All the advice and the pictures help a lot! Thank you Ned, Suzanne and Jim! I haven't even gotten it fully tuned up yet, because I was so worried it would slip off my lap while I was fooling with the tuner. Here's my plan, I'll post some pictures and let you know how it works out. I found some rubbery necklaces at the craft store, they are stretchy and strong, and slightly grippy without leaving any kind of residue or mark, I think they may be made of silicon. I'm going to loop one of these around the middle of the pegbox where it won't touch any strings or pegs, and attach the strap to that. I like the fact that they are a continuous loop, no risk of a knot untying. I have a planet waves quick strap release on one of my acoustic guitars, I was going to use one of those on the lute, but it has a hard plastic piece on it that I didn't want to accidentally bang on the body of the lute. If the rubber necklace doesn't work out, I'll just use a shoelace like Jim suggested. The plan for the strap -- I do inkle loom weaving and a bit of tablet weaving. I have several nice pieces of inkle strip that I plan to make into straps. I will mount the inkle strip on a fabric backing, maybe with a little interfacing in there. For the button end, I will sew a small button hole into a piece of sturdy fabric attached to the end of the strap (probably actually a sandwich of fabric and interfacing, to give it some strength.) the other end will loop over a cord, or possibly catch the rubbery necklace. I also have a smaller lute-shaped ukelele (It's a "four course" instrument, tunes like a uke, with C and E having doubled strings, super fun to play.) I will try making a strap for that first, and see if it all works. The part I am least confident of is the grippy necklace, Alan, I do have some grippy fabric for shelf liners! I will try a little rectangle of that on my lap as a rest for the lute. Nancy, of course I am going to join the Lute Society. Probably not until after August, since I have a lot of expenses from now til then. But it is on the list. I'm hoping there will be events in Cleveland in 2012. Steve, you absolutely made my day! Fairborn isn't so far, and Springfield isn't so far either! One of the guys at the 5th Avenue Fret Shop told me he thought there was a lutenist in Columbus, but he couldn't remember the name. He said he thought the head of the local classical guitar society was also into lutes. I contacted all the local luthiers that I know of, to see if anyone locally had any interest/experience with lutes (I even contacted the Violin Loft, figuring they work with peg-tuned instruments.) J Thomas Davis sent me the nicest email back, but he also said he hadn't heard of any lutenists in town since the 1970's! G! I'm glad he was wrong about that. I really would like at least a few lessons to get me started, so now I am hopeful I can perhaps make that happen, and closer to home than I expected! You asked about what kind of lute I have, it's one of the Roosebeck lutes, a Zachary Taylor 8 Course lute, based on an instrument made by Hans Frei. My uke-lute is also a Roosebeck, and I bought the 8 course predicated on the really quite decent construction of the uke-lute. Actually, the uke-lute needs a little set up. It came with very thick uke type strings, and the nut is set really high, the strings don't actually ride in the nut properly and the first fret is a bear! I thought the 8 course would probably come like that. (Actually I thought we'd have to do a lot to the 8 course, based on a page I read online, I think Wayne Cripps' site, but sometimes you have to do set up when you buy any bargain instrument, right?) But really the 8 course seems much more well set up right out of the package. The action is good all down the fingerboard, The strings on it are very acceptable, at least for learning. The biggest problem I've had is that the finish is very slippy! So I haven't worked with it nearly enough yet. But I plan to put all this good advice to work this weekend, and change that. I am curious about nylgut strings, so I found a six string set for uke. I need to have the nut adjusted anyway, so my plan is to set up the uke-lute with nylgut and see how I like that. If I really like it, eventually I can plan to set up the 8 course for nylgut. Meanwhile the Roosebeck set that came on the 8 course lute is very acceptable to my fingers. I was really surprised, since I tend to favor very very light guitar strings. Here's a picture with me and the lute: [1]http://www.flickr.com/photos/lady_halla/5834205329/ It's a little grainy because it is from a phone. Halle Snyder
-- References 1. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lady_halla/5834205329/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
