Greetings, worthy friends. You have found your way back to my campfire – and just as I’ve decided to talk about the lute, even though there are far more exciting tales to tell.
Like how the business with the kindling in my garden turned out, and why Vela agreed to join me in visiting an old badger lady to – yes, here it comes – bake cookies. It was quite a sight: the Huntress of the North baking cookies and trying her hand at social graces, hehe… Or even more exciting: the time she sent me up to the southern mountain plateau, where Fosca promptly thrashed me for brazenly trespassing on wolf territory, even though… well, I’m digressing again. This is supposed to be about lutes and how to play them properly.
Yes, my German friend over there, the one is sitting in front of a lighty box:
follow this path
You know, when I tune my baroque lute and place my paws upon the fretboard, it is never merely a matter of operating an instrument—it is a dialogue with the wood. Many who listen to our guild often ask a fundamental question: Why do we bards play our harmonies and chords with such deliberate, almost stately calm, only to send our fingers racing across the strings at breathtaking speed during solo runs the very next moment?The answer is not simply a matter of musical taste. No, it is rather the instrument’s peculiar, independent spirit that compels one to show restraint. After hours of frustration that seem to stretch on forever, you realize that the only thing that truly helps is understanding your lute and respecting its will. You simply cannot force anything here.
A few words on resonance and the art of clarity
Let us first consider monophonic melody playing:
Playing single notes is, one might say, the more primordial method of making music on this instrument. In earlier articles, I traced the lute’s journey back to around the 14th century. Whether that is correct or not is a matter of perspective, as there were precursors dating back to the Ottoman *oud*—and yes, that instrument has been known since the 10th century—but a history lesson won’t really help us here.
No, the real point is that in the 14th century—where we begin our look at the lute—it was actually played primarily with a quill, plucking the notes individually.
This has fundamental consequences for the entire style of playing:
One can play with considerable vigor, nuance, and speed, provided one remains mindful of how the slender, pear-shaped body—well, one might say it “holds” the notes and allows them to “linger.” As soon as individual strings are played in harmony with others, the energy transfers accordingly, causing other strings to vibrate sympathetically. This builds up into that famous “floating sound”—right up to the point where so many notes begin to mingle that the lute can no longer present each voice with equal clarity.
A skilled bard—or “lutenist,” as they are called today—knows exactly where that tipping point lies, the moment when he must give the lute a chance to “breathe.” Yes, I know that sounds odd, but a lute signals its displeasure with the situation through the vibration of the wood.
If you tune in to the resonance, you can almost feel the lute speaking to you, warning you when the clarity of the music is beginning to give way to the weight of its own sound.
Polyphonic playing emerged later within the context of courtly music.
In short, the instrument was gradually called upon to serve purposes far beyond its earlier role as a companion for melody.
The aim was to play complex chords or counter-melodies in octaves, struck simultaneously with the middle and upper voices. Incidentally, this is precisely why the technique evolved from using a quill to playing by hand with complex plucking patterns: there was simply no other way. In any case, the handling of the lute becomes particularly demanding at this stage…
Here, a restrained and strictly controlled attack speed is essential. The reason for this lies—who would have guessed—in the very construction of the lute. The lute’s body has exceptionally thin walls, and its soundboard is extremely light. Physically, the lute’s delicate structure rewards clarity. When dense harmonies follow one another in rapid succession, the instrument’s many resonances begin to overlap. If complex chords are struck too quickly one after another, sound energy builds up inside the instrument. The vibrations of the courses begin to weave themselves together so densely that individual voices are gradually lost within the tapestry of sound.
The result is a blurred, indistinct sound or a rattling timbre—the tone simply turns into a muddy, undifferentiated mess. When playing polyphonically, a wise lutenist gives the instrument time to breathe. Chord must be granted the physical space to develop within the body of the instrument.
Let the sound resonate cleanly and fully before the next complex attack.
May your wood always sound pure,
Yours truly, Fian
