What is the meaning of the word lute?
Definition of lute. : a stringed instrument having a large pear-shaped body, a vaulted back, a fretted fingerboard, and a head with tuning pegs which is often angled backward from the neck.
Is a lute fretted or unfretted?
It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can refer to an instrument from the family of European lutes. The term also refers generally to any string instrument having the strings running in a plane parallel to the sound table (in the Hornbostel–Sachs system).
What does a lute look like?
A lute is an old-fashioned stringed instrument that looks like a small, pear-shaped guitar. The lute appears in many of Shakespeare's plays. You might also see a lute player at a Renaissance Faire.
What is the difference between a lute and guitar?
The wooden body of a lute is very round, while the front is flat with strings extending up the long neck to frets, like a ukulele or a guitar. Lute players are called luthiers, and they play mainly by plucking the strings, rather than strumming them.
Is lute a valid word?
Lute is valid Scrabble Word.
Is lute a word in scrabble?
LUTE is a valid scrabble word.
What does lute mean?
Definition of lute (Entry 1 of 4) : a stringed instrument having a large pear-shaped body, a vaulted back, a fretted fingerboard, and a head with tuning pegs which is often angled backward from the neck. lute. verb. luted; luting.
Where does the word lute come from?
The word lute comes from the Old Provençal laut, from the Arabic root al-'ud, "the wood."
Is Lune a word in Scrabble?
LUNE is a valid scrabble word.
Is Tule a Scrabble word?
TULE is a valid scrabble word.
How do you use lute in a sentence?
(1) He idly plucked the strings of the lute. (2) First, let me say that I think Lute Olson runs a very clean program. (3) Now Lute has suffered a loss beyond words and Tucson is diminished by the passing of one of its nicer people.
What is another name for lute?
What is another word for lute?ukuleleukecavaquinhomacheterajãocavacocavacoleletimplebaritone ukuleleconcert ukulele2 more rows
Is violin a lute?
The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist or lutist, and a maker of lutes (or any similar string instrument, or violin family instruments) is referred to as a luthier....Lute.String instrumentDevelopedClassical antiquity (early lutes) Middle Ages (modern lutes)Related instruments8 more rows
Where did the lute apparently come from?
The lute that was prominent in European popular art and music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods originated as the Arab ʿūd. This instrument was taken to Europe in the 13th century by way of Spain and by returning crusaders and is still played in Arab countries.
Who invented lute?
In the first decades of the eighteenth century, lute music was revolutionized in Germany by lute player and composer Silvius Leopold Weiss. His musical ideas made it necessary to extend the number of strings, giving birth to the thirteen-course lute.
How do you pronounce lute?
PronunciationIPA: /ˈlu.tɛ/Rhymes: -utɛSyllabification: lu‧te.
Who defined the lute?
Curt Sachs defined the word lute in the terminology section of The History of Musical Instruments as "composed of a body, and of a neck which serves both as a handle and as a means of stretching the strings beyond the body".
Where did the word "lute" come from?
The words lute and oud possibly derive from Arabic al-ʿoud ( العود - literally means "the wood"). It may refer to the wooden plectrum traditionally used for playing the oud, to the thin strips of wood used for the back, or to the wooden soundboard that distinguished it from similar instruments with skin-faced bodies.
What is the sound of a lute?
As a small instrument, the lute produces a relatively quiet sound . The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist or lutist, and a maker of lutes (or any similar string instrument, or violin family instruments) is referred to as a luthier .
How many strings are in a lute?
They produce a bass that differs somewhat in timbre from nylon basses. The lute's strings are arranged in courses, of two strings each, though the highest-pitched course usually consists of only a single string, called the chanterelle. In later Baroque lutes two upper courses are single.
What is the lute instrument?
The lute player either improvises ("realizes") a chordal accompaniment based on the figured bass part, or plays a written-out accompaniment (both music notation and tablature ("tab") are used for lute). As a small instrument, the lute produces a relatively quiet sound.
How many different lute sizes were there?
There were several sizes, and by the end of the Renaissance, seven different sizes (up to the great octave bass) are documented. Song accompaniment was probably the lute's primary function in the Middle Ages, but very little music securely attributable to the lute survives from the era before 1500.
How does the lute work?
The lute is plucked or strummed with one hand while the other hand "frets" (presses down) the strings on the neck's fingerboard. By pressing the strings on different places of the fingerboard, the player can shorten or lengthen the part of the string that is vibrating, thus producing higher or lower pitches (notes).
What does "lute" mean?
lute. a stringed musical instrument having a long, fretted neck and a hollow, typically pear-shaped body with a vaulted back. verb (used without object), lut·ed, lut·ing. to play a lute. verb (used with object), lut·ed, lut·ing. to perform (music) on a lute: a musician skilled at luting Elizabethan ballads.
Where did the word "lute" come from?
Origin of lute. 2. First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English, from Old French lut and Medieval Latin lutum, “mud, dirt, clay; clay for modeling”.
Who said Lute would get through the Senate quickly and easily?
Carper said Lute would get through the Senate quickly and easily.
Who said Lute or Allen would be fine?
Carper described Allen as a “very fine person” and said either Lute or Allen would be fine.
Why is the word "sinister" Latin?
The word "sinister" is Latin for "left," because left-handed people were often thought of as suspicious, evil, or demonic.
Where does the word "luth" come from?
From Middle French lut (modern luth ), from Old French leüt, probably from Old Occitan laüt, from Arabic اَلْعُود (al-ʿūd, “wood”) (probably representing an Andalusian Arabic or North African pronunciation). Doublet of oud .
What is a fretted stringed instrument?
A fretted stringed instrument of European origin, similar to the guitar, having a bowl-shaped body or soundbox; any of a wide variety of chordophones with a pear-shaped body and a neck whose upper surface is in the same plane as the soundboard, with strings along the neck and parallel to the soundboard.
What is a lute?
The lute is a stringed musical instrument plucked with the fingers or a plectrum (pick). Widely recognizable for its round shape and softness of tone, it originally evolved from the Middle Eastern oud, was brought to Europe through Spain in the 8th and 9th centuries, and was later heard throughout Europe from about the twelfth century CE until well into the eighteenth century. After a period of disuse lasting more than a hundred years, interest in it slowly revived during the twentieth century, and is extending well into the twenty-first. Visit our YouTube page to hear the lute in action!
What is lute music?
Lute music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods falls generally into one of five broad categories: free-form pieces, either written down or improvised, dance pieces, transcriptions of vocal pieces, song accompaniments, and ensemble music.
How do you connect a lute to a soundboard?
The bridge of a lute is glued to the soundboard . There are small holes or slots drilled through it at carefully spaced intervals to allow the strings to be tied to it.
How are lute strings tuned?
The strings are tied through the bridge and stretched along a neck, across a fingerboard which is fitted with a number of tied frets, over a nut and into one or more pegboxes, where they are tuned by adjusting the tension. The strings are stopped or fretted with one hand while plucked with the other. On most lutes, the strings are in pairs, except for the highest-pitched string, known as the chanterelle, or the top two strings on later (Baroque) instruments, although on a theorbo or chitarrone all the strings may be single. Each single string or pair of strings is called a course. The pair of strings within a course may be tuned to the same pitch (unison), but the pairs in the lower-pitched courses are often tuned an octave apart. The upper courses are normally tuned with the interval of a fourth or third between them, but on instruments with more than six courses, those courses below the first six may be tuned stepwise.
Why are lute intabulations called intabulations?
They are frequently called intabulations because the vocal parts were written in a unique notation for the lute called tablature, which can be played conveniently by a single player. The vocal lines might be transcribed literally, but more commonly they were ornamented and altered to take into account the capabilities and limitations of the lute. As the style of vocal writing changed to a more homophonic model, intabulations vanished from the repertory of lutenists.
How many strings are in a medieval lute?
During the 500-year period of its historical popularity, the European lute underwent a considerable evolution. No instruments have survived that were built in Europe during the Middle Ages, but a certain amount of information can be obtained from paintings, sculpture, and written descriptions from that time. It is likely that most lutes during that period were relatively small and were plucked with a quill or plectrum. A typical medieval lute has 4 courses —single strings or a pairs of strings, usually tuned in unison or octaves, plucked as one single string. Attempts at reconstructing medieval lutes necessarily involve a significant amount of speculation, as do performances of music of that period.
Why are there two pegboxes on a lute?
This came about due to the inherent deficiency in the tone quality of relatively short gut strings that were tuned to these low pitches. The modification was initiated in Italy, where a large lute made with this long neck extension was given the name chitarrone , or tiorba, the latter of which was adapted to the English term “theorbo.” A related instrument, the archlute, has a shorter neck extension while retaining the double stringing and the tuning scheme of the Renaissance lute.
Overview
A lute is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted.
More specifically, the term "lute" can refer to an instrument from the family of European lutes. The term also refers generally to any string instrument having …
History and evolution of the lute
Curt Sachs defined lute in the terminology section of The History of Musical Instruments as "composed of a body, and of a neck which serves both as a handle and as a means of stretching the strings beyond the body". His definition focused on body and neck characteristics and not on the way the strings were sounded, so the fiddle counted as a "bowed lute". Sachs also distinguished bet…
Etymology
The words lute and oud possibly derive from Arabic al-ʿoud (العود - literally means "the wood"). It may refer to the wooden plectrum traditionally used for playing the oud, to the thin strips of wood used for the back, or to the wooden soundboard that distinguished it from similar instruments with skin-faced bodies.
Many theories have been proposed for the origin of the Arabic name. Music scholar Eckhard Ne…
Construction
Lutes are made almost entirely of wood. The soundboard is a teardrop-shaped thin flat plate of resonant wood (typically spruce). In all lutes the soundboard has a single (sometimes triple) decorated sound hole under the strings called the rose. The sound hole is not open, but rather covered with a grille in the form of an intertwining vine or a decorative knot, carved directly out of the wood of t…
Lute in the modern world
The lute enjoyed a revival with the awakening of interest in historical music around 1900 and throughout the century. That revival was further boosted by the early music movement in the twentieth century. Important pioneers in lute revival were Julian Bream, Hans Neemann, Walter Gerwig, Suzanne Bloch and Diana Poulton. Lute performances are now not uncommon; there are many pr…
Repertoire
Lutes were in widespread use in Europe at least since the 13th century, and documents mention numerous early performers and composers. However, the earliest surviving lute music dates from the late 15th century. Lute music flourished during the 16th and 17th centuries: numerous composers published collections of their music, and modern scholars have uncovered a vast numbe…
20th century revival and composers
The revival of lute-playing in the 20th century has its roots in the pioneering work of Arnold Dolmetsch (1858–1940); whose research into early music and instruments started the movement for authenticity. The revival of the lute gave composers an opportunity to create new works for it.
One of the first such composers was Johann Nepomuk David in Germany. Composer Vladimir Vavilov was a pioneer of the lute revival in the USSR, he was also the author of numerous musical …
Tuning conventions
Lutes were made in a large variety of sizes, with varying numbers of strings/courses, and with no permanent standard for tuning. However, the following seems to have been generally true of the Renaissance lute.
A 6-course Renaissance tenor lute would be tuned to the same intervals as a tenor viol, with intervals of a perfect fourth between all the courses except the …