Official Luthiers Forum!

So I came across this guy yesterday at the night market in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Fretwork on this thing would be an entirely different animal! Raised blocks of wood form each fret. Very unusual to a westerner like myself but likely common to the Thai people. My limited research suggests it could be Sueng - which is a version of a plucked lute from northern Thailand. As you can see, this local artist is one cool customer.

What have you seen in your travels?



https://flic.kr/p/vD6CTk

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Doug

Don't let fear or common sense stop you from trying to build something

I've tied fishing line frets on a Mexican vihuela and glued bone frets in a Chinese ruan

Chinese pipa has the fretboard cut into a sawtooth profile as frets.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I had a Shamisen from Japan come into the shop several years ago with a ripped skin. I did a bit of research and found they originally used cat skins held on with rice glue. My wife said "absolutely not!" when I started gazing at our cat so this one got re skinned with goat

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

"I did a bit of research and found they originally used cat skins held on with rice glue. My wife said "absolutely not!" when I started gazing at our cat..."

You made me laugh Steve

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Doug

Don't let fear or common sense stop you from trying to build something

so did it originally sound like meow?

Maybe it was strung with catgut strings too.

You know they use dog skins too, but that's just as bad. So what about using coyote or wolf skin? They're related and nobody cares about coyotes anyways.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Hey Doug

Tai, I don't recall if they were originally catgut strings but I wouldn't be surprised. This one had nylon strings. I used goat skin because it was one of the easier hides to get pre-thicknessed (Shamisens use a thin hide).

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

It's the perfect instrument to play this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmXxrMC5Pv4

Problem with goat skin is that it's not going to sound as good as cat... I mean if the original one was made of cats.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I wonder if the expression "more than one ways to skin a cat" came from Shamisen builders...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Here is a link to the stringed instrument data base of Emma Dusepo
http://archive.is/g0OS
If you ever need to find the name of a strange stringed instrument check her data base.
Emma builds some of these stringed instruments over on Mario's forum.

Bob

I'm almost finished with a Thai instrument called a Phin.
3 steel strings, D A D, E B E, or whatever tuning you want,really.
I am going to post pics on another thread,
if I can remember how!
Alan