Need some help with Stossel Lute

Folling is the tuning for the stossel lute I bought. Not sure what the e with the "e"raised 2 means. Or the apstrophy. Seems like the octive. Anyone know of any music for this.
Yes it is German, I don't know which one I have. But all the seven string ones seem to be the same

Siebensaitige Stössel-Laute e² c² a' f' d' b g
Fünfsaitige Stössel-Laute c² a' f' d' b
Sechssaitige Stössel-Laute c² a' f' d' b g
Achtsaitige Stössel-Laute e² c² a' f' d' b g es
Neunsaitige Stossel-Laute e² c² a' f' d' b g es c
Stössel-Baßlaute [12 Basssiten] e² c² a' f' d' b g As es B f c G d A e H fis cis

Mid-East Company has lots of LUTES and other instruments for sale, maybe they have a resources page?

See: http://www.mid-east.com/

Otherwise, maybe send an email or PM to Dirk from SouthCoast Strings - he has lots of knowledge about these kinds of things....

plunker said:

Folling is the tuning for the stossel lute I bought. Not sure what the e with the "e"raised 2 means. Or the apstrophy. Seems like the octive. Anyone know of any music for this.
Yes it is German, I don't know which one I have. But all the seven string ones seem to be the same

Siebensaitige Stössel-Laute e² c² a' f' d' b g
Fünfsaitige Stössel-Laute c² a' f' d' b
Sechssaitige Stössel-Laute c² a' f' d' b g
Achtsaitige Stössel-Laute e² c² a' f' d' b g es
Neunsaitige Stossel-Laute e² c² a' f' d' b g es c
Stössel-Baßlaute [12 Basssiten] e² c² a' f' d' b g As es B f c G d A e H fis cis

Click to expand...

As written, these tunings are from treble to bass and are effectively two "interleaved" sets of 5th's tunings. For example, the first is EADG interleaved with CFB, or as may be more readily recognisable, GDAE from bass to treble (the same as a mandolin/fiddle) interleaved with BFC. The "apostrophes" are little figure 1's and with the little figure 2's do indicate the octaves, as you surmised

Many "folk" melodies would be easily playable on an instrument like this, it has a very usable range ... but if you want chord shapes or tab then you'll be on your own unless you can track down an original published tutor, (which would probably be in German), maybe on eBay.de ?

Good luck, and keep us posted

Thank you. Sounds like this is more picking than struming

No, not at all.

Stössel encouraged starting out with chords rather than melodies, and took pride in it that no key would be difficult to finger on his instruments (unlike Bb or B on a guitar, or E and Db on a ukulele).

The clue however, is to not play all the strings all of the time, but to strum the 3-4 adjecent strings you need for your chord, and use just a few fretting fingers.

ukulelekarcsi said:

No, not at all.

Stössel encouraged starting out with chords rather than melodies, and took pride in it that no key would be difficult to finger on his instruments (unlike Bb or B on a guitar, or E and Db on a ukulele).

The clue however, is to not play all the strings all of the time, but to strum the 3-4 adjecent strings you need for your chord, and use just a few fretting fingers.

Click to expand...

Fascinating ... might just be worth sitting down for an hour or two and figuring out the "chord shapes" for a few tunes then scratching something up with a plank of wood and transducer or pickup just to see what it feels like to play ... I'll put it on the list for when I retire

It would be great to use a pick

ukulelekarcsi said:

No, not at all.

Stössel encouraged starting out with chords rather than melodies, and took pride in it that no key would be difficult to finger on his instruments (unlike Bb or B on a guitar, or E and Db on a ukulele).

The clue however, is to not play all the strings all of the time, but to strum the 3-4 adjecent strings you need for your chord, and use just a few fretting fingers.

Click to expand...

You can actually do Chords & Melodies at the same time on this instrument & actually he was an amazing inventor.

The 9 String Stossel Lute Tuning is C3, Eb3, G3, Bb3, D4, F4, A4, C5, E5. So strings, 1, 3, 5, 7, & 9 are the same as a 5 string Violin, & then you have another set of 5ths that are a minor third above a Viola.