Mike's Oud Forums

Beginner buying questions

AhmedT - 11-11-2013 at 06:33 PM

Hi,
I'm an oud beginner with guitar experience. I went out and found an Ibrahim Sukar oud (Model 201). The ask price was $700 CAD. Is this too much?

Also, a few other questions related to the oud itself:
- There seems to be a lot of sympathetic resonance from strings on the oud. Is that expected? I notice oud players don't palm mute :-).

- To my ear the note displacement on strings are not really even. I.e. should I expect the A# on the A string to alight exactly with the D# on the D string? If they should align and don't, what maybe the cause?

Thanks.

Brian Prunka - 11-11-2013 at 07:13 PM

$700 is reasonable for a Sukar oud. Some sympathetic resonance is normal. Your left hand can control unwanted sounds.

The notes do not line up exactly, they're very close. More likely it's the parallax distortion caused by your perspective.