stos
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Gut strings!
hello everybody!
Last year I tried gut strings for my two treble strings on double bass and I really liked it.
The sound of the attack on the strings on double bass is really well-sounding, and I thought that it would be nice also on oud.
I'm ordering tomorrow gut strings from W.Fruh for my Sukar and my Ramazan oud to try. 
I'll put the three last treble strings in gut and see what will happen and review it here.
did anybody have any experience with it?
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fernandraynaud
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I use gut strings on a viola da gamba because they sound great specifically when bowed. They are expensive and they frey quickly, with little threads
coming off the string, even with the soft (string) frets on the viol. They are used on lute, where one plays with the fingers, but on an oud playing
with a risha I can't imagine them lasting very long.
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jdowning
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Gut strings have been used on ouds for centuries - right up until nylon strings became generally available in the second half of the 20th C.
Their durability under a risha will be interesting to see. Good luck.
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David.B
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Interesting, let us know!
As a "fundamentalist" (as someone called him on this forum), I'm 100% Marc Loopuyt uses gut strings on this video -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04lbkCFJZf4
A feather should be less aggressive...
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stos
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hello!
So they ship it to me today. It costs for non rectified gut strings around 30 euros (for the 2 ouds).
The lady on phone use some gut on qwitra and told that they last long on this luth. She advised me to try to take a piece of the thickest gut string,
make a knot and use it as a risha.
I realy don't how it will sound , will see!
I tried also to send an email to Marc Loopuyt, and ask him for advises.
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jdowning
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fernandraynaud has raised an interesting point concerning durability of gut.
I do not use gut strings on my lutes for reasons of convenience and high cost choosing Pyramid nylon mono-filament and wound strings instead (though
not that inexpensive!). However I do use more costly gut for the frets because experience indicates that they are easier to tie than the nylon
alternative, do not slip, and most importantly do not cut into the strings causing premature wear and failure of the strings (particularly the more
costly wound strings). Nevertheless the gut frets themselves eventually get worn down by the harder nylon strings and have to be replaced.
I would expect, therefore, that the working life of an oud gut string would very much depend upon the hardness and shape of a risha (or mizrab) - a
softer material and smoother more rounded shape equating to longer string life.
Remembering that use of gut strings on an oud continued until the mid 20th C, one has to wonder what the older musicians used for their picks in
pre-plastic times past.
An alternative to the suggestion to use knotted gut as a risha might be to cut a strip of hard leather and use that - shaped as required. Gut and
leather are similar organic materials. A leather risha has the further option of a smooth side and a (soft) rough side to provide variations in tone
colour and will 'grip' a gut string better than it would a smooth, slippery nylon string. Were leather 'rishas' ever used in times past - I don't know
but I have successfully made and tried them on plain silk strings.
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stos
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thanks for the leather tip! I'll try this also!
A lot of experimentations in the near future yeah!
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fernandraynaud
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Horn would also grip well, it's in the same family as hair, so it's a good match, like the horsehair on a bow, and like a feather. Delrin would
probably devour a gut string, but maybe some soft poly, or nylon.
It's not fair to compare ... in olden times we weren't being blasted with sound. People listened to lutes played with the fingers, straight flutes,
clavichords and other low level sounds that in today's terms are very very quiet indeed. An modern oud played with a horn or plastic risha is a very
loud instrument. Play it with a soft risha, or your fingers, and it's a different animal.
But it's not just rock and rap that made things loud. It escalated over centuries. The viol family lost out to the violin family over one thing
mainly: volume, and that was in the 18th century. The quiet clavichord lost out to the harpsichord in the 17th century, then the wood-frame pianoforte
became popular at the end of the 18th, then the steel-frame american Steinway piano in the 19th. And the classical orchestra in the 18th century was
tuned to A=415 Hz, then escalated gradually to A=440. Now they are tuning some orchestras even higher. Why? VOLUME! Wooden guitars were made louder
and louder, then the electric guitar arrived. But an electric guitar without an amp is a very quiet instrument. With amplification we can explore
timbres that are only possible with specific materials, and volume doesn't need to factor into it.
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jdowning
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... and many of us still do prefer to listen to the subtle nuances of lutes played with soft fingertips avoiding - as far as is possible - the
deafening blast of highly amplified music. Loudness, of course, does not necessarily equate to quality of sound - and with prolonged exposure to
loudness comes the consequence of increased deafness - requiring in turn a need for even more loudness! I wonder what the decibel level of a large
classical orchestra is these days?
The sound volume of a lute is not so quiet either and can be heard perfectly adequately by a larger (quiet and well behaved!) audience in an
acoustically suitable auditorium without need for amplification - so it should be no different for an old style oud. The ideal starting volume for a
lute is absolute silence in order to achieve the maximum dynamic range - often difficult to achieve even for those of us who choose to live in more
remote rural environments - although it is sometimes nice to listen to birds outside adding their song in random accompaniment.
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Brian Prunka
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Many older oud players played with an eagle feather (where we get the name risha from), which I don't think would cause too much wear on the gut
strings.
The oldest plectrums were made of wood, as I understand it, which as we know can vary in hardness quite a bit.
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jdowning
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I have heard that strips of tree bark (cherry wood?) are sometimes used as plectra - not sure for which Middle Eastern instrument though.
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Bodhi
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I have tried to make Rishi from cherry wood and maple both of which are very hard! A carpenter friend of mine cut about 20 of strips from 0.5mm to 2mm
for me at about 1.5cm width. Both options were almost unusable for me above 0.5mm and the 0.5mm only lasted about 20mins and I was going quite easy to
get the feel for them and to watch for splits arising. I didnt try cherry bark, however I have heard that it also breaks quite easily. All in all you
get a good sound from the cherry wood, better than the maple, a good attack. The maple was somehow fuzzy if that makes any sense. So apart from the
breakage and needing precision tools or a carpenter on hand 24hrs it is worth a go.
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Jody Stecher
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Sorry if the following is off topic, which had been gut strings but has moved toward the contact of string and risha, so I thought I'd post here on
the subject of eagle quills.
Reading over the various past threads and comments on the subject of eagle rishi I see that there are some ideas that are at odds with what I've
witnessed in the past. Some old oud hands will know this: before an eagle quill can be used to play an oud string it needs preparation. The feathers
are stripped away except for at the very end. The hollow white part is removed almost entirely (this is the part some baroque mandolin players are
using these days, and in my opinion they may be mistaken about the historicity of using that part of the quill). What's left is a dark brown or black
central shaft with decorative plumage at one end. It is more or less flat. Not cylindrical. Now the non-feathered end is soaked in olive oil for
about 10 days. The shaft now resembles leather. It is very supple and will not crack or wear out for a long time. The feel of this risha is 85%
leather and 15% fingernail. There is no brittleness and no click on contact with the string. There is a percussive sound of course, as there will be
to some extent with any kind of plectrum, but it is not scratchy.
I was shown how to do this by some of the Arab players and shop keepers on and around Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, NY in the 1960s. There were a few
shops that sold prepared eagle rishi as well. These had come from the middle east, exactly where I can't say. When I moved to the west coast of the US
in the late 60s I befriended the zoo keeper who tended the eagle cages at the SF Zoo and he and his successor would give me any feathers from the
floor of the cage. There were always 1 or 2 that were suitable. I'd prepare them as I was shown and I always got a similar result to the pre-prepared
rishi I had obtained in Brooklyn.
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Brian Prunka
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Your description matches that of the eagle rishas I've seen, including ones that belonged to Simon Shaheen's father and grandfather.
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stos
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I've received them this morning ! ( I ordered them friday!)
I'll see if I have time to put them today!
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fernandraynaud
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One detail. After gut strings start to fray and shed they still have life in them, they are usable until they snap.
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Jason
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What kind of gamba do you play fernandraynaud?
I have a cheap Chinese treble that I like to mess around on. It's not the most historically accurate of instruments but it's fun to play and sounds
great recorded. I'm using a mix of Gamut guts and synthetic bass strings.
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fernandraynaud
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I'm renting an East German 6 string bass, about 680mm, so a relatively small bass, about the size of a cello. I needed to get familiar with viols for
a commission piece I was writing. They are expensive. I have just found a Chinese luthier that some pros are happy with. Trying to decide if I'm
going to buy another bloody chordaphone when I'm still assembling a powerful new workstation PC, the rental isn't costing a fortune and I'm not
finding enough time to get proficient on the viol anyway. Sigh. So many instruments; so little time.
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stos
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ok guys
i will not put them now on my oud, because i flight in 2 days in greece and i 'm a bit on a hurry.
i will try them during the summer in greece and give my feedback at that moment.
see you!
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