How do lutes and classical guitars compare? Lutes typically have shorter string lengths (and higher pitch). They have a single treble (1st) string, with the other “courses” being dual strings, some tuned in unison and some in octaves. Lutes have distinctive pear-shaped bodies, heads bent back at a sharp angle, tuning pegs (vs. geared tuning mechanisms), and decorative “roses” for the sound hole.

For many years, classical guitarists have played lute music on the guitar, but there are compromises, since guitars have six strings, whereas lutes have typically two additional bass strings. Some luthiers have built 8 string guitars to deal with this limitation.

I decided to build something like an 8 string guitar, but with a lute-style body. Since it uses the string length of a classical guitar, the whole instrument gets very large, so one challenge was to figure out how to build a somewhat “flattened” body, compared to the lute’s circular cross section. This was an interesting challenge since, unlike the lute, each of the ribs prior to bending has a different shape.

It was an interesting experiment and actually sounds nice, but I don’t plan to build more because the body is too large to hold an play comfortably.