lute bracing pattern and dropped two of the braces. This made sense because this lute body is a bit smaller than the average Renaissance lute. I like to dye the braces underneath the rosette black so they can't be easily seen from the top. | |
![]() ![]() Every instrument that I build is mapped. I create a drawing showing soundboard thickness at many different points, bracing pattern, height and thickness of braces, type of wood, and so on. This allows me to duplicate an instrument that has a particularly pleasing sound. At right is my label glued into the body. | |
![]() ![]() The lute is nearly finished. At right the fingerboard waits to be glued on. I chose a piece of maple that is the same color as the soundboard, since this seems to be the way the medieval lute is most commonly depicted in medieval inconography. | |
![]() ![]() The lute with the soundboard and fingerboard glued on. At right is the finished instrument. My cases are custom made to fit my instruments by Kingham MTM Cases Ltd in England. I send a drawing of the instrument with dimensions and they build a case to an exact fit. |
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