OK, the 5" thick plank of black walnut has finally satbilized at around 9%, so I can start cutting.
This is my "build a gurdy that COULD have been built at the time of the first trompettes" project, and by various iconographic evidence that was somewhere in the 1300's to 1400's. I have borrowed from what I know of instrument design in the period for shape, size, all that other rot, but I have only 1 question left. I have asked this before, but I got so many answers I am hoping this time around the responses will be simpler. I am not looking to build a modern instrument that looks like a period piece. I am looking to build a period piece to learn what it might have sounded like, and to play with a gregorian group that is local to our area. (Yes, I know, my sinphone should be what I use for that, or an organistrum, but I want to try this thing). The instrument will be a carved body, not rib-built. Is there any evidence from this early that curved soundboards were common (not carved yet, but simply curved), or should I stick to a flat top which I KNOW I can document to the period, at least on a whole lot of other stringed instruments. Again, I am not trying to build a modern instrument in disguise, I am trying to build a really first-class period instrument. But one that is significantly pre-Bosch, an instrument with a trompette that could be set down in any great hall of the time and a local builder would not have any reason to question if it is proper. Chris Nogy
