African Lute Tuning Knot
Traditional African lutes tune their strings using a special knot rather than the tuning pegs used on Asian and European lutes.
Doctor Oakroot makes a cigar box guitar to give away to a lucky fan at each show... recently, he has been using tuning knots inspired by African lutes on these instruments. The giveaway instrument - called a diddley jo - has one long main playing string plus one half length string to be played as a drone by the thumb...
an arrangement similar to the banjo and very much inspired by the Akonting lute of the Senegambian region of Africa. The short string has important consequences for how the knot is tied.
First, for this kind of tuner, the neck of the lute must be more-or-less cylindrical. Otherwise, you won't get enough taut surface contact to hold the string tension.
If your lute has two (or any other number) of strings the same length run over a nut - like the Guimbri lute - it's best to use a leather thong as part of the tuner.
Wrap the the thong around the string and the neck twice and tie it off tight - a square knot works. Now bring the end up over the thong and tie - two half hitches is good. Slide the the knot away from the bridge to bring the string up to pitch. The flat leather surface gives you lots of friction and makes this work really well.
However, if your lute has a short string, like the Akonting or Doc's give-away cigar box guitars, you can't use the leather thong - at least not on the short string. Why? Well, whatever knot you tie that short string with, it has to have a low enough profile not to interfere with the longer strings when you stop them. The long string could use the leather thong technique - but on actual Akontings and other African lutes, as well as Doc's cigar box guitars, it's not done that way...
Once you figure out how to make a low profile tuning knot, you might as well use it for all the strings.
To do this, you just wrap the string twice around the neck, take the end under the playing length of the string and tie it off with a timber hitch. To tighten this, you have to pull on the playing length of the string... making the scale 4-6" longer after tightening. So save yourself a headache and start tying the knot 4-6" closer to the bridge than you want to end up.
A picture's worth a thousand words, so here's a couple of pix to get you started:
Doctor Oakroot makes a cigar box guitar to give away to a lucky fan at each show... recently, he has been using tuning knots inspired by African lutes on these instruments. The giveaway instrument - called a diddley jo - has one long main playing string plus one half length string to be played as a drone by the thumb...an arrangement similar to the banjo and very much inspired by the Akonting lute of the Senegambian region of Africa. The short string has important consequences for how the knot is tied.
First, for this kind of tuner, the neck of the lute must be more-or-less cylindrical. Otherwise, you won't get enough taut surface contact to hold the string tension.
If your lute has two (or any other number) of strings the same length run over a nut - like the Guimbri lute - it's best to use a leather thong as part of the tuner.
Wrap the the thong around the string and the neck twice and tie it off tight - a square knot works. Now bring the end up over the thong and tie - two half hitches is good. Slide the the knot away from the bridge to bring the string up to pitch. The flat leather surface gives you lots of friction and makes this work really well.
However, if your lute has a short string, like the Akonting or Doc's give-away cigar box guitars, you can't use the leather thong - at least not on the short string. Why? Well, whatever knot you tie that short string with, it has to have a low enough profile not to interfere with the longer strings when you stop them. The long string could use the leather thong technique - but on actual Akontings and other African lutes, as well as Doc's cigar box guitars, it's not done that way...
Once you figure out how to make a low profile tuning knot, you might as well use it for all the strings.
To do this, you just wrap the string twice around the neck, take the end under the playing length of the string and tie it off with a timber hitch. To tighten this, you have to pull on the playing length of the string... making the scale 4-6" longer after tightening. So save yourself a headache and start tying the knot 4-6" closer to the bridge than you want to end up.
A picture's worth a thousand words, so here's a couple of pix to get you started:
 |
 |
posted by Doctor Oakroot at
5:10 PM
0 Comments
