Early Guitars and Vihuela

A network for historic guitars and vihuelas

Hello, 
I have recently bought a swedish baroque lute which i will be fixing so it's playable again.
Therefore i will be needing some new strings for it.
Does anyone know where i can buy such strings?
cheers
- Frederik

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It depends...

If you use nylons you can order from Pyramid

If you use nylguts then Aquila.

There are a few string calculators available online for early instruments.

You should know

- the pitch of strings (consider a=415 or a-440)

- scale lengths

- estimated tension in kgs - for this kind of lute I assume it should be heavier than on regular lutes.. but I am not sure

- material of strings.

Thank you very much for your reply.
I found a website by Kenneth Sparr where he writes the following: 


Also the tuning came from the cittern. In its most developed form the Swedish lute was tuned from the lowest to the highest string in the following manner: A, B, c#, d, e, f#, g#, a, b, c#1, d1, e1, a1, c#2 and e2.

Does this apply to common lute strings in any fashion?

I am quite new to the "lute world" :)

No, not the one I know at least. 

The logics is the same: first five, six or seven strings are tuned in intervals, the basses go diatonically (or tuned half step up/down to fit the key of the piece), but the tuning here is very different from any lute tunings I know.

So if you want to go for authentic tuning you mention above you will just have to go for calculator 

You could go the other way around also...  just string it as an archlute (for Italian repertoire) or german baroque lute (for French or German repertoire). 

Of course it is kind of compromise but it is a way to accomodate the instrument for the purposes - if that's what you need of course.

But anyway you have to consider both scales length and instrument construction to calculate proper length and string tension to make it sound good

This way you will accomodate the instrument for regular lute repertoire...

But it depends on what you need of course.

Are you sure it is baroque?

It looks a lot like the modern instrument. Of course, the head is different and the number of strings makes one wonder if the strings were originally single for all orders.  Besides, the strings on the bridge look fairly modern.


Check Evert Taube playing one of his best songs just about 70 years ago. Sov på min arm

There might be modern strings for that instrument.

Its from 1796 made by a famous swedish luthier at the time called Mathias Petter Kraft. :)
Yes, the strings look quite modern. :)

But it's a copy of a 1769 instrument, isn't it ?

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