Lute

What it means

The lute is a plucked instrument with a rounded body built up from narrow ribs, a flat soundboard with an artfully carved rose, and a pegbox bent back at an angle. The strings are stretched mostly in pairs as courses; the neck carries frets of tied-on gut that can be shifted. Tuning is usually in fourths with a major third in the middle, though the number of strings and the tuning vary considerably depending on period and construction. The music was not written down in staff notation but in tablature, which indicates the fingerings.

Musical use

From the late Middle Ages into the eighteenth century, the lute was one of the most important instruments in Europe: for solo music, for accompanying song, and in ensemble. Its sound is soft, colourful, and quick to decay, which favours a transparent, richly ornamented style of writing. In the Renaissance a large polyphonic repertoire arose; in the Baroque the bass instruments of the family, which served as continuo instruments, came to the fore. In the late eighteenth century the lute lost significance; in the twentieth century it was taken up again with early music. It differs from the guitar in body shape, stringing, tuning, and sound.

Performance practice

Plucking is done with the fingertips of the right hand, the nails kept short; the thumb takes the basses. The touch is light, because the instrument tolerates little tension and the sound lives from colour, not from force. Check the position of the gut frets regularly, since they shift and then spoil the intonation. Tune often — many strings and gut material mean constant retuning, and the courses must be pure within themselves. Learn to read tablature directly instead of transcribing it; it is written for the hand and eases the fingerings.

Bear in mind that the instrument tolerates little tension and lives from a fine touch: whoever forces volume gets a hard sound and courses that quickly go out of tune. Work instead with the point of contact between bridge and soundhole, which controls the colour. In continuo playing keep the chords lean and dampen deliberately, so that the bass stays clear. Check the courses individually for purity, because beating double strings cloud the whole sound. Protect the instrument from heated air, since the soundboard and frets react sensitively.