Bridge grooves for treble strings

Hi oud makers and repairers!

I changed strings tonight on one of my ouds, and remembered to take some pictures of a repair Haig Manoukian did to its bridge.

I came to him a while ago with a very common problem: the holes in the bridge for my treble strings had elongated over time and had effectively raised the action on the treble strings. This not only made playing higher notes on these strings more difficult, but also made them louder and bitier than I wanted them to be. So, my instrument seemed out of balance, with a very powerful 1st course not blending so well with the others.

Haig filled in the old holes and drilled new ones (for the trebles only), and actually placed them slightly lower than the other holes in the bridge. This feels very comfortable actually, and I don't notice as I play that the treble strings sit a little lower than the wound strings, though it is visible.

But, the most interesting thing I think is that he made grooves in the front of the bridge, just for the treble strings, where they can sit once the oud is strung and tuned. It is amazing how the strings do not budge from this low position on their own. Typically, once an oud is tuned, the trebles tend to slide up and out, and you can only push them back down so far.

So, the point of this post is to encourage the luthiers here to explore this idea and perhaps incorporate it into brand new instruments, and thus avoiding what seems to be the almost inevitable filling and redrilling of treble string holes down the road.

Thanks guys,

mavrothi

PS - Once the oud is strung up, the grooves are not visible b/c they are filled/covered by the string windings.

Hello Mav

That's really interesting - I have noticed this too and it may be why my trebles are a little stiff - I hadn't thought of this at all, and I suppose it is more pronounced on the treble strings as they are essentially sharper. What is the action of your top two treble strings now at the neck joint (nearly said 12th fret)? In fact what is the action of your other four strings come to think of it?

Luthier tricks and magic is the stuff of legend

Cheers

Leon

Quote: Originally posted by Ararat66

Hi Mav Just resurecting this thread - out of interest, what is the height of the underside of your strings from the soundboard, it may be helpful to me. Cheers Leon

Hi Leon,

The string height is approximately 7 to 8 mm from the sound board.



Mavrothi

You may want to try using a file used for the nut grooves. That will help make a nicer groove.

Hope it goes well.

From a lute maker's perspective the design of the bridge seems to be excessively 'top heavy' - the amount of material left above the string holes making it pretty well impossible to tie the overhand loop of the strings close to the front face of the bridge.

Rather than filing grooves in an effort to reduce the angle of the overhand loop, a better solution might be to remove redundant material from the top of the bridge? This would also have a potential benefit in reducing the overall weight of the bridge? See the attached sketch.

The bridges of surviving lutes are low in overall height with the string holes drilled close to the top of the bridge. Sometimes an 'overhang' is cut in the front face to allow the strings to be pulled precisely to the front edge of the bridge. (there is also usually an overhang cut in the rear of the bridge to facilitate tying of the strings in close contact with the bridge surfaces - so minimising vibration losses between string and bridge.
The string holes in lute bridges are drilled closer ( in height) to the sound board on the treble side than on the bass side. This was originally necessary to provide additional string clearance due to the thickness of the gut basses but is still a useful feature with modern overspun basses in order to minimise string clearances over the fingerboard - the overspun basses having a greater amplitude of vibration than the treble strings.

Originally ouds were strung with gut or silk so most likely once had bridge designs similar to those found on the surviving lutes. A modern 'top heavy' design of bridge would certainly have made the effective tying of the large diameter gut basses something of a challenge!

Minimising bridge weight was certainly regarded as desirable in earlier times. The 14th C writer Ibn al-Tahhan al-Musiqi states (Farmer translation) "As for the bridge, it should not be made of ivory, ebony, gold, or any precious thing, because it makes the sound of the oud dull" Modern luthiers beware!