Oud or lute?

Nice one Doc.

Reminds me of the oud in this photo from Joe Tawadros' website. The one on the far left.

Incidentally, I was talking once with kanun player Dr. George Sawa about old ouds. He said that all the old ouds before the turn of the 20th century had this shape. The wider, bigger ouds are relatively new.

Indeed interesting about the Maler lutes John. I believe this oud had a soundboard made of Lebanon cedar and I know Richard will use cedar for an eventually reconstruction of the soundboard.
Here are some photos of Richard's monster, compare its size next to a Turkish oud!

Here some interesting pictures of a recent reconstruction of an early lute based on iconographic sources circa 1426. It is built and reconstructed by David Van Edwards; string length 67cm!

Yes John, I noticed the same when I had the oud here that the neck is attached to the neck block with what seems to be a nail- let's wait for Richard...

OK you'll make fun of it, I am expecting the worst and am psychologically prepared but

....... .... IT IS WORKING

Definitely worth adding to "the non intrusive non destructive brace investigating method where curiosity doesn't kill the cat"

gee, do ya think my insurance would cover this exam?)

And I thought I had some nice tools.......

The geometrical construction of a 15th C lute given by Arnault de Zwolle does not quite match the profile and sound hole position of the Al Arja oud.

In an article "Lute Design and the Art of Proportion" by Gerhard C. Sohne, the author proposes a geometrical construction, of elegant simplicity, for an early 16th C lute - based upon the familiar 'Pythagorean' right triangle having a hypotenuse measuring 5 units and the other two sides measuring 3 and 4 units respectively. The construction is given in Fig.1

No lutes of this design survive so Sohne selected an example from the iconography as evidence that the proposed geometry was an historical possibility. The carving of Pythagoras playing a lute by Jorg Syrlin the Elder (c. 1470) is in Ulm cathedral, Germany. While the profile of the lute, sound hole diameter and position match the geometry closely, the length of the fretboard is too short as it is only of sufficient length for 7 frets - not 8. However 7 frets to the neck joint would have been typical for a lute of the 15th C (as it also would have been for an oud of the Medieval period).

Although no lutes of this design survive there are some old ouds that do seem to conform to the geometry. One is the Al Arja oud - except that the Al Arja oud has the traditional length of fingerboard that is 1/3 string length.
Working with a high resolution "full face" image of the oud - taken with a long focus lens to minimise any optical distortion (kindly provided for this exercise by ALAMI) - the geometry was modified slightly (Fig. 2) to obtain the very close match evident in the attached overlay image. Note that the neck length is a few mm short of 1/3 string length due to loss of material caused by repeated repairs and adjustments to the neck over time. Also note that the actual sound hole diameter is the diameter of the open area of the rosette pattern. The centre of the soundhole is a distance of 1/3 string length from the neck joint - i.e. according to oud traditional design.

This result suggests a possible connection with early oud design in the Middle East and lute design of 15th C Northern Europe.

To add a few more thoughts about the possibility that the style of lute of Renaissance times (i.e. c.1450 to 1600) may have come to Europe not from the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula but directly from the middle East via Germany.

Tinctoris (Naples 1497) wrote that " While some play every sort of composition most delightfully on the lute, in Italy and Spain the viola without a bow is more often used". It should be noted that at this time Naples was a dominion of Spain under direct Spanish rule.
It is curious why the Spanish courts at the time had a preference for the Vihuela da Mano and its almost identical counterpart, the Viola da Mano, over the Lute (all three instruments may be considered to be interchangeable). Indeed, 1536 saw the publication of the works of Francesco da Milano (the greatest Italian lutenist of his time) for viola da mano entitled "Intavolatura de viola o vero lauto ....." (Tablature for viola (da mano) or true lute ...). The two books were published in Naples.
The attached image of the legendary Orpheus playing a Vihuela da mano (tablature for vihuela "El Maestro" 1536, by Luis Milan) also might support the notion that the Spanish considered the vihuela to be superior to the lute.
It has been suggested that this preference may have come about because of prejudice and the activities of the Inquisition against the Moors and their culture (and hence any instrument that might resemble an oud). However, this does not appear to be the case as there is ample evidence in the iconography, court inventories of Spanish royalty, literary works etc. to support the proposal that the vihuela coexisted with the lute in Spain (as it did with the viola in Italy). This is also perhaps an indication that the Spanish did not consider a lute of the time to be the same instrument as an oud.
According to Pepe Rey in a recent article "Dos retoques criticos al libro 'A history of the Lute', Hispanica Lyra, Journal of the Spanish Vihuela Society, the Spanish dictionaries of the time suggest a Greek origin for the lute and that "some even think of it as coming from the Rhine Valley" (Germany again!).

Note also that some of the finest strings for lute available in the 16th C came from Germany (from the cities of Monnekin, Mildorpe, Nurenburge and Strassburge - according to Dowland, "Varietie of Lute Lessons", 1610).

Two attached images from lute books containing the works of Francesco da Milano both published in Northern Italy in 1536 depict the lutenist. Note the profiles of the lute. The engraving from the book published in Milan is rather quaint in its execution but the intent of the artist seems to be unmistakable in representing the lute having an 'almond' shape with semicircular bottom section and 7 frets to the neck joint. The engraving in the Venice publication is more precise and, although represented in perspective view, the lute profile would appear to closely match that of the Ulm and Al Arja geometries. Note also the narrow oud like neck - but with 8 frets to the neck joint.

One final observation, the bracing of the Al Arja oud includes two small lute like 'fan' braces below the bridge - not a traditional feature of modern ouds and, therefore, considered by some to be of Western European origin. Or could it be that this was a feature of early oud barring (now long forgotten) that found its way from the middle East to European lute design of the 16th C.?

The fret locations on the fingerboard are clear enough from the close up image provided by Ronny and, as it appears to be relatively free of optical distortion, it should be OK to scale dimensions.

The attached image compares fret positions as measured with 12 Tone Equal Temperament and Pythagorean.
Equal temperament spacing is historically appropriate for lute fretting as is Pythagorean spacing for 14th C oud (but does not include intermediate 'quarter tone' frets).

It can be seen that the finger board is long enough to accommodate 7 frets spaced according to these systems. The 7th fret position is at 195 mm from the nut so the string length - deduced from the fret positions - is 3X that dimension or
585 mm (which agrees with Richard's estimate of 586 mm).
It should be noted that in practice the frets may deviate slightly from the calculated positions dependent upon the fret gut diameter, string diameter and string tension. The displacement of the measured fret positions towards the bridge is consistent with practical fretting based upon 12 TET - i.e lute fretting. So, whoever tied the frets on the neck intended to play the instrument polyphonically like a lute - not like an oud.
Oddly - as Richard notes - this string length seems to be out of proportion to the overall dimensions of the oud. Indeed the bridge would have to be placed somewhere near the widest part of the sound board to conform to this string length. This implies that the oud was not originally made to be fretted but had been altered at some time by repositioning the bridge to shorten string length so that seven frets could be accommodated on the neck - perhaps by a European 'early music' researcher in the late 19th/ early 20th C looking for an instrument on which to explore the surviving lute repertoire?

So, if the existing fret positions cannot be used to deduce the original string length of the oud where do we go from here?

The perfect proportions of an oud - as given by the mediaeval period writers Ikhwan al- Safa (10th C) and Kanz al-Tuhaf
(14th C) are that the neck (ie fingerboard) length is 1/4 of the total length of a oud. This is of sufficient length to accommodate the range of fret positions dictated by these early theoreticians ie up to the last fret - the 'fourth finger fret' - equivalent to the fifth fret position on the 12 Tone Equal Temperament scale. The early German lutes of the late 15th/ early 16th C also originally only had five frets on the neck.

The Al-Tounjy oud is of this proportion except that the neck has been made slightly longer in order to create a sufficient neck joint/ finger board width to accomodate 6 double courses (the earliest ouds only had four or five courses).
Although the Al-Tounjy oud - made in 1889 - did not originally have frets, the fourth finger position would have been located close to the neck joint - its exact position being dependent upon string length.

Ronny Anderson's 'full face' image of the oud suffers from some optical distortion so it is not possible to scale exactly from the image. However, taken together with Richard's measurements it is possible to make a reasonable guess at what the original geometry may have been although this can only be accurate to within say 2 to 5 mm due to the damaged condition of the oud and possible distortion of the bowl.

The attached image is the proposed geometry drawn to scale and is largely self explanatory. The upper sound board profile is the same as that given by Kanz al-Tuhaf. The bridge position is 4 finger units (of about 20 mm) from the bottom of the bowl - the proportion given by the 14th C Ibn al-Tahhan oud. This gives a string length of about 680 mm (shown as 675 mm which appens to be a significant string length for both the early ouds as well as some of the late 17th C lutes - the relatively long string length providing optimum performance for gut bass strings).
The sound hole diameter and placement is a guess based upon the 16th C Maler and Frei lutes that had this long elongated profile.
For comparison see "Old Oud Compared to Old Lute Geometry" on this forum.
Given the similarity of geometries the original bracing of the surviving Maler sound board might be an indication of the bracing used on the Al-Tounjy oud.

A convenient tool for calculating fret positions for a number of historical systems can be downloaded from the 'Lute Society of America' website. The software does not work on older version of Microsoft Works but does so on the free open source 'OpenOffice' software.

Found this "oud" at the museum of Jewish Heritage, in NYC. (No, I'm not Jewish)

The museum calls the oud "Turkish" and says it dates from late 1800's. I find this odd for a couple of reasons.

I know its hard to tell from the photo, but the bowl seems to be of a European lute, and is very shallow, not half round.
The rosettes are carved from the same piece that the top was made of. (like lutes) No holes were cut out and there are no additional materials which the rose was made from, then glued on. This is not the case.
You will also notice frets just past the neck joint. Which have been planed down so that the surface of the soundboard there is flat.
I don't believe the bridge, pickguard, neck, or pegbox to be original.
Also hard to tell from this photo, small pearl star of David inlays on the fingerboard.

My thesis on this odd instrument is it might have been a lute, which was later modified to be played as an oud in Turkey. Whatever the case is, it have had to come to the U.S. by Jewish immigrants.

Quote: Originally posted by Dr. Oud

the label - 1889! who's got the oldest oud now, huh?

Sorry sorry sorry !
Sometimes, humans do make mistakes, even your friend Alfaraby
It is 1889 obvious & clear enough, an evidence to human weaknesses

Yours indeed
Alfaraby