Plum_Pasha - 5-31-2010 at 09:25 PM
Hi all - once again altering this first post just to say that the two remaining Mustafa Copçuoğlu ud-s for sale (http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ederer/misc/ud/ud.html - videos at the bottom) are now in Portland, Oregon - if that's close to you and you are
interested in one of the ud-s, please let me know at ederer@umail.ucsb.edu. I will also be driving as far south as Santa Monica, California soon, if
you live between here and there.
I'm not uptight about the pricing - offer me something! At this point about 1300 of you have looked at this post so either you've mistaken me for
Angelina Jolie or you just like to laugh at my prose style or ... or perhaps you like the ud-s?
About a month ago another fellow sold a Mustafa here on the Forum for $2,000 ... I understand that many of us here think that for that price it should
come with diamond inlay and free orthodontia for your pets ... fine; blessings upon you ... but for those of us who have reason to believe that
$2,000 is within the range of possibility for just an (outstanding) ud, let's call that the upper end, now, and see where we can go from there.
Thanks for clicking by!
Eric
Hello again! I am only altering a previous post to say that now only the long-fingerboard "pro-model" Mustafa and the Circassian walnut-backed
"(pretty advanced) student" Mustafa are available. Since I'm in the middle of moving I haven't yet made a video of the latter ud, but it sounds like
the "one year ago" sound of the olive-backed one in the first video (and will sound like the "on its birthday" version in the same video a year after
you've been playing it) - please see/hear them here: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ederer/misc/ud/ud.html
Thanks for your inquiries!
Eric
xxxxx
Hi - please follow the first link below to see photos of these three ud-s, along with some information (and some admittedly biased opinion) about
them, and about Turkish luthier Mustafa Copçuoğlu.
I got them new from Mustafa last year when I still lived in Istanbul (... living in Chicago, now, soon to move to Portland, OR, but can ship anywhere
in North America).
http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ederer/misc/ud/ud.html
I have not recorded anything with any of these three uds, but you can hear me playing another Mustafa of mine at the following links:
with a little reverb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzqxs_y2KG0&feature=related
without any effects:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2mXj5wF6Xc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZZ5WZ7vnPw&feature=related
Depending on the feedback I get here I would be happy to record a little video of me playing any or all of the ud-s - if you are seriously considering
one of them, please ask!
To start, I'm asking $2,600 for the "long fingerboard" model and $2,400 each for the "short fingerboard" type, but let's talk - I'd like to see these
fine instruments get good homes.
Thank you for your interest!
Eric
fernandraynaud - 5-31-2010 at 10:48 PM
Hello Eric,
First of all, welcome to our little corner of oud heaven!
Secondly I really loved your Hanuka-Ramazan piece.
Third, the promotional material in support of these instruments is very interesting. There has been of late some discussion here of the short scale
ouds used with Arabic tuning, with the advantage of easier fingering but also expecting a powerful bass. That sounds exactly like what these are.
Given the improbability of my own hands-on determination, "in this market", what can you tell me as to HOW this is achieved by the luthier?
structurally? Woods? Do such ouds retain the Turkish rich-high-end AS WELL AS gain a powerful low end?
Thanks
Plum_Pasha - 6-1-2010 at 07:14 AM
Thanks for the warm welcome! I know I should have joined years ago but have just been on the extreme ends of the busy/lazy spectrum lately. (Also glad
that you enjoyed the tune; sheet music available for nothing at http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ederer/comp/comp.html).
I guess I’m at a disadvantage not knowing all the conversations (and politics) that you-all have already had here over the years, and worse -
because of the nick-names - I’m not even sure whom among you I already know! But worse still, I’m afraid I won’t be able to give a very
satisfactory answer to your question.
And I wonder whether Mustafa would be able to do so, either – I’ve never heard him explain the shaping of his sound, other than to say that he
studied Manol ud-s very closely, which is lovely and true but no answer at all. The woods are, at least for Turkish ud-s, nothing out of the ordinary
– medium-soft on top and hardwoods on the back, not too much ornamental marquetry, etc. The insides of his instruments, that is, the bracing, looks
normal (I don’t remember the number of braces, I think 7 rather than 8). I don’t know how thin the tops are but I don’t think they are overall
unusually thick or thin. So my answer, also, unfortunately comes down to “magic.”
I’ve had him make two ud-s for friends of mine who he knew would tune at the Arab pitch-level and I’m pretty sure he didn’t do anything
radically different to accommodate that, and they are very happy with their sound; I also played the one in the previously posted videos in Arab
tunings for years, and though it sounds better a whole step higher, it’s hardly the case that it goes to sleep at the lower tuning.
As for the high end, I have to admit that I don’t usually spend much time playing up there, myself, though I usually keep Aquila nylgut strings on
the upper two courses, and I'm sure that helps bring out the best. Let me work on getting a little video together of a test drive of these ud-s in
different tunings, but in the meanwhile, for the sake of finding an answer to the question generally, let me point to this video of Mehmet Emin Bitmez
playing a very low-pitched ud by Ali Nişadır:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onm-P3ECnko&feature=related
I shot that video to send to a Lebanese-American friend who was coming to visit Istanbul and wanted me to set him up with a custom-made Iraqi-style ud
(though note this one does not have a floating bridge), so I tuned it low – too low, in fact – the tone rast would be B here, rather than C, which
may better show off the point – here the low string is set to G#. (Had my friend been able to get this very ud I think he would have bought it, but
in the event he ended up with a new Mustafa instead, but that’s a story for another time.) Mehmet only plays a little bit in the high end here,
toward the end of the video, but you can hear that it is pretty even and balanced. I’m sure Ali’s having spent (is it 10 or 15?) years making ud-s
in Kuwait has something to do with the sound of this ud at that pitch level.
For overall balance low end to high, the only ud that ever really struck me as outstanding was one by Faruk Türünz, in his shop – videos of Yurdal
Tokcan playing these abound, I’m sure you’ve already seen them, and as I understand that Faruk Bey is active in this forum I’m sure he will be
able to tell you down to the millimeter what he is doing to forge his sound.
It is my own opinion that the standard for Arab-made ud-s is overall less “tight,” less ready to resonate as a whole than the general standard for
the Istanbul (Greek/Armenian/Turkish) tradition, and that the power and resonance of the latter is mostly due to that – which I assume is a matter
of the confluence of materials, craftsmanship and an aesthetic sense on the part of the respective performers and audiences, rather than any one
particular technical aspect (including pitch level), though now that I think on it, part of it must be that this “tightness” allows for longer
sympathetic vibration of open strings, providing that faux reverb and allowing the power to build a bit before decaying.
Since I have it at hand, here is another recording of a (“short fingerboard”) Mustafa, this time by Necati Çelik – the low string is at B,
here, so you can imagine it a half-step higher as your kaba/qarar rast. He gets some high end out of that around the 2:50 mark: http://plumpasha.blogspot.com/2008/12/first-recording-project.html
OK – thanks for your question, sorry I couldn’t really answer it! Again thanks for your welcoming words.
adamgood - 6-1-2010 at 10:29 AM
Hi Eric! Welcome to the group, looking forward to your contributions.
Adam (Good)
MatthewW - 6-1-2010 at 10:31 AM
Hi Eric, welcome to the forum! I enjoyed your playing, and the ouds you have for sale are all top notch. 
We seem to have some interesting connections- I was born and raised in Chicago, lived a short time in Portland OR, and have a brother named Eric! I
now call UK home for the time being. Hey bro don't be too concerned about the "converstaions and politics" etc in this forum, I don't think many of us
do that much; we really are all united by music and love of the oud, everything else is a bit of this and that and 'chewing the fat'. One for all and
all for one.
hope to see more posts by you- regards MW
Ararat66 - 6-1-2010 at 11:19 AM
Hello Eric
Great vids, the bass response on those ouds are pretty explosive (in a good way I think), very 'hot', very different from my Tasos Theodorakis oud
which is probably somewhere in the middle of your spectrum between old style and Mustafa. I really enjoy your playing btw and that clip of Necati is
beautiful, really interesting modulations.
As Matthew says, there is plenty of opinion and ideas here, but the music very much takes the lead and Politics with a capitol 'P' rarely gets a look
in. If you think of the people and cultures represented here it just shows how fluid music is.
Cheers
Leon
Plum_Pasha - 6-1-2010 at 05:01 PM
Thanks all for your kind and welcoming words! I have just put up two videos of two of these ud-s, on the bottom of the original page: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ederer/misc/ud/ud.html
I don't get the time to practice as much as I'd like so please excuse the mistakes and sloppy playing; I hope you can tell from the links to Necati's
taksim-s above (well, here: http://plumpasha.blogspot.com/2008/12/first-recording-project.html
and playing on Mustafa's site here: http://www.mustafacopcuoglu.com/english/index.htm) - that such instruments in the hands of the more diligent player can sound pretty awesome.
Enjoy!
fernandraynaud - 6-1-2010 at 10:37 PM
Eric, I had never retuned instruments so freely, in part because i started with Arabic and I'm accustomed to studios, multitrack and pianos. But I've
been testing a new oud today, and it's a shorter scale than the 615mm I'm used to, 600 in fact. I wanted to see if a little more tension would sound
better. The strings it came with were
046w 032w 026w 033p 029p 021p
So tuning it up a whole tone higher, relative to how I normally tune, like up to DFFBBeeaadd, wasn't going to do damage, in fact with the 1/2 way
shorter scale, half of my uptuning was going to be "neutralized". But now if I play Rast, I'm playing in D. Pardon my ignorance: so, how do you
Turkish players look at it, you play it by position and Rast is D and Bayati is in E?
Multi Kulti - 6-2-2010 at 03:34 AM
Fernandraynaud...sorry to say that but you should open a new thread if you need to discuss these things...its difficult for all of us to follow this
kind of coin-flipping discussions...please DONT HIJACK the threads...
Nikos Rondelis
fernandraynaud - 6-2-2010 at 03:46 AM
Not familiar with the term highjacked, it was an exchange that started in response to Eric's post and his qualifications.
fernandraynaud - 6-2-2010 at 11:49 AM
Multi, from your "need to discuss" wording it doesn't seem like you were too interested in the topic, so why bother accosting people and telling them
where and how they should be conversing? Do you work in "corrections"? This thread was relevant & on-topic and you drove it to private comms.
Multi Kulti - 6-2-2010 at 01:54 PM
i dont think you are in position to understand in what im interested or not...what i told you it was a polite suggestion..its up to you to continue
the off-topic discussion...just to remind you the thread is about selling 3 mafnificent Mustafa Usta uds..(of course i will not continue arguing with
you)
fernandraynaud - 6-2-2010 at 06:09 PM
The person who initiated the thread is in a good position to decide what is on-topic and we were exactly talking about these Turkish ouds. Nothing to
get excited about. 
Peace.
Plum_Pasha - 6-2-2010 at 07:01 PM
As to the last couple of posts, let me just say that as a wonky ethnomusicologist type I tend to give long-ish answers even to simple questions, which
might be a greater distraction than any of your queries, so I'm happy to give those either in private communication or in another thread (which I'm
not sure exactly how to initiate), but in short: yes, the fingerings/hand positions are always the same for a makam "in its place," so Turkish players
use exactly the same fingerings and Rast comes out sounding on D and Beyati on E. (Fernand - you are welcome to post my longer reply in another
thread, if you think it pertinent there - unfortunately I didn't keep a copy of it.)
The vibrating string lengths of these ud-s are 580mm for the "short-fingerboard" ones and 585mm "long-fingerboard" one, and the strings on these right
now are Kürschner .09s - I haven't done any experiments comparing all of the elements (scale length/string gauges/top thickness/materials, etc.) that
go into an ud's particular sound, but I invite you to listen to these ud-s in the videos on the bottom of http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ederer/misc/ud/ud.html and judge for yourself - feedback welcome!
fernandraynaud - 6-2-2010 at 07:35 PM
Eric, not to worry, we have a bit of ongoing friction here between people who type fast and go into detail, and people who want things tidy. Or
something like that. There's room for everybody. It's silly getting intimidated into switching to private communications when in fact the whole
reason for the forum is sharing thoughts. I'll try to recover the email stuff etc, and put it in another thread.
Plum_Pasha - 6-3-2010 at 06:27 AM
So, at this point I see that this page has got around 400 hits - I wonder if we could have a little experiment: assuming that there are at least a few
people on this forum who would like to be playing one of these ud-s, can I solicit some feedback as to what people think is a fair price for them?
For instance, how would you fill in the blank here?: "I would buy one of these ud-s if I could pay _____ for it."
Or, "I got a comparable ud (without flying halfway around the world, and here are links to a recording) and it cost me ____."
You can answer even if you're not really looking to buy - I'm just trying to get an idea here. Obviously I won't be able to take ridiculously low
numbers or offers to barter in livestock etc. very seriously, but, let's talk, here. Did I mention that I am not a professional ud salesman? I'm just
a dude trying to get through grad school who happens to have a friend who's an awesome ud luthier. So, what do you think?
eliot - 6-3-2010 at 09:57 AM
Just want to add a few things here:
1) Eric's a great guy and I'd buy an oud from him in an instant if I needed one
2) Mustafa ouds are very well made. I owned one and have played perhaps 8 different Mustafas, and they tend to have a very powerful bass and clear
highs. They're not my favorite favorite ouds, but that judgment is based solely on an aesthetic preference and not on the quality of craftsmanship.
3) I'd say that $2400 + shipping for the short-fingerboard and $2500+shipping for the long one are the prices I'd expect to pay for instruments of
this quality.
(nice Rast and Acemasiran taksims, btw!)
Plum_Pasha - 6-3-2010 at 10:50 AM
Estağfurullah, Eliotçığım!
Plum_Pasha - 6-5-2010 at 08:48 PM
OK, hi again – so, some of you have delicately alerted me about a recent, ahh, polemic on this forum regarding appropriate prices for uds, a polemic
that might make the prospect of discussing a price for these particular ud-s in a “public” thread such as this one unappealing. I was sort of
hoping to invite some haggling, but perhaps a thread per se is not the best venue for it – if you are genuinely interested in having one of these
ud-s, please e-mail me at ederer@umail.ucsb.edu and make an offer. Even if the prices above strike you as high it’s always possible that your “I
couldn’t pay more than X for it” is close to my “I couldn’t take less than Y for it” and no harm done if it doesn’t work out. Thanks.
Plum_Pasha - 6-14-2010 at 06:46 AM
The Buzz:
Obviously I had wanted to create a buzz about the "long-fingerboard" ud in the 2nd video at the bottom of http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ederer/misc/ud/ud.html but had forgotten about this "other buzz," i.e., the fact that there is a persistent buzzing in
the low end of this ud in the recording - a thank you to Don F. for asking me about it: many ud-s, including nearly all the new Mustafas I have
played, have this buzz at first, which goes away after between 6 months and year (depending on how often it is played). What creates it exactly? I'm
not sure - perhaps we could discuss it here on the Forum; I can only say that I have three of Mustafa's instruments of my own, and many friends and
acquaintances who got their Mustafas new, and we all can attest that the buzz will go away (as it did in the ud featured in the previous video).
Plum_Pasha - 6-29-2010 at 05:41 PM
Just following up on the last post - I just changed strings on two of my other Mustafas (something I don't do very often, I must say) and sure enough
they buzz for a few days. I am trying not to play the "long-fingerboard/Pro" model, to keep it pristine (it being sweating season, now, especially)
but I'll see about working the strings in a bit and putting up a new video after I have moved west and settled in some. I guess I should also take
better pictures of the remaining "short-fingerboard/student" (a little dark, huh?) - soon, soon! Thanks for your inquiries - I wish you could drop by
and play them (as a couple of Portlanders will get to soon). - Eric
Plum_Pasha - 8-5-2010 at 09:12 PM
Hi all -
just writing to say that the two remaining Mustafa Copçuoğlu ud-s for sale (http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ederer/misc/ud/ud.html - videos at the bottom) are now in Portland, Oregon - if that's close to you and you are
interested in one of the ud-s, please let me know at ederer@umail.ucsb.edu. I will also be driving as far south as Santa Monica, California soon
(August 2010), if you live between here and there.
I'm not uptight about the pricing - offer me something! At this point about 1300 of you have looked at this post so either you've mistaken me for
Angelina Jolie or you just like to laugh at my prose style or ... or perhaps you like the ud-s?
About a month ago another fellow sold a Mustafa here on the Forum for $2,000 ... I understand that many of us here think that for that price it should
come with diamond inlay and free orthodontia for your pets ... fine; blessings upon you ... but for those of us who have reason to believe that $2,000
is within the range of possibility for just an (outstanding) ud, let's call that the upper end, now, and see where we can go from there.
Thanks for clicking by!
Eric