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Oud bought in Damascus

miso - 2-8-2010 at 03:04 PM

Hi everybody,
I bought this oud in Damascus from Mr. Tony Ibrahim Tawil.
I must say I know little about ouds and I have just started playing it. I would appreciate any comments about the model or the manufacturer.
I was surprised in the beginning that the front board is not varnished. Is this usual? (I have more experience with guitars, with which this does not happen normally.)
Thank you!

michoud - 2-8-2010 at 04:02 PM

Hi Miso
Welcome to the forum!
Mr Tony Ibrahim Tawil is the maker?
Where he has his workshop?

miso - 2-8-2010 at 11:48 PM

Hi Michoud,
thanks

He has his shop at the Hand Craft Market, Tukeia Sulaimaniah, Damascus.
I read Mr. Tawil is the great-nephew of Hanna Nahaat.

Danielo - 2-9-2010 at 01:25 AM

Hi Miso and welcome!

Interesting I did not know about this maker. The oud seems quite nice...

Don't worry about the unvarnished soundboard, it is the case for most quality ouds from Turkey and Syria (but not common in Egypt)... all Nahats are unvarnished by the way!

ALAMI - 2-9-2010 at 01:46 AM

He has also a large collection of FAKE Nahats, of course they all swore that they are original, and he tells everybody that he is the cousin of the Nahat family, he may be, but his ouds are not.

Just to be fair to the guy, one of those fakes was nicely done and the wood is worked to look old, the rest was pure crap in terms of making quality, I can't tell for the sound I didn't try.

I think that this guy would be able to make good ouds if someone asks him to do so and gives him enough budget, may be the problem for some luthiers is just that the only market they have is tourists.

Danielo - 2-9-2010 at 02:02 AM

It seems to me though that the oud you bought is a cut above the typical Khalifeh tourist ouds in terms of craftmanship, maybe it is a descent instrument?

alfaraby - 2-9-2010 at 02:24 AM

Tony Tawil is the son of the late Ibrahim Tawil , who really was the nephew of one of the Nahats, and probably worked in his workshop for sometime. Ibrahim didn't manage to follow his tutor & never became a high quality oud maker ; neither did the successor . Tony tried his best, but had to earn his living, so he turned to tourist &/or commercial stuff, and there he's still whirling !

This has been written hundreds of times : Varnished soundboards are usually made of very low quality woods. AAAA master grade spruce for instance shall never be varnished, since that would affect its resonance .

As to your oud : It depends on how much did you pay for it ? If you said goodbye to some 200 - 300 $ + - that would be OK; but if you've paid more, so you were the right tourist Tony was waiting for.

Anyhow, the oud looks nice & I would have bought it if I had visited Damascus.

Good Luck & Mabrouk

yours truly
Alfaraby

miso - 2-9-2010 at 02:54 AM

Hi everyone, thank you for your comments.
Yes, I was a tourist in Damascus, so I didn't know, where to buy a real quality instrument, but I play music, so I tried to pick a good one - as far as I could distinguish it, since that day was the first time I held an oud in my hands

Alfaraby, the price was actually somewhere around 200 dollars (he asked more in the beginning) and he gave me some additional stuff, like strings and a CD (a fake copy) and so. I went through the instruments he had there, I tried like 10 of them, this one seemed best to me.
Anyways, thanks for the posts.

Luttgutt - 2-9-2010 at 12:39 PM

Welcome to oud world and to this Forum Miso!

This oud look "beautiful" for 200 $

You might even be capable of turning it into a playble oud (I guess you'll need to change the nut, and work on the pegs with soap and calc (you'll find all the information if you search this forum).

You'll be amazed how some cheep ouds can "beat" more expensive ones

fernandraynaud - 2-10-2010 at 02:47 AM

Take it slow, learn as you go. Read everything you can find. This forum is a great source.

A bone nut is not necessarily better than a wood one in practice, and ebony pegs also can be more trouble than anything else. Luttgutt is right, you never know, some inexpensive ouds settle in to being very very nice. For one thing you have to LOVE the instrument and play it a lot to make it bloom.

Luttgutt - 2-10-2010 at 05:54 AM

Hi fernandraynaud!
Nice to "see" you back on this forum

Yes, I agree with you that bone nut and ebony are not necesserly better the other wood.

But in this case, it looks like the nut is not well fitted! It looks to me that the deepest base string is hitting the fingerboard!! And the nut looks poor wood anyway.

But the pegs look like the may work just fine (I am gessing they might need some work first).