Lute Tuner — Renaissance G Vieil Ton & Baroque D Minor

A lute is tuned in fourths with one major third — and it is between the 3rd and 4th courses, not where a guitarist expects it. Its pitch is a property of its size, too: a lute in G does not go up to A. Start with the 6-course renaissance tuning below.

The chips under the dial are the 6 targets for a lute. Tap one to hear it, or start the microphone and tune until it turns green. Audio is analyzed on your device and never leaves it.

Six courses, five fourths, and one third in an unexpected place

A six-course renaissance lute in G is tuned G2–C3–F3–A3–D4–G4, read from the sixth course up to the first. Lutenists call this the vieil ton — the old tuning — and it held for roughly a century and a half of repertoire.

The interval pattern is fourths all the way with exactly one major third, and the whole difficulty of arriving here from a guitar is where that third sits. On a guitar it falls between the 3rd and 2nd strings, G to B. On a lute it falls one course lower, between the 3rd and 4th courses, A3 down to F3. Everything else is a fourth.

Six pitches, but eleven strings. The first course is a single string, the chanterelle; the remaining five are pairs. Two gut trebles thin enough to hold a true unison the length of the neck were never practical to make, which is why the top course is single on lutes, vihuelas and early guitars alike.

Try itLute reference tones

1st course · chanterelleG4 + G4 · unison
The only single string on the instrument. Two gut trebles thin enough to hold a true unison all the way up the neck were never practical.
2nd courseD4 + D4 · unison
A fourth below the chanterelle.
3rd courseA3 + A3 · unison
An octave below concert A, and the cleanest reading on the lute — start here.
4th course · the major thirdF3 + F3 · unison
A MAJOR THIRD below the 3rd course, not a fourth. This is the interval a guitarist gets wrong.
5th courseC3 + C4 · octave pair
Back to fourths below here. Octave stringing is common on this course.
6th course · bassG2 + G3 · octave pair
Two octaves below the chanterelle. Usually an octave pair, which keeps the bass from muddying.

The standard six-course renaissance lute at its nominal G pitch. Fourths throughout with one major third, between the 3rd and 4th courses. A descant in A, a tenor in E or a bass in D is this same set of intervals moved bodily to that instrument’s own pitch.

Pitches are given at A=440 so they can be checked against a chart. A lute is often played elsewhere — 415 for baroque — and the concert-A control moves every reading together. Where a course can be strung either way, the toggle changes what you are tuning to, so set it from your own instrument.

Your lute’s pitch is a property of its size

This is the fact that makes a lute unlike almost everything else on this site, and it is worth getting straight before you turn a peg. A “lute in G” is an instrument, not a tuning choice. The nominal pitch follows the string length: a descant lute stands in A, an alto in G, a tenor in E, a bass in D — and all of them use the same six intervals, moved bodily to their own pitch.

So the scheme transposes wholesale. A descant in A is A2–D3–G3–B3–E4–A4; a bass in D is D2–G2–C3–E3–A3–D4. Same shape, same fingering, same tablature, different instrument.

That control is the right tool for baroque repertoire. Open this tuner at A=415 and every reading shifts about a semitone below modern pitch, which is where baroque lutes are normally played. The note names are unchanged — a d-minor tuning is still F–D–A–F–D–A at 415 — so you are tuning to baroque pitch rather than tuning to 440 and hoping.

Pegs, gut, and frets that are meant to move

Friction pegs, no gearing. A lute peg holds by the taper of wood in wood, so the motion that tunes it is push-and-turn rather than turn alone. Ease the peg slightly inward as you arrive at the note; back it off and the course will drop while you are looking at the next one.

Gut moves with the room. Gut is hygroscopic — it takes up and gives off moisture — so the pitch follows humidity and temperature in a way steel does not, and a lute that was in tune an hour ago genuinely is not now. This is a property of the material, not a fault in the instrument or the peg.

The frets are tied on, and they slide.A lute’s frets are lengths of gut knotted round the neck. That makes fret position an adjustable setting rather than a fixed property of the instrument, and moving frets to suit the piece is documented practice — Fuenllana recommended it in 1554. It also means a lute can be perfectly in tune at the nut and sour at the fifth fret, which is a fret to nudge, not a peg to turn.

Tuning routine

Work out which lute you have first. Count the courses, then check whether the top one is single. Six courses with a single top is a renaissance lute; eleven or more with two single trebles is almost certainly a baroque one in d-minor, which is a different tuning and a different tab above.
Set the concert-A control before anything else. 440 for modern-pitch playing, 415 for baroque. Changing it afterwards means doing the whole instrument again.
Start on the 3rd course, A3. It is a plain unison an octave below concert A and it gives the steadiest reading on the instrument. Work outward from there rather than from the bass.
Damp the string you are not reading. A fingertip on its neighbour is enough. A course sounding as a pair gives the detector two pitches to average, and on an octave course two genuinely different ones to choose between.
Mind the third between the 3rd and 4th courses. This is the one place the guitar reflex is wrong. Coming down from A3, the next course is F3, not E3.
Take the bass courses one string at a time, reading the octave digit on each. On an octave pair both strings answer to the same letter, so the digit is the only thing separating a correct tuning from a string an octave out.
Set the diapasons to the piece, if you have them — see below. They are not a fixed tuning, so there is nothing to restore them “to”.
Go round again, twice. Eleven or more strings on a shell built to a few millimetres move the whole instrument as you work; the chanterelle has drifted by the time you reach the bass.

The diapasons are a setting, not a tuning

Below the sixth course, a lute stops having a fixed answer. The bass courses — the diapasons — run diatonically downward rather than in fourths, because they are mostly played open, and they are retuned to suit the key of the piece.

The seventh course is the clearest case: it sits at F or D depending on the repertoire. Dowland mostly used D; Bálint Bakfark, Melchior and Conrad Neusidler, Giovanni Antonio Terzi and Emanuel Adrianssen used F. An eight-course instrument carries both. A ninth adds C below, and a ten-course runs F, E or E♭, D, C — with that E/E♭ moving with the key. The baroque d-minor instrument works the same way, with five to seven diapasons tuned to whatever the next piece needs.

So if a chart and your instrument disagree below the sixth course, the chart is not necessarily wrong and neither are you. Tune the diapasons to the music in front of you.

Equal temperament, meantone, and where the decision really lives

This tuner measures against equal temperament by default, and for a lute that is a defensible default rather than an obviously right one. Equal temperament was probably the most usual way to tune a lute, but it was not the only one, and on an instrument with movable frets the question is live in a way it is not on a guitar.

The historical alternative is meantone, most commonly quarter-comma, which narrows the fifths to buy pure major thirds — the opposite trade to the one equal temperament makes. If that is what your frets are set for, open this tuner in 1/4-comma meantone on G and the readings will match what you are actually aiming at. For baroque repertoire, A=415 with meantone on D is the pairing to try.

The honest caveat is that on a lute the temperament lives in the fret positions far more than in the open courses, and a fret serves every course at once. Setting the dial to meantone tells you where the open strings want to be; it cannot tell you where to tie the frets, and no reviewed fret table for a lute ships on this site because the sources genuinely disagree about which temperament to assume. If you want the arithmetic behind any of this, our guide to cents covers it, and tuning systems lays out the historical temperaments side by side.

Related instruments on the same line: the oud, the lute’s fretless ancestor, and the guitar, its descendant.

Frequently asked questions

What is standard tuning for a renaissance lute?

A six-course renaissance lute in G is tuned G2–C3–F3–A3–D4–G4, read from the 6th course to the 1st. This is the “vieil ton”, the old tuning, and it is fourths throughout except for one major third, which sits between the 3rd and 4th courses. Larger and smaller lutes use the same six intervals at their own pitch — a descant in A, a tenor in E, a bass in D — because the nominal pitch of a lute is a property of its size rather than a setting you choose.

Is a lute tuned like a guitar?

Almost, and the difference is the one that catches people. Both are fourths with a single major third, but on a guitar the third falls between the 3rd and 2nd strings (G to B) and on a lute it falls one course lower, between the 3rd and 4th. The practical mapping is this: take a guitar, lower the 3rd string a semitone from G to F♯, and put a capo at the 3rd fret. The result is G2–C3–F3–A3–D4–G4 — a lute in G, exactly. Guitarists who assume the guitar spacing put an entire course in the wrong place and then try to fix it with the peg.

Can I tune my lute in G up to A?

No, and this is the one mistake on this instrument that costs money rather than time. Gut is strung close to its breaking point by design — a lute is built light and tensioned low — so a lute strung for G taken up to an A scheme will break strings, and the Lute Society says so in as many words. The nominal pitch is set by the string length of the instrument you own. If you need to play with someone pitched elsewhere, transpose the whole scheme down to suit your lute rather than pulling one instrument up to another.

What pitch should a baroque lute be at — 440 or 415?

A=415 is the usual choice for baroque repertoire, about a semitone below modern pitch, and baroque lutes are typically played there rather than at 440. The note names do not change: the d-minor tuning is still F4–D4–A3–F3–D3–A2 whatever you set A to. Set the concert-A control on this tuner to 415 and every reading moves with it, so you are tuning to baroque pitch rather than tuning to 440 and calling it baroque.

My lute is in tune open but sour at the frets. What do I adjust?

The fret, not the peg. A lute’s frets are lengths of gut tied round the neck, and they slide — that is not a defect, it is how the instrument is built, and moving them to suit the piece is documented practice going back to Fuenllana in 1554. If one position is consistently sharp or flat while the open courses read dead centre, nudge that fret a fraction towards the bridge or the nut and check again. The complication is that a fret crosses every course at once, so a position that fixes one course will shift the others — which is exactly why some players fit tastini, short extra frets under individual courses.