Building a Langspil — The Icelandic Drone Zither

The langspil is Iceland's drone zither: a long soundbox with one fretted melody string and one or two drone strings that ring under every note, so one player sounds a tune AND its harmony at once.

Cut a base, two side ribs and two end blocks for a long, narrow box about 80 cm long and 8-10 cm wide. Icelanders used driftwood — pine, birch or oak.

Glue the two ribs to the base and end blocks to make a long, shallow open box. Clamp it and let the glue set fully.

Glue a thin softwood soundboard over the top, overlapping the ribs slightly, to seal a resonant chamber. A thin, light top vibrates best.

Cut a round soundhole in the soundboard so the sound built up inside the box can escape.

At the headstock end, bore three tapered holes through the top for the tuning pegs — one for the melody string, two for the drones.

Push a friction tuning peg into each hole so it turns stiffly and holds string tension without slipping.

Carve a small hardwood nut near the pegs and a low bridge near the far end. The strings ride over both, lifted clear of the soundboard.

Anchor three steel strings to small pins at the far end, run them over the bridge and nut, and wind each onto its tuning peg.

Fit small metal frets across the soundboard UNDER THE MELODY STRING ONLY, spaced so pressing behind each one gives the next note of a diatonic scale.

Tune the two drone strings to a low keynote and its octave or fifth. They will sound continuously, giving the langspil its droning voice.

Tune the melody string to the keynote too. Check it against the frets — pressing behind each fret should climb cleanly through the scale.

Press the melody string behind the frets with one hand and pluck it with the other. The drones ring under every note. Try bowing or gently hammering it too.

The langspil is a drone zither: a resonant box with strings stretched along the top. One fretted MELODY string carries the tune while one or two DRONE strings hold a constant note, so a single player produces melody and harmony together — the same principle as a bagpipe's chanter over its drones, or a hurdy-gurdy. The sealed soundbox is a resonator: the thin strings alone move almost no air, but they shake the light soundboard, which drives the air inside the box, which spills out through the soundhole — the box amplifies the strings, exactly as in a guitar or violin. String pitch follows the same three rules as the musical bow — tension, length and mass — and pressing the melody string just behind a fret shortens its speaking length to raise the pitch by a fixed step, which is the whole point of the frets. Iceland has few trees, so langspils were built from driftwood — pine, birch, oak; the instrument is first recorded in the 18th century and is a northern cousin of the German scheitholt and the Appalachian dulcimer, all box drone zithers. Icelandic schoolchildren still build and play their own today, some laser-cut from plywood in a Fab Lab — a heritage instrument kept alive by making it.