2014 Lute-making
Summer Workshop in USA
I have now arranged with Dan Larsen of the Lute Society of America to run one of my summer lutemaking workshops in his workshop in Duluth, Minnesota, USA.
The central idea of this special 2014 workshop course is to work together as a group to produce two lutes for the Lute Society of America to use as hire instruments. No previous experience is necessary and each course member will be able to try out, and contribute to, each of the processes involved in making the lutes.
Previous workshops, where over the years we have made fourteen different instruments for the English Lute Society, were great fun, with a nice lute resulting from each week’s work. So I know it can be done! If you’d like to get a flavour of what previous years’ courses were like, click on these links:
The original Gerle lute is a superb example of the renaissance lute which survives in very good condition in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. As you can see, the original is a six course lute in ivory
but it has proved to be a very good model for making a 7 course lute which is how we will be building ours, and of course we will not be using ivory!
The J. C. Hoffmann is the classic German baroque lute with so-called swan-neck form. It is based on originals in the Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Horniman Museum in London and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg.
This is not nearly as complex to make as it looks and we will have great fun carving the design on the back of the pegboxes. This is the version we built in our 2000 summer workshop surrounded by the happy band of makers.
If you are interested, please do visit the page on Dan Larsen’s website for more details, and if you have any questions or need to check anything, please do me,
I hope to see some of you in Duluth for an exciting nine days. To sign up for the experience please visit the enrollment page here.
Copyright 2013 by David Van Edwards
For this USA event we will be making a 7 course renaissance lute after Gerle and a 13 course German baroque lute after J. C. Hoffmann. This will obviously be quite intense but it is a great experience to work on a joint project with other like-minded people for a thoroughly worthwhile result. It is a great learning opportunity and several of the people who have come on previous workshops have subsequently set up as successful professional makers.
1999, where we made a 6 course renaissance lute
2000, where we made a 13 course German baroque lute.
2001, where we made a 14 course theorbo
2002, where we made a 6 course bass lute
2003, where we made an 11 course baroque lute
2005, where we made a 7 course tenor lute.
2006, where we made a 14 course liuto attiorbato
2007, where we made a 6 course mandora
2008, where we made a medieval lute and gittern
2009, where we made two lutes for the Norfolk schools project
2010, where we made a 12 course double-headed lute
2011, where we made a 13 course triple pegbox baroque lute
I have also in the past run a similar lute making workshop in Prague and several times in Gruyère Castle in Switzerland so I do know that it can also be done in other workshops than my own!
