The lute is a stringed musical instrument that has a long, fretted neck and a hollow, typically pear-shaped body with a vaulted back.
The European lute and the modern Near-Eastern onre descend from a common ancestor via divergent evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a great variety of instrumental in the music from the Medieval to the late Baroque eras and was the most important instrument for saecular music in the Renaissance. It is also an accompanying instrument, especially in vocal compositions, often realizing a basso continuo or playing a written-out accompaniment. The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist or lutist, and a maker of lutes (or any similar string instrument) is referred to as a luthier.
