The traditional lute has tuning problems, namely:-
[1] Friction pegs, which slip, and have little accuracy. You have to pull them out, turn them to the right pitch, and push them back in again. The same problem occurs on the violin/viola/'cello family, but they have a separate tailpiece, so it's usual to insert fine tuners between the bridge and the tailpiece. However, a lute has a fixed bridge, so this is impossible.
[2] Gut strings, which, since they've been grown by nature, and not manufactured, vary in diameter at different parts of their length, are never of an exact diameter, and can break easily.
[3] The table is lightly made. With anything from 12 to 20 strings, if you leave the lute in tune, as the temperature drops at night the strings contract and will pull the bridge off. For that reason, you should slacken the strings off before putting the lute away in its case.
As you can imagine, with over a dozen gut strings and friction pegs, you spend more time tuning the lute than playing it. There's a famous saying, going back to mediaeval times, that he who plays the lute for fifty years spends forty of those years tuning it.
I find that I rarely play my traditional lutes, because they take so long to tune and don't stay in tune. I have a nylon-strung 12-string guitar, made in Barcelona, which I keep tuned to the German G#min. lute tuning, so that I can practise lute pieces. I also have several citterns tuned the same way. The cittern, of course, has metal strings and machine tuners, and doesn't suffer from the lute's tuning problems.
But I needed a lute which stayed in tune, to use on my multiple-tracked Early Music recordings, where I play all the instruments myself, one at a time, using instruments that I built myself. So I set about building a lute which would stay in tune. I didn't want it to be like those "glutes" (6-string guitar-lutes) which are heavily-made, and basically a guitar with a bowl back.
I built the neck with a slotted peghead and machine tuners...
As in all lutes, the back of the peghead is closed. (Notice the felt backing, which is one of my signature features.) Notice also that there is no nut. The angle of the strings over the end of the fingerboard means that their tension keeps them in place. I also used a zero fret, which makes a nut unnecessary. I think all fretted instruments should have zero frets. It makes no sense to me that open strings should be vibrating against bone, whereas fingered strings are vibrating against metal. Most buzzing on instruments comes from the nut, and making the slots the same depth as a fret is a tricky business.
The bridge is similar to that of a guitar. A lute normally has the strings coming out of the bridge parallel to the table. On mine the strings pass over a bone insert. This, I thought, would improve the tone, while putting more angular vibrations on the table.
I used shellac for finishing. Lutes are usually finished with the whites of eggs, but that, in my opinion, adds to the tuning instabilitiy.
The soundhole has my traditional rosette, and my builder's label.
So, there we have it, a lute which stays in tune.
