Description: A member of the plucked cordophone family, the sape is a boat shaped lute that has a short neck. The Sape is found amongst the Dayak, Orang Olu and Penan peoples. Melodies for the sape are inspired from dreams there are 35 melodies in the core repertoire. There are two specific modes in which the dances are performed in "the men's long house dance" and "the woman's long house dance". Originally the sape was played for ritual music this was to induce the performers into a trance, nowadays the sape is played in social occasions. When playing the sape the player sits down in which the sape is supported by the player’s legs the sape is held close to the chest. The player mainly plucks the the lowest tuned or the bottom string and the rest of the strings are drones. Today modern sape's are often highly ornate with themes of traditional artwork from Sarawak.

 

Sape Tuning

D-B-D"-B"

 

 

Anatomy of the Sape: The body of the sape is carved often from a single piece of wood. An indigenous species of wood is preferred for making the sape called “Tebuloh”. This species of wood is bitter and is avoided by insects. Many other types of wood can be used to make the sape. Traditional sapes have from 3 to four strings. On the top string a thumb tack is added to raise the string to an octave, according to the tuning this creates a chord when played with a melodic string. Originally the sapes had only two strings, three moveable frets, later three and four strings were added. The frets are affixed with a sticky pitch and substance called ksoot. These type of sape are still common, although a recent new sape having 6 machine gear tuning pegs and fixed frets along with a single electric pick up is becoming the norm. Sapes having 5 or 8 strings are quite rare. The sape has a pleasant and bright sound.