Chaz
Oud Admirer
Posts: 9
Registered: 7-25-2021
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What's the difference?
We have turkish, syrian and arabic Ouds. Besides place origin, what are the differences? To my uneducated eye and ear, I don't see any. Enlighten
me? Please?
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Brian Prunka
Oud Junkie
Posts: 2918
Registered: 1-30-2004
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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Mood: Stringish
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This topic has been discussed at length on this forum, if you search creatively you can find many opinions. The search function can be a bit
challenging sometimes to find relevant threads, though.
A few thoughts and opinions:
As you gain experience, differences will become apparent that were not evident to you before. No observation from any of us is going to substitute for
having an experienced ear, so to some extent this just takes time and exploration to discover for yourself the differences.
Mainly we are talking about style of instrument, not place of origin per se, though obviously most Turkish ouds are made in Turkey etc. But Turkey
also has been making Arabic-style ouds for a while now (though with varying degrees of success as far as capturing the Arabic sound). Peter Kyvelos
was a Greek-American luthier who built amazing Turkish-style ouds. Viken Najarian is an Armenian-American luthier who builds excellent Turkish-style
ouds. John Vergara is a great American luthier who makes terrific Arabic-style ouds mostly. Place of origin is secondary to the interests and style
of the maker.
Syrian ouds are Arabic ouds, the Arab world is large and there are many sub-genres of Arabic ouds. The main styles are Syrian, Egyptian and Iraqi.
There are not huge differences between these, but there are some subtle trends.
The main difference is in the sound; a 'desirable' sound for Turkish music is different than what is 'desirable' for Arabic music, generally speaking.
There's a lot of discussion about what exactly that difference is, and people have different ways of describing it. My observations would be that
the Turkish oud typically has brighter/brilliant treble strings, longer sustain, more 'echo' in the bowl reflections, and 'open'-sounding bass
response and often a slightly 'buzzy' quality. Arabic ouds typically have a punchier attack with less sustain, tighter bass response, drier sound,
and warmer treble strings.
Greek and Armenian ouds are typically more similar to Turkish ouds.
Turkish ouds are pretty standardized in size, with 58.5cm being the standard scale length. Arabic ouds vary a lot in size, particularly if you
include floating bridge ouds. I've seen everything from 57cm to 64cm. Regardless of scale length, the bowl on an Arabic oud is typically larger
(which relates to the resonance of the bowl and the desired tuning).
Floating bridge ouds originated in Iraq, by the maker Mohamed Fadel. They are sometimes called "Iraqi ouds." Typical Iraqi ouds do not have a
floating bridge, though, and are relatively similar to other Arabic ouds. Many floating bridge ouds are made in Egypt, Morocco, and Syria. They
typically have a somewhat brighter, more guitarlike quality. Munir Bashir, who pioneered playing on one, was trained by a Turkish teacher, and some
of that aesthetic is often part of the desired tonal quality. Other prominent players of this kind of oud are musically varied and include Naseer
Shamma, Marcel Khalife, Charbel Rouhana and Rahim alHaj. Said Chraibi played one sometimes, but other times used a traditional Arabic oud.
Broadly speaking, Turkish ouds are designed to be tuned neva=A. Arabic ouds are intended to be tuned nawa=G (i.e., a whole step lower). It's a bit
more complicated than that, but it's a largely valid simplification.
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hamshetsi
Oud Admirer
Posts: 3
Registered: 1-9-2022
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Interesting. Since you mentioned echo/sustain/reverb (not sure what's the proper terminology)... I've got an oud with an absolutely insane volume of
echo. On slower music that works awesome -- no additional help needed for the effect. However for the faster music that echo can be a problem, since
notes overlap each other. I don't know whether to try to fix this or just leave it as is and learn how to mute it somehow. Do you have any advice for
me? The oud is Turkish, brand new, haven't changed strings on it yet, just got it last week. Never played an oud up until now.
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