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The Kutla, a string instrument · Stories from Väruld

• 0:02
  Host: You are listening to stories from Väruld.
• 0:05
  Host: In this episode, the Kutla.
• 0:13
  Narrator: I have made kutlas all my life, and I still do not know what one will sound like until I hear it.
• 0:20
  Narrator: That is why I love them.
• 0:22
  Narrator: You begin with wood, a good heavy piece of it.
• 0:27
  Narrator: Most kutlas can be carried, though not always easily.
• 0:32
  Narrator: Once I made one from an entire trunk, so large that I had to build it inside the room where it was meant to stay.
• 0:40
  Narrator: The top remains smooth.
• 0:42
  Narrator: The hollows are carved from beneath.
• 0:45
  Narrator: One, two, sometimes several chambers opening towards the floor.
• 0:50
  Narrator: Above them, I stretch as many strings as the wood will make.
• 0:55
  Narrator: Then I listen.
• 0:57
  Narrator: A kutla has no single tuning.
• 1:00
  Narrator: Small supports are placed between the wood and each string and moved until the string gives the note wanted for that particular song.
• 1:10
  Narrator: Another song may need them all moved again.
• 1:14
  Narrator: No two kutlas are alike.
• 1:16
  Narrator: They cannot be.
• 1:18
  Narrator: Every tree grew differently.
• 1:20
  Narrator: Every grain carries its own tensions, its own hollows, its own memory.
• 1:27
  Narrator: Most people pluck the strings, and the sound rises bright above the deep resonance of the wood.
• 1:34
  Narrator: But a bow can draw out something entirely different.
• 1:39
  Narrator: Long, rough, singing tones that seem to come from far inside the instrument.
• 1:46
  Narrator: Some say that is only vibration.
• 1:50
  Narrator: I know better.
• 1:51
  Narrator: A tree spends its whole life listening to wind, rain, birds, axes, voices beneath its branches.
• 2:00
  Narrator: When we make a kutla, we finally give it away to answer.
• 2:09
  Host: Thank you for listening to Stories from Väruld.
• 2:12
  Host: In the next episode, Journal Entry about Chipakana.