Description
The Tapadum Renaissance Alto Lute is a hand-built, five-course lute voiced in the alto register of the historical Renaissance consort — a deep, ribbed pear-shaped body, an angled pegbox, and tied gut-style frets, built entirely at Tapadum’s own workshop. It follows the construction logic of the 15th-century lute: a single top course (the chanterelle) paired with four double courses, sitting between the descant and tenor voices of a period consort.
The body is carved from maple ribs, bent and glued into the lute’s characteristic pear-shaped bowl, closed by a spruce soundboard. Maple keeps the body light and gives the instrument a bright, clear projection — a tonal profile players favor when they want articulate note separation across fast passages and consort lines. The soundboard carries a carved, latticed rosette cut directly into the spruce top rather than applied as a separate piece, and the pegbox bends back sharply from the neck in the angled profile that distinguishes a lute from its fretless oud ancestor.
Specifications
| Type | 5-course Renaissance lute (alto range) |
| Total length | 65 cm |
| String length (mensur) | 55 cm |
| Body (bowl) size | 40 x 23 x 15 cm |
| Strings | 9 strings in 5 courses (2+2+2+2+1) |
| Body wood | Maple |
| Soundboard | Spruce |
| Frets | Tied, adjustable |
Who This Lute Suits
This lute is built for early music ensembles, historically-informed performance (HIP) students and professionals, lute song accompanists, and collectors assembling a Renaissance instrument collection. The alto range sits comfortably for solo repertoire while also filling the mid-high voice in consort playing alongside other period string instruments.
Repertoire and Playing Style
The five-course layout suits the earlier end of the Renaissance lute repertoire — 15th-century dance forms, early fantasias, and lute song accompaniment, where the simpler course structure keeps voicing transparent. Renaissance lutes of this design were commonly strung in a fourths-thirds pattern (fourths between most courses, with a third worked in lower on the neck), a tuning logic carried forward from the historical instrument this build follows. Fingerstyle technique draws out the polyphonic lines the five-course lute was built to carry, with the single chanterelle giving melodic passages extra clarity against the doubled lower courses.
Care and Maintenance
Tied frets will need periodic repositioning as the gut settles, and can be replaced when worn — keep spares on hand if you play regularly. Store the instrument away from direct heat and sudden humidity swings, which affect the spruce soundboard’s response over time, and ease string tension slightly during long storage to protect the bowl and neck joint.
Worldwide shipping & 15-day return.
