Mike's Oud Forums

MICHEL KHAWWAM (1901-1969) - ALEPPO

Alfaraby - 12-14-2013 at 10:52 AM


Michel Khawwam - Aleppo (1901-1969)

المعلّم الكبير ميشيل خوام - حلب

Michel Khawwam was born in Aleppo in 1901. For years he was the apprentice of Master Luthier George El Hayek. Nothing much is really available about both of them. I have been inquiring and investigating about this luthier for years, but had only got a little. When I first caught hold of my very first Khawam, I never had heard of this name before, so I tried inquiring about him on all the forums I am active in, both Arabic and English, but had only one reply from my (becoming) friend Dr. Farouq Al Adel from Aleppo (our fellow-member faladel). He told me he had the honor of purchasing a bowl made by Michel Kahwwam soon after the luthier had passed away back in 1969, then had it completed by Jamil Qandalaft, but left over at his parents' for the coming 30 years. (He brought it back with him to Sevilla in 2000, in a very bad all-over situation.

Dr. F. Al Adel wrote in 21/8/2004: I have an Oud bowl made by Michel Khawwam, the best luthier in the history of Aleppo, made in 1967... I have given it to Jameel Yorgaki Qandalaft, the second most important Luthier of Aleppo, for making me the top, like Farid's Oud . According to faladel: "Michel is more important in construction and sound than any Nahat" (zeal of an expatriate Aleppian living in Spain for the past 44 years ).

Michel was active for almost four decades, some-when between late 1920's – 1960's, but made very few ouds. Some say not more than 70 throughout his career, while some say not more than a 100. This way or another, unlike his fellow luthiers in Aleppo of those times, Michel didn't make any commercial ouds; only high quality ouds.

For years to come, I have seen, checked, examined and played 5 Khawwams, 3 of which were large masculine size ouds, one regular (Istanbulic) size & one small feminine cut oud (Khanom) . They all are well built, high quality finished, colored bowls and ornamented soundboards. The earliest (second video) was supposed to be a 1929 oud, but faladel said this was typical Khawwam oud of the 1950's and sure is not 1929, and I tend to believe he's right. The general condition and "health" support this assumption.
The other ouds were made in 1941, 1943, 1960 & 1963.

The most important ouds were the large cut ouds, two of which are mine. The first shown in the attached photos is the 1941 oud. A well preserved walnut bowl with a relatively "tired" soundboard. It has been lately restored by our friend master luthier Kamil Mowais in Nazareth. Loosen braces were re-glued, the big rosette and the pegs were replaced to ensure descent functioning, while the rest of the oud was carefully preserved. Its dimensions in mm are as follows: Length: 507 Width: 365 Depth: 210 String: 620 Fingerboard: 204 mm.
The second oud shown in the next coming up bundle of photos is the 1960. The dimensions are as follows: L: 530 W: 366 D: 200 S: 618 F: 206 mm.
Needless to say, both bowls are asymmetrical, with a clear bulge right under the fingerboard and in the midst
The third large one was even wider, but I couldn't measure its width since it's not nearby, but it's not less than 380-390 mm, as clearly seen in the coming up photos and in the second video.

Later to come links for home-made video recordings of players testing two Khawwam ouds:

Enjoy
Yours indeed
Alfaraby

[file]29667[/file]

Michel Khawwam Oud - 1941

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwbUI_YpTFO0Vl8zbVdHVHNrV00/edit?us...

[file]29647[/file] [file]29649[/file] [file]29657[/file] [file]29659[/file] [file]29651[/file] [file]29653[/file] [file]29655[/file] [file]29661[/file] [file]29665[/file]

Alfaraby - 12-14-2013 at 10:56 AM

Michel Khawwam oud - 1960

Hope you enjoy seeing and listening to these ouds as I do.

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

http://www.dailymotion.com/alfarabymusic#video=x13htn1

[file]29668[/file] [file]29670[/file] [file]29672[/file] [file]29674[/file] [file]29676[/file] [file]29678[/file] [file]29680[/file] [file]29682[/file] [file]29684[/file] [file]29686[/file]

Alfaraby - 12-14-2013 at 11:04 AM

Michel Khawwam oud - 1950's

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18eq48_michel-khawwam-oud-played-...

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

[file]29688[/file] [file]29714[/file] [file]29692[/file] [file]29694[/file] [file]29696[/file] [file]29698[/file] [file]29700[/file] [file]29702[/file] [file]29704[/file]




Alfaraby - 12-14-2013 at 12:25 PM

Michel Khawwam bowl & Jamil Qandalaft top - 1969

As previously posted by faladel, back in 2004 .
A real masterpiece .

More: Khawwam 1960 in the hands of its original owner before crossing the border right into my lap :)

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

[file]29706[/file] [file]29708[/file] [file]29710[/file]

epokhe - 12-14-2013 at 06:11 PM

Alfaraby, thank you for taking the time, once again, to offer precious information about a master luthier, together with beautiful images and some lovely playing!

I enjoy the use of color on these soundboards, like the bright pink on the 1950 pick guard, or the rainbow coloring on the bridge and pick guard of the 1960 oud (I assume you replaced the cap after receiving it?), and especially the white outline patterns on the lower portion of two fingerboards (1941, 1960) -- I don't believe that I have seen this before!

Thanks again.

Faladel - 12-15-2013 at 02:18 AM

Thank you friend Alfaraby by my personal hard circumstances and by the deletion of the history of Aleppo and of their geniuses, who are committing now, not participate in writing, I'm going to try when finish this dirty war in Syria, put in order all what I know and what I have lived with these great masters.Michel has been very big, very select and very careful with their places, not to make commercial ouds, because he (as he has told me personally) considers each oud a personal masterpiece and a challenge, why his wonderful ouds only circulated among professional and knowledgeable, I'm lucky to have two, one of them between Michel and Jameel Kandalaft requiring arrangements of a lover of history and the oud which unfortunately I cannot find. now I'll see if tomorrow to fix it and put their wonderful sound for the enjoyment of others.Thank you for transmitting what I have written and published

Alfaraby - 12-15-2013 at 08:14 AM

Quote: Originally posted by epokhe  
Thank you for taking the time, once again, to offer precious information about a master luthier, together with beautiful images and some lovely playing!
Thanks epokhe. I appreciate it very much. My pleasure. I hope others liked it as well.
Quote: Originally posted by epokhe  
I assume you replaced the cap after receiving it ?
No I didn't. I just added a wood on top of the bridge, since the strings were too close to the soundboard, so I had to lift them a bit. That's all what has been done to this all-original oud since 1960.

Thanks again
Yours indeed
Alfaraby

Alfaraby - 12-15-2013 at 08:38 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Faladel  
Thank you friend Alfaraby

I'll put in order all what I know and what I have lived with these great masters
My pleasure Abu Nader my dear friend.
We shall be waiting to read what you'll have to share regarding the great masters of Aleppo; especially:
Michel Khawwam, George Hayek, Na'eem Dallal, Antoine Yorgaki, Jamil Qandalaft, Baseel Totanjy, Antoine Michael Abras, Habeeb Abiad, Abdelmoe'ein Al Sajjan, Salim Razzouq & maybe even more ...
I came across these masters' ouds (except for Dallal & Totanjy) and some (Hayek's, Abras, Razzouq) were just unbelievable sounding pieces of art.
I have to admit that my friends & I are very lucky to have some rare masterpieces of Aleppo's best ouds. Not in Aleppo .. but here in the city of Annunciation :)

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

Brian Prunka - 12-15-2013 at 10:02 AM

Sorry if this is slightly off-topic, but on the thread of Aleppian oud makers, here are a couple from Najib Shaheen's collection:

Hayek 1925 (new fingerboard and pegs):


Hallaq 1921 (new fingerboard)


You mentioned Hayek already, do you know the maker Hallaq?

Doc139 - 12-15-2013 at 10:47 AM

Thank you, dear Jamil, for sharing your knowledge and the pictures of these masterpieces with us. I am happy that I once had the chance to hold them in my proper hands - needless to say that they are even more beautiful in reality than on ANY picture. I thank you, my friend. I haven't seen any more beautiful ones than these Khawwam's of yours. (No, actually - one of your Nahat's is even more beautiful than these Khawwam's ... :) )
All the best, and I hope you haven't too much snow in Nazareth these days...
Alexander

Alfaraby - 12-16-2013 at 01:22 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Brian Prunka  
Sorry if this is slightly off-topic

You mentioned Hayek already, do you know the maker Hallaq?

It is slightly off-topic, though enlightening in sense of comparing between the tutor's ouds and the apprentice's .
I have seen some Hayek's. They were all very plain, similar to Najib's, but sounded like heaven.

I haven't seen any Hallaq's yet, nor heard of his name until lately.

Thanks Brian

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

SamirCanada - 12-16-2013 at 03:38 AM

Thanks AlFaraby.
This is great knowledge for all of us. They sound great too.

Brian, That 1925 is what Najib and Simon played here in concert. It sounded like a dream.

Alfaraby - 12-17-2013 at 02:47 AM

Quote: Originally posted by SamirCanada  
Thanks

Quote: Originally posted by Doc139  
Thank you

I hope you haven't too much snow in Nazareth these days...

Thanks dear. My pleasure.
Nothing much, but still verrrry cold

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

jdowning - 12-17-2013 at 06:32 AM

Thanks for this valuable information Jamil. I would encourage others - owners of older ouds - to follow your example.

The soundboard geometry of the earliest oud looks rather interesting when compared to the later models. There is likely some optical distortion in the images posted but it should be possible to make a preliminary attempt at the geometry from them.
What is very interesting (to me!) is that the sound board width of the 1941 instrument is 365 mm. Dividing by 16 gives a unit value of 22.8 mm which happens to be the equivalent value of a 'finger' unit based upon the ancient Persian Royal cubit standard measuring 638 mm with 28 fingers to the cubit. Just a coincidence perhaps?

For my information, what is a 'cut oud'?

Minus 32°C outside here and still a week to go before Winter officially arrives!!

Alfaraby - 12-17-2013 at 03:50 PM

Sorry John ! My falt. Masculine-cut, I mean form, shape, figure .. Excuse my poor third language.
When I first measured these two, I thought to myself it would be very interesting if Mr. Downing would have the will and the time to study those proportions and come up with some unprecedented calculations and/or conclusions.

The most important thing in Khawwam's ouds is their deep bowls. None of the ouds I've ever seen was 210 mm depth; not even the king-size "masculine" 630 mm string Nahat ! The bulge right under the neck-block is also remarkable. It would be very interesting if those proportions were analysed to see if there's any reason or logic behind Khawwam's molds. Faladel and more Aleppian friends argue that Khawwam is THE Stradivarius of the oud, no matter what Damascene, or others, say. He made quasi-perfect ouds with attention to every tiny detail, so it's just reasonable that his molds were strictly built under high knowledge and some hidden "logic", if I may say so.

Thank you
Yours indeed,
Alfaraby

Alfaraby - 12-19-2013 at 11:50 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Brian Prunka  
Do you know the maker Hallaq ?

Here are some shots of a Hallaq oud posted to me by a Kurdish-Austrian friend, Karim Othman Hasan.
I could see the name Orfali & Halab (Aleppo).
Maybe some young eyes can see Hallaq's first name & the date. Mine just couldn't make it.

Enjoy

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

[file]29811[/file] [file]29813[/file] [file]29815[/file] [file]29817[/file]

jdowning - 12-19-2013 at 01:20 PM

Thanks Jamil - ah! - 'cut' as a tailor would refer to the style of a bespoke or custom made suit of clothes. The flexibility of the English language!

I will see what I can make of the geometries of the images posted so far on this thread for interest and comparison. A first glance at the 1941 oud geometry suggests a 3:4:5 Pythagorean right triangle basis for the soundboard profile but with an 'unusual, low bridge position. However, early days yet.

Do we have a date and basic dimensions of the Hallaq oud just posted?

Alfaraby - 12-19-2013 at 02:27 PM

Thanks John.
Unfortunately, the Hallaq (Barber !) is not in hand to take the basic dimensions. I only got the photos.

Low bridge position ? Yes of course. Though the oud is a king-size, it's a "short" fat oud, measuring only 507 mm in length; while the regular masculine "cut" is usually 525-530 mm, just like the 1960 oud. In order to ensure a 620 mm string, the luthier had to lower the bridge position towards the tail. I assume that this requires as well changing the position of the braces accordingly.

We'll be on hold

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

jdowning - 12-21-2013 at 07:15 AM

So that I can approximately check for optical distortion in the image of the 1941 oud would it be possible to verify the distances - front edge of bridge to bottom edge of the sound board - and front edge of bridge to the centre of the large sound hole? (Front edge of bridge is the edge facing the fingerboard).

The 'unusual' bowl depth may be an attempt by the luthier to maintain bowl volume to compensate for a shorter bowl length? This question however would, of course, be impossible to investigate from images alone in the absence of precise measurements of the bowl geometry. Some lute makers use some quite fancy custom designed apparatus to determine bowl geometry (a time consuming process at best) - however, there may be a simpler low cost approach that I will explain in my topic 'Old Oud Compared to Old Lute Geometry' on the 'Projects' forum

Alfaraby - 12-21-2013 at 07:38 AM

front edge of bridge to bottom edge of the sound board : 93 mm

front edge of bridge to the centre of the large sound hole: 317 mm

The 'unusual' bowl depth may be an attempt by the luthier to maintain bowl volume to compensate for a shorter bowl length

Yes indeed.
And vise versa. Some others compensate a shallow oud volume by expanding the SB to e.g. 530/365 mm, like John Vergara has done in his latest ouds.

Thanks John

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

jdowning - 12-27-2013 at 07:59 AM

I have attempted to investigate the sound board geometry from both of the 'full frontal' images of the 1941 oud previously posted. Unfortunately as both images suffer from significant optical distortion it has not been possible to positively determine the geometry from prints of the images.
An 'acid test' of the validity of the images in this respect is to compare the relative proportions of the actual measured sound board maximum width (W) and the bridge front to bottom of sound board distance (B) compared to the same proportions measured from the images. For the measurements taken from the oud itself:
W/B = 365/93 = 3.93 whereas scaling from hard copies of the images W/B = 5.03.

This discrepancy is likely due to perspective error (due to the camera being held at an angle to the soundboard, not perfectly 'full face') as well as optical distortion due to the camera lens design. Typical digital cameras with zoom lenses normally suffer from 'Barrel distortion' at wide angle setting (close ups) and 'Pincushion distortion' at telephoto setting. These distortions of an image may be corrected somewhat using photo editing software but I had no success in attempting to do so using a comprehensive photo editing programme.
The level of distortion in the images can be seen in the slight apparent ovality of the small soundholes as well as in the curtain drapes in the background that should presumably be more or less vertical and parallel.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that the ratio W/B measured from the oud itself is 3.93 suggesting that the distance of the bridge from the bottom of the sound board is intended to be a quarter of the soundboard width (within 2%). This means that the bridge position is not unusually low as first thought but conforms with the relative position found on many of the old ouds (and lutes) examined to date.

jdowning - 12-28-2013 at 06:16 AM

Although I am not able to verify the sound board geometry from the images posted of the 1941 oud I am able to make a guess at the geometry based upon what I already know from earlier studies of old oud and lute geometry. I will post the proposed geometry next so that it can be checked against the dimensions of the actual oud for verification.

Jamil - the dimension that you previously posted - distance from the front of the bridge to the large soundhole centre of 317 mm - seems to be in error (according to my proposed geometry). Is this the distance from the soundhole centre to the bottom of the sound board not the bridge front?
If so then the distance from the bridge front to soundhole centre should be 317 mm - 93 mm = 224 mm?

jdowning - 12-28-2013 at 08:03 AM

So here - 'sticking my neck out' - is the proposed original geometry of the 1941 Khawwam oud based upon a soundboard width of 16 'fingers'. The attached sketch is drawn to a scale of fingers - each square representing 1 finger.
Note that a finger unit may be subdivided into smaller units 1/2, 1/4 etc. - readily achieved using dividers.

Note that this geometry, I propose, was the original layout used by the luthier to make his design from which the mold would have been made. Note also that it is unlikely that the finished oud would have conformed precisely to the original design dimensions due to inevitable manufacturing variations, asymmetry etc and perhaps some final adjustments to achieve ,say, a slightly longer string length than design.

The proposed geometry is largely self explanatory. I believe that the luthier designed this oud using the ancient Persian finger unit equivalent to 22.8 mm (although I have used 22.813 mm based upon the actual soundboard width of the instrument). So using this value, equivalent dimensions may be calculated from the finger count. So, for example, the fingerboard length of 9 fingers is equivalent to 205 mm (compared to actual 204 mm) and string length is 27 fingers equivalent to 616 mm (compared to 620 mm actual) ... and so on.

I have no dimensional information about soundhole dimensions so propose that the large soundhole centre is located at 14 fingers or 319 mm from the bottom of the soundboard. The large soundhole diameter is 1/3 the width of the soundboard at the soundhole centre C (This is the proportion given for a lute by Arnault de Zwolle in the 15th C). Diameter of the large soundhole is therefore equivalent to
107 mm.
The centres of the 3 soundholes are given by 3:4:5 right triangles as shown in the geometry. The proposed diameter of the small soundholes is 2 fingers equivalent to 46 mm.

The upper sound board profile is a simple arc of radius 18 fingers with centre on the X axis as shown. Assuming a neck joint width of 2 1/2 fingers equivalent to 57 mm, the sound board length would be 22 fingers equivalent to 502 mm (compared to 507 mm actual)



Alfaraby - 12-28-2013 at 09:08 AM

Quote: Originally posted by jdowning  
distance from the front of the bridge to the large soundhole centre of 317 mm - seems to be in error

OOPS ! How stupid of me ! In an attempt to be ultra punctual, I placed the rular right on the the center of the circle, measuring 100 mm, to avoid any wear or tear of the rular edge like almost every rular has ! The number I saw on the front of the bridge was 317 mm, so I wrote it down and forgot to subtract the 100 mm when writing my reply. SO EXCUSE ME !
Front edge of bridge to the centre of the large sound hole: 217 mm
See why I haven't joined any exact science faculty ?! Now it's too late to make better exact scientist out of a worn out old son of gun !
Hence, the front edge of bridge to bottom edge of the sound board = 93 mm was right since it was less than a 100 mm :(
Thanks John for the geometry of the 1941 oud. I shall relate to this later.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you all

Yours indeed
Alfaraby