phaedon
Oud Lover
Posts: 22
Registered: 6-5-2005
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Manol, Baron, and the Metropolitan Museum
Greetings all,
I wanted to share a couple of links to those of you interested in historical construction.
One is an article by Cem Behar which I have translated from Turkish to English, about Manol and Baron:
http://lyrafiddle.com/articles/manol-of-the-ud-baron-of-the-kemence...
The other is a writeup, with photographs, of five gorgeous examples of the klasik kemençe (politiki lyra) in the Met's instrument collection:
http://lyrafiddle.com/antiques/metropolitan-museum/
Looking forward to hearing feedback!
best,
Phaedon
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jdowning
Oud Junkie
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The article states that the sound board material Manol chose for his ouds were spruce, fir or plumwood. I have never heard of plumwood being used for
any oud (or lute) soundboards and doubt if it would be suitable for a number of reasons. Is this an error in translation from the original Turkish?
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phaedon
Oud Lover
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Hi jdowning,
Thanks for pointing this out. It is bizarre to me, too, and it is very possible I made a mistake in translation; otherwise, perhaps the author made a
mistake in listing the woods. The original reads:
"Udun göğsünü Manol hep lâdin, köknar ya da erik ağacından yaparmış."
I took "erik ağacı" to mean "plum tree". If this isn't right, please let me know and I will fix it.
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jdowning
Oud Junkie
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I have no knowledge of Turkish so cannot advise on the translation but if the author listed plumwood as a sound board material for ouds it is most
likely to be an error. Perhaps he meant cedar or larch or some other softwood species that were used for soundboards?
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reminore
Oud Junkie
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Location: Binghamton, NY
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phaedon, congratulations on the really good looking site! its very weird, i found it by chance earlier today...and made a note to go back and read
it thoroughly later...this evening our friend tasos sent me an email with a photograph of the ottoman inscription in your aziz kemence - now this post
- serendipity!
erik agaci is indeed plumwood - and i know they work with it in trabzon on pontic lyras...
the decoration on the early kemence is amazing and reminiscent of the decorating technique used on makriyannis's tamboura. i want to get back and
read through the material now!
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jdowning
Oud Junkie
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Even on the kemençe, the soundboard - according to the text - is made from Cedar of Lebanon, or some kind of cypress wood as well as pinewood for
inferior instruments - not plumwood which perhaps might be used for the carved bodies of some instruments such as in trabzon on pontic lyras?
Plum wood being a strong, close grained, dense and stable fruitwood is a good wood for making tuning pegs though.
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reminore
Oud Junkie
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Location: Binghamton, NY
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i should have been more clear - i agree with jdowning, dense fruitwoods aren't appropriate for any soundboard i'm sure...but are for the carved bowl.
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