Archive for the ‘Strings’ Category

Introducing the Descant Lute

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

The European lute is featured in instrumental music from the early Renaissance to the late Baroque periods. It’s early origins are vague, but it’s common ancestor is the Egyptian oud. There is evidence of the lute in Europe as early as the 12th century, but it really became popular in the 15th century, falling out of use around 1800. The lute enjoyed a revival with the early music movement of the twentieth century, and has grown in popularity.

Descant Lute

Our Descant Lute is a beautiful short necked lute that has a bowl back of lacewood staves. There are eight tied nylon frets on a lacewood neck that features a rosewood fret board. The peg box is lacewood with tuners of rosewood. The soundboard is made of European spruce with a rosewood bridge and rosewood end pin. It has 13 nylon strings in 7 courses with a scale length of 19.75″ (500mm). Explore!

Introducing the Wildwood Dulcimer

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Fun, lightweight, and easy to play, our Wildwood Dulcimer has the rich sound of a mountain dulcimer with just a little bit of banjo twang. The body style of the Wildwood allows it to be played like a guitar instead of the traditional “flat in the lap” position of the mountain dulcimer. The teardrop spruce soundboard with three rosettes stands out in contrast to the long, thin rosewood fingerboard. Choose between a dark rosewood or a creamy lacewood back.

Wildwood Dulcimer

The Wildwood has three string courses: a wound string at the top, an unwound center string, and two unwound strings tuned in unison, at the bottom. Many tunings will work, but we recommend the traditional DAD to make it easy to pick up and play. The frets are arranged in a diatonic scale, just like an Appalachian mountain dulcimer, but added is the infamous “6 ½” fret just below the octave position allowing play in Ionian mode. The possibilities are many, playing the Wildwood Dulcimer can as easy or as complicated as you care to make it. Explore!