> When I fret the course (for some reason this is almost > always at the 3rd fret, Bb), the additional stiffness of the fundamental > (from thickness?) causes it to sound noticeably (to my poor ears) sharper > than its octave.
I believe that stiffness can increase the pitch significantly. But I don't understand why it would do this only on fretted notes. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
