Nick - 5-18-2005 at 03:11 AM
Hi all
I'm a new member and this is my first posting.
I have owned a Turkish oud for about 15 years and played it with tied frets for the first 5 or so years and without for the last 10.
I just bought a small. very cheap Egyptian pearl inlaid oud on ebay which is a basic intrument (not great sound quality, but it is well made with nice
wood and looks pretty ......and plays Ok, but nowhere near as resonant as my Turkish bigger one).
The intresting thing for me is the lenght of the strings on the Egyptian one. My Turkish one as a string lenght of 59cm, but the Egyptian one has
only 51.5cm
I owned another Egyptian one a few years ago which was more or less the same lenght as the Turkish one - so I was very suprised when this shorter one
came.
Do they vary that much, or is it (as I suspect) that this is an oud made for tourists etc? I will of course have to scale the tuning up to a higher
pitch to get the strings to a decent tension.
It only came yesterday and I have tunned it up and played it a few times since and it does respond and play Ok and the action is Ok - I'm quite happy
with is as it was such a cheap instrument, but I was curious about it's small size and short string lenght.
Has anyone any info about this sort of thing.
Thanks
Nick
Mike - 5-18-2005 at 05:58 AM
Hey Nick,
Welcome to the boards. That doesn't sound typical. I have ouds that range from 60 - 61.5 cm. I think they can range from anywhere between 58.5 to has
long as 64 cm though.
Take care,
Mike
Haluk - 5-18-2005 at 08:37 AM
Hi Nick,
If your oud has a 40 cms. bowl,it is child size.
Regards.