Gourdtar — my DIY lap steel dulcimer

The gourdtar is a lap steel fretless dulcimer thingie that I built from a really big gourd I found at the NC Farmer's Market in Raleigh, NC. The bridge is carved from bamboo (harvested from my backyard in Louisiana). I constructed this thing years ago with a professor of mine from grad school, but only recently have I outfitted it to make it more readily playable. This included adding the new bridge and measuring out fret markings.

Most recently, I added a pickup, and I sometimes take the gourdtar on the road with me when Twang Darkly plays. With its three strings, it makes a pretty decent bluesy sound:

Several of these songs are available on the various cds / mp3 albums at on my Bandcamp page.

Three String

If you're interested in hand-built three string guitars, check out John McNair's excellent Three String Guitar site.

Lesson Learned: Measuring Fret Markings

For a twelve-tone equal temperament (this is the kind of tuning that is used in Western music, by and large), it works like this...

1. the distance between the nut and the fret 1 = distance from nut to bridge
   (1/17.835 * distance from nut to bridge)
2. the distance between fret 1 and fret 2 = distance from fret 1 to bridge
   (1/17.835 * distance from fret 1 to bridge)
3. and so forth...

The measure/mark technique is sometimes described as employing the "rule of 18," since using a rounded-off value of 18 in place of 17.835 yields pretty decent results and builds in some correction for string height on fretted instruments. Some luthiers use the figure 17.817 as well.

Fret markings make learning to play a fretless instrument MUCH easier, by the way, without, of course, affecting the sound of the instrument.