For the past couple years I've traveled a fair bit to Sweden to play music and learn the local fiddle tunes (so many polskas!) and have encountered a whole lot of amazing musicians. A few of them have played these fantastic 10-string citterns by a local luthier named Mats Nordwall, but I had never gotten to play one up close until yesterday. Once I had one in my hands for 20 minutes I had to place a custom order.
Here is a little soundclip of me playing Mats' personal instrument:
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Here's a nice video of another of these citterns featuring a much better player than me haha:
Wow. He's a very thoughtful maker and builds fantastic instruments. They are typically tuned CFCGC (basically DGDAD down a whole step) but a bunch of alternate tunings are possible with the typical string gauges he uses. They are a bit interesting in that they use a combination of nylon and steel strings on the lowest two courses, taking after what Roger Tallroth in Väsen does to achieve his low A and D courses on his ADADAD 12-string guitar tuning. This lessens the overall tension the top has to support to get the low strings and allows for a lighter, more responsive build that is easy to play and balanced across the strings. It also capos up very well, still retaining both a strong low end and high end when capoed up to open F, G, and A (the 5th, 7th, and 9th frets respectively). Intonation was perfect all up and down the neck. Every 5 course OM family instrument I have played before either was favored the treble or bass too heavily, been good at either melody or rhythm but not both, had intonation problems, or was just a bear to play. These instruments seem to hit the sweet spot. Highly recommend you check out Mats' work if you are looking for something like this :D
Now the hard part is waiting!
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