Lute-Guitar, 6 String, Rosewood, Pegs

The lute-guitar is an attractive and lightweight instrument of a similar size and scale to a standard classical guitar but with a body like a lute. In keeping with the character of a lute, the bowl-shaped body is achieved by edge-gluing together staves of uniformly thin sheesham rosewood (Dalbergia sissoo) bent to a specific shape with no heavy internal bracing to retain its form. Sheesham rosewood is a medium to dark-brown hardwood and is highly sought after in furniture and musical instrument making. A true member of the Dalbergia family, sheesham's timbre characteristics are best described and "warm" with pronounced mid-range, very clear bass and sublimely subdued trebles.

European spruce is used for the soundboard and, in keeping with the design of 16th-Century lutes, its soundhole is a carved rosette in an attractive geometric pattern which is cut into the soundboard itself and is not inlaid of different material. Most exciting is that the soundboard bracing pattern follows bracing used in world-famous Kohno classical guitars. Our resident luthier spent time working with Kohno in Japan and received access and permission to this bracing design.

The mahogany neck has a shape is similar to a classical guitar with a 51mm (2 inch) wide nut of ebony. The top of the peg box has a woman's head carved on the top. Using standard nylon classical guitar strings, it is tuned like a guitar in e, b, G, D, A, E tuning. If it is to be used for lute music, the 3rd string may be tuned a semi-tone down to F# to enable lute fingering. The guitar is outfitted with traditional lute-style ebony friction pegs.

The overall length is 40 �" and the scale length is 25 3/8", similar to a normal guitar. Satin lacquer finish. A padded nylon zippered soft case is included with this instrument.

Shipping Weight: 61.00 lbs