luitar?
Luitar - noun. A small, steel-string guitar tuned G-C-F-A-D-g. Typically ladder-braced. Strung with acoustic guitar strings gauged roughly .042”-.010”.
Lutes are beautiful, complex instruments. Lutes are also expensive, fragile, and hard to maintain.
I originally started stringing my smallest steel-string guitar as a luitar to allow for performances in mixed and outdoor venues without the stress of exposing my lute to sunshine, rough handling, and the occasional spilled beverage. However, unexpected similarities between the renaissance lute and luitar made me reevaluate the quality of the instrument. The luitar succeeds as a serious concert instrument in its own right, not merely a real world compromise.
The light construction of small, ladder-braced guitars (particularly when strung light and tuned to renaissance lute pitch) allows for tone production much more like that of a lute than can be achieved on either a classical guitar or larger steel-string acoustic. Whereas the renaissance lute repertoire on the classical guitar can feel harmonically clouded or overly heavy, the luitar has an immediacy of attack, lightness, harmonic footprint, and brutal honesty that I feel mirrors that of the lute itself.
I originally started stringing my smallest steel-string guitar as a luitar to allow for performances in mixed and outdoor venues without the stress of exposing my lute to sunshine, rough handling, and the occasional spilled beverage. However, unexpected similarities between the renaissance lute and luitar made me reevaluate the quality of the instrument. The luitar succeeds as a serious concert instrument in its own right, not merely a real world compromise.
The light construction of small, ladder-braced guitars (particularly when strung light and tuned to renaissance lute pitch) allows for tone production much more like that of a lute than can be achieved on either a classical guitar or larger steel-string acoustic. Whereas the renaissance lute repertoire on the classical guitar can feel harmonically clouded or overly heavy, the luitar has an immediacy of attack, lightness, harmonic footprint, and brutal honesty that I feel mirrors that of the lute itself.
