In 2000 at St Chartier , under pouring rain , I saw a HG made by
Jacques Grandchamps , wich was a repro of the one shown on
George de La Tour paintings . He told me at the time he had made two ,
one for the Nante museum of fine arts , to be dislpayed near the painting
and another one that was still for sale at the time .
There is a picture on his site , under the section " renaissance to XVIIth
cent"
http://jacques.grandchamp.free.fr/Musicora/Musicora.htm
It was his hypothesis that this instrument had to be " monoxyle " :
carved
from a single piece of wood and that was probably the reason for the
tri-lobes crank end , probably as a way to prevent the cracks in the wood
in drynes, humidity cycles.
While on his site , look at all the other beautyfull and/or weird
instruments .
Henry
Chris,
There is no reason you can't use a "trough-carved" body like you propose.
One of the types of Ukrainian lira is made in this manner and it seems to
work fine (although I don't know how the sound would compare since it's
been over a year since I heard one in a recording). I have tried to find
an image for you (I've seen a number in the past) but I can't find one at
the moment. Instead I keep finding the other type which has sides made
from separate pieces inserted into braces. Vlad, a list member who is of
Ukrainian heritage and who also builds instruments, may know more, but his
wife recently gave birth and I don't know how much he is paying attention
to the list at the moment.
By the way, the following image may give you some ideas:
http://www.stefciu.com/stefciulira_files/image005.jpg
I don't know the source of the image, but there are a number of HG forms
on it that I don't recognize right away.
