flamencito
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Restoring old Oud
Hello at the Forum,
please let me intorduce myself,
my name is Nico and I'm a German musician (upright and electric bass) doing mostly Jazz and Worlmusic. I started playing oud four months ago.
I fell in love with the instrument immediately since it feels kind of natural for me playing it with my bass background. (besides the risha
technique...)
About two months ago I bought an old oud that looked very beautiful to me via the internet. Doing some research it seems to be an old syrian oud.
It needs some (well, rather a lot of) repair/adjustment.
The action is very high. The soundboard is sunken in. The stringlenght is about 64 cm. There's a crack on the soundboard etc..
I gave the oud to Fritz from whom I bought a beautiful Padouk oud (my first oud!) just before that. He started now doing what needs to be done to
bring the oud back to live again, trying to remain it as original as possible.
If anyone can give me some information about the oud or the maker I would really appreciate it.
Also there’s a label inside in arabic which unfortunately I can’t read ;-).
So if anyone can tell me what it says it would be great.
Besides Fritz and me will show the progress of the oud on this thread.
So thank you for your help!
Best regards
Nico
PS: I want to thank everybody beeing involved in making such a great website.
I already found a lot of advice and inspiration here and I’d like to share my future experiences in learning the oud and all the other apsects
related to that.
[file]33477[/file] [file]33479[/file] [file]33481[/file] [file]33483[/file] [file]33485[/file]
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SamirCanada
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made by Nabeel Dakat, the son of Mohamed Sobhi Dakat.
it doesn't say the year.
Also, it looks like the bridge came off at some point and it was reglued the wrong way!
@samiroud Instagram
samiroudmaker@gmail.com
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flamencito
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Thank's for the info.
That would explain the enormous stringlength of 64 cm.
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bulerias1981
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Mood: John Vergara Luthier Lord of the Strings instrument making and repair
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Another interesting thing to note, you can see that the scale length division is different than standard. Look at the distance from the neck joint to
the middle of the soundhole, and then the middle of the soundhole where the front of the bridge should be. You'll notice that the 1/3 division ends
somewhere in the pickguard!
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Fritz
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Quote: Originally posted by bulerias1981  | | Another interesting thing to note, you can see that the scale length division is different than standard. Look at the distance from the neck joint to
the middle of the soundhole, and then the middle of the soundhole where the front of the bridge should be. You'll notice that the 1/3 division ends
somewhere in the pickguard! |
Hi John :-)
I saw a lot of Ouds wich string length division isn´t as expected... but on this Oud here it was visible immediately. Searching on the web flamencito
found another Oud with this reversed bridge ! This Oud was a bit comparable to this shown in the pix, so there must be a "line" of Oud maker who have
done it this way. In the bridge there is a slot to insert a thin piece made of bone to use as usual like on guitars. So I´m sure this bridge is
mounted original in this direction. May be the string length has been wanted ?
Kind regards
Fritz
Music is the food for the soul
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Alfaraby
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The label says : Nabeel Dekkeh, son of M'd Sobhi Dekkeh.
It's more interesting to find the name of a well known Syrian tenor, Elias Karam, on the rosette. Could it be his, or is it just similar names ? I
wonder !
I tend to believe it's not, because Elias is small sized.
I liked the oud and I'm sure Fritz shall bring it back to life.
Yours indeed
Alfaraby
alfarabymusic@gmail.com
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Brian Prunka
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| Quote: Originally posted by Fritz |
Searching on the web flamencito found another Oud with this reversed bridge ! This Oud was a bit comparable to this shown in the pix, so there must
be a "line" of Oud maker who have done it this way. In the bridge there is a slot to insert a thin piece made of bone to use as usual like on guitars.
So I´m sure this bridge is mounted original in this direction. |
I don't think your evidence warrants your conclusions—you saw another oud with a similarly reversed bridge and conclude therefore that this was a
traditional practice and the bridge is original? If you found an oud that was by the same maker, it would point towards its being intentional. It
seems evident in the pics that at the very least the bridge was reglued at some point.
It's not impossible that it was glued in that direction originally—but it remains that this is not standard so it is worth seriously considering
changing.
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Fritz
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| Quote: Originally posted by Brian Prunka | | Quote: Originally posted by Fritz |
Searching on the web flamencito found another Oud with this reversed bridge ! This Oud was a bit comparable to this shown in the pix, so there must
be a "line" of Oud maker who have done it this way. In the bridge there is a slot to insert a thin piece made of bone to use as usual like on guitars.
So I´m sure this bridge is mounted original in this direction. |
I don't think your evidence warrants your conclusions—you saw another oud with a similarly reversed bridge and conclude therefore that this was a
traditional practice and the bridge is original? If you found an oud that was by the same maker, it would point towards its being intentional. It
seems evident in the pics that at the very least the bridge was reglued at some point.
It's not impossible that it was glued in that direction originally—but it remains that this is not standard so it is worth seriously considering
changing. |
Hi Brian
Ofcourse it isn´t traditional practice... but the bridge has the holes for the strings from front high to behind at lower position, so the bridge
couldn´t have function mounted in the other direction. It is glued surely bad with epoxy all around...
The other Oud sawn with this kind of bridge was perhaps from the same maker, the design was equal...
Music is the food for the soul
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Fritz
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| Quote: Originally posted by Alfaraby | The label says : Nabeel Dekkeh, son of M'd Sobhi Dekkeh.
It's more interesting to find the name of a well known Syrian tenor, Elias Karam, on the rosette. Could it be his, or is it just similar names ? I
wonder !
I tend to believe it's not, because Elias is small sized.
I liked the oud and I'm sure Fritz shall bring it back to life.
Yours indeed
Alfaraby |
Hi AlFaraby
Very good info about the label(s) inside. And... surely a small sized man couldn´t play this big instrument with ease :-)
I try to make a "normal" string length at about 600, may be 615mm and a traditional dividing of it, placing 1/3 at the body/neck joint... the sound
hole is much too near to it, so it isn´t possible to match the division here...
Best wishes
Fritz
Music is the food for the soul
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jdowning
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Surely the sound hole centre being midway between neck joint and front of bridge only applies to ouds with single not triple sound holes? The
traditional division of string length for a single sound hole oud is supposed to be fingerboard length 1/3 string length, neck joint to centre of
sound hole 1/3 string length and centre of sound hole to front of bridge 1/3 string length but often - to agree with Fritz - it is not. So, for
information, what is the length of the fingerboard and distance from neck joint to front of bridge?
A string length of 64 cm does not seem to be particularly excessive and interestingly (to me!) is divisible by 16 which may have some ancient measure
standard and geometrical implications. Do we know the maximum sound board width?
An interesting oud.
Small sized lutenists (i.e. women) can successfully play the largest of lutes with stopped string lengths of up to 98 cm or more - and that includes
playing chordal accompaniment using 6 stopped courses. I also suspect from research into the geometry of early ouds that the all gut/silk strung ouds
(and lutes) that pre-date the introduction of wound bass strings (late 17th C) had a 'standard' string length of 67.5 cm - necessary for optimum
acoustic performance of the gut/silk strings.
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alim
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For fun,
In addition to the names, the top label, 2nd line says:
Iraqi Oud, Syrian made (or manufacture).
The bottom label, 2nd line:
The Original Demasceen Oud.
Cheers,
Ali-
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