Laouto
Encyclopedia
The laouto is a long-neck fretted instrument of the lute
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

 family, found in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, and similar in appearance to the oud
Oud
The oud is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in North African and Middle Eastern music. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths...

. It is played in most respects like the oud (plucked with a long plectrum
Plectrum
A plectrum is a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick, and is a separate tool held in the player's hand...

).

Construction

Unlike the oud and other short-necked lutes, the laouto has a higher string tension due to its longer neck and hence brighter in tone than the oud. The laouto also tends to have only one sound hole (sometimes two) whereas the oud family tend to have three. In this respect and because the use of movable fret
Fret
A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard...

s, the laouto more closely resembles the lute, while sounding more like the oud.

The soundboard is often made of spruce
Spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea , a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal regions of the earth. Spruces are large trees, from tall when mature, and can be distinguished by their whorled branches and conical...

 or cedar wood
Cedar wood
Cedar wood comes from several different trees that grow in different parts of the world, and may have different uses.* California incense-cedar, from Calocedrus decurrens, is the primary type of wood used for making pencils...

, while the body is usually made of a harder wood such as maple
Maple
Acer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...

 or walnut
Walnut
Juglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...

. This is a practice consonant with the construction of other (round-backed) lutes.

The 11 frets of the neck are removable (and can be re-positioned for differing intervals) and made of nylon (resembling the gut/nylon frets of the lute). Up to 9 wooden frets, mounted on the soundboard, are fixed. The intervals of the frets may be more frequent than that of a guitar to permit the playing of maqams
Arabic maqam
Arabic maqām is the system of melodic modes used in traditional Arabic music, which is mainly melodic. The word maqam in Arabic means place, location or rank. The Arabic maqam is a melody type...

 as found in the music of Byzantium
Byzantine music
Byzantine music is the music of the Byzantine Empire composed to Greek texts as ceremonial, festival, or church music. Greek and foreign historians agree that the ecclesiastical tones and in general the whole system of Byzantine music is closely related to the ancient Greek system...

.

The string
Strings (music)
A string is the vibrating element that produces sound in string instruments, such as the guitar, harp, piano, and members of the violin family. Strings are lengths of a flexible material kept under tension so that they may vibrate freely, but controllably. Strings may be "plain"...

s of the laouto were traditionally of gut, although the modern laouto has steel (or steel wound nylon) strings similar to those of the bouzouki
Bouzouki
The bouzouki , is a musical instrument with Greek origin in the lute family. A mainstay of modern Greek music, the front of the body is flat and is usually heavily inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The instrument is played with a plectrum and has a sharp metallic sound, reminiscent of a mandolin but...

.

Tuning

The laouto's eight strings are paired, tuned an octave apart (much like a Western steel guitar). The interval from one pair to the next is tuned in fifths (Cc-Gg-Dd-aa). The Laouto has a re-entrant tuning
Reentrant tuning
A reentrant tuning is a tuning of a stringed instrument where the strings are not ordered from the lowest pitch to the highest pitch ....

, Gg tuned a fourth lower than Cc.

The two primary contemporary variants of the laouto, one somewhat smaller than the other, are to be found on mainland Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 and on the island of Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

. The larger sized instrument (wider body) is played mainly on the island of Crete and tends to be tuned differently ( Gg - Dd - Aa - ee ), the re-entrant tuning
Reentrant tuning
A reentrant tuning is a tuning of a stringed instrument where the strings are not ordered from the lowest pitch to the highest pitch ....

 is still a characteristic of the Cretan laouto, because Dd is a fourth lower than Gg.

The role of the laouto in Greek traditional music is primarily that of accompaniment. The laouto is often played in a duo with the Cretan lyra.

External links


  • Solo Cretan laouto video
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