Gamut Instruments - Gamut-Model Spanish Vihuela

In the 16th century the Spanish musicians developed a unique form of instrument for playing polyphonic music. This was a six-course waisted instrument played with a bow, a quill, or the fingers. The form that seems to have been most popular, or at least the form that suits the surviving music, is the vihuela intended to be played with the fingers. No instrument survives from the period that characterizes the instrument as we see it in paintings and drawings.

I have chosen to base the design of my reconstruction on paintings and illustrations of vihuelas of the 16th century. Some constructional details have been adapted from the few surviving vihuelas as well as consideration of early Spanish and Italian guitars.

Our version of the Spanish vihuela has six double-courses, (the first course is most commonly strung with a single string these days), with a figured maple back and sides and a mahogany neck and head. The front is a AAA Engelmann spruce that is at least twelve years old with a three layer wooden inset rose. The fingerboard and head-plate are ebony. The rosette is made of three layers of cherry wood and the sound hole is surrounded by a ring of diamond shapes carved into the front.

Spanish Vihuela Specifications:

• Overall length 35", (90cm)

• Body length 16 3/4", (42.5cm)

• Width loweer bouts 9", (22.90cm)

• Width waist 7 1/8", (18.40cm)

• Width upper bouts 9", (22.85cm)

• Rib height 3", (7.62cm)

• 59.5 cm string length

• Six double courses

• Flat, figured maple back, sides, head and neck

• Ebony pegs

• Ebony fingerboard, with points

• Englemann spruce front

• Inset three layer cherry rosette

Gamut-Model Spanish Vihuela:

Modeled after: Paintings/Illustrations, c. 16th Century