Lute tuner

Lute tuning in G: the six courses in Hz

The 1st course, the chanterelle, is one string. The 2nd and 3rd are pairs in unison; the 4th, 5th and 6th are usually octave pairs, the thin string an octave up (F4, C4, G3).

Other lute tunings

At A4 = 440 Hz, after the Lute Society's tuning table. The Baroque basses are retuned to the key of the piece. On the theorbo the 1st and 2nd courses sound an octave lower than on a lute, so its highest note is the 3rd course, B3. The medieval tunings are a best guess. The switch above moves the tuner, not these tables.

How to tune a lute with this tuner

Pick Lute in G or Lute in A to match how your lute is strung, then the pitch under the needle: 415 for Baroque pitch and most early-music groups, 440 to play with modern instruments, 442 with an orchestra that tunes high. Tap Start tuning and play the course it asks for, from the 6th up, one string of the pair at a time. The needle shows the cents; at five cents or closer a tick comes and the next course is asked for. The tuner folds octaves, so the thin octave string of a bass course reads on that course's chip. With the microphone off, a tap on a course plays its note; on a phone speaker the 6th course of a G lute sounds an octave up. There is no app to install.

Lute pegs are plain wooden pegs held by friction in a bent-back pegbox. Turn them in small movements while pressing slightly inward, and always come up to the note from below so the string doesn't slip back. Bring the chanterelle up last and slowly: it is the thinnest string and the one that breaks. Gut and synthetic gut stretch for days when new and move with the room's warmth and humidity, so go round twice, retune between pieces, and expect a lute to want it more often than a guitar.

Which tuning for which lute

Most lutes made today for Renaissance music are in G: G C F A D G, fourths with a major third between the 4th and 3rd courses. That is the guitar's pattern with its third string a semitone lower, so a guitarist can try lute music by tuning the G string down to F♯ and putting a capo at the 3rd fret. Smaller lutes are strung in A, a tone higher; tenor and bass lutes lower, in E or D. Choose the tuning by the size of the lute and the strings on it, never by the music: in the Lute Society's words, don't try to tune a lute strung in G into an A tuning or the strings will break. Lute tablature shows frets, not pitches, so music for a lute in A plays the same on a lute in G, a tone lower. A 13-course Baroque lute is a different instrument: its six upper courses spell a D minor chord, A D F A D F, and the rest are basses.

Which tuner for a lute: app, clip-on or online

A lute needs a chromatic tuner, one that names any note, with an A that can be set to 415. A tuner left in guitar mode pulls every course toward E A D G B E. Phone apps such as ClearTune, gStrings and Tunable let you set the A, and so do handheld tuners such as Korg's; on a clip-on, check in the manual that its calibration reaches 415: many do, some stop at 430 or 436. A clip-on goes on the pegbox and reads the wood, so it works while others tune around you, but it feels every course that rings: damp the rest with the left hand. A microphone tuner such as this page reads the air: hold the phone near the rose, in a quiet room. Presets for 7-, 8- or 10-course lutes are rare and differ from app to app; a chromatic tuner makes them unnecessary, since the extra basses read on it like any other note.

Pairs, octave strings and the extra basses

A lute is counted in courses, not strings: a six-course lute usually has eleven, the single chanterelle and five pairs. Tune the main string of a pair to the tuner, then its partner by ear against it: play both and turn until the slow wobble between them stops. A unison that still wobbles is a course out of tune with itself, and it makes the whole lute sound sour. For an octave pair, tune the thick string first, then the thin one on the same chip.

The tuner's chips stop at six courses. The basses of a 7-, 8- or 10-course lute can be read with the chromatic tuner, which names any note, at 432, 440 or 442. It has no 415: at Baroque pitch it names every bass a semitone low (an F2 shows as E2), so at 415 tune the basses as octaves of notes you already have: the 7th course F2 an octave below the open 4th course; the 8th course D2 an octave below the 5th course at the 2nd fret; on a 10-course lute the E♭2 an octave below the 5th course at the 3rd fret, and the C2 an octave below the open 5th course. Players retune these basses to the key of the piece, so check what the music asks for.

A = 415, 440 or 442

415 Hz is a semitone below 440 (440 divided by the twelfth root of 2 is 415.30; ensembles round it), and it is the usual pitch for Baroque music and most early-music groups today. Historical pitch was never one number: it changed from city to city and century to century, and some groups play particular repertoire at 430 or 466. This tuner has 415, 440 and 442; ask the director before the rehearsal. Alone, any of them is right as long as the strings sit comfortably: a lute strung for 415 is under more tension at 440, about 12 % more, and the chanterelle is the first to object. At 415 the tuner still names the notes the lute plays: the 1st course reads G4 and sits at 369.72 Hz, not at the 392 of the 440 table, and not as an F♯.

Frets and temperament

A lute's frets are loops of gut tied round the neck, and they can be slid. Tune the open courses with the tuner, then check a few fretted octaves against open courses: if one rings wide, nudge the fret, not the string. The tuner reads equal temperament, the tuning of a modern guitar. Players who set their lute in a meantone temperament tune the major third between the 4th and 3rd courses narrower than the tuner's, toward a pure third, which is 14 cents narrower, and set the frets to match.

Is the lute harder than the guitar, and why did it fade?

The left hand is close to the guitar's, since the intervals between the strings are nearly the same. What takes longer is the right hand on paired strings, the tablature, and the tuning. Johann Mattheson wrote in 1713 that a lutenist who reaches eighty has surely spent sixty of those years tuning. By the end of the 18th century louder instruments that keep their pitch better, the guitar and the keyboard, had taken its place. It came back with the early-music revival of the 20th century, and people play it today mostly in that world: the lute societies, such as the Lute Society in Britain, list teachers, makers and lutes for hire.

The notes you tuned go into Brumm as a short melody over a beat.