Murphy is alive and well, and quite busy. But I thought I'd toss in my opinion on maintaining pitch. As most of you know I play and make harps (as well as making one lute, and playing it). Pitch, as we all know, it a matter of the tension and length of the string (given the string guage). Any change in any of the three criteria will change the pitch (ok, the density of the string is another criterion, but that is factored in in chosing the guage, and doesn't really change).
The string length can change with changing climate that allows the soundboard to "belly" more or less (more important in a harp). It can also change if the anchor is unstable. In the case of the Celtic harp that may be a "pull down" of the zither pins used as anchors, but unlikely as they normally use a "bridge pin" to set the length. On a lute it can be a looseness of the tuning pegs in the peg block, but the length is defined by the distance between bridge and nut, so it is only the tension that may vary (assuming that the soundboard "belly" is not a factor in length, and it shouldn't be as it is a small vector and should be consistant on all strings (within reason). Strings do lose resiliancy over time so the strings themselves may be a problem, but on the assumption that it is the lute then the problem has to be in the pegs or the peg board. My one home made lute is from the plans of Musikits, and it is a hybrid. The peg bos isn't a box, it is like a western guitar with the pegs coming through a horizontal plane. That gives them only one friction point, and a pull from an unsupported end of the peg. It is a bitch to keep in tune. The normal lute form has a peg box such that the string pull is in the middle of two friction points (although it is suggested by luthiers that the narrow end not have too much friction). The key to the tuning sensitivity is a consistant taper, both of the pegs and the peg holes. Wear over time can ruin that, but the peg holes can be re-reamed. The pegs themselves are a bit harder to even up - I turn my own so that isn't a problem for me. Not that this solves any problems, but it raises the issues. If I had that Aria I'd probably plug the peg box holes and redrill and taper ream, the plugging should take care of the cracking if you spread the glue well. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
