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Question - Big Ouds, Little Ouds?

jdowning - 11-16-2007 at 01:27 PM

Do ouds come in different sizes so that they may be played in oud duos, trios or quartets either in unison tuning or , say, a fourth apart or whatever?
Lutes of the 16th C ranged in size from a small descant lute with a string length of 440 mm up to a great 'octave' bass with string length of about 937 mm and were played in lute duos, trios and quartets. The music of the lute was, of course, polyphonic.
I know that one oud 'band' today uses a bass oud (?) - as reported on this forum a few months ago - but is this very unusual (from the reaction of Forum members I imagine that it is)? Is the oud primarily a solo instrument, playing mainly monophonic music, but also frequently playing together with other instruments as well as the human voice or are there also oud 'orchestras' (ie just ouds) as part of the tradition.
If there are different sizes of ouds - like the lute - what would be the range of string lengths normally found. I am not referring to variations in string length of a few centimeters but significant size differences (like a 2/3 size 'descant' oud or 1 1/2 size 'contra bass' oud).
I know something about lutes but very little about oud traditions - so I may be asking dumb questions - but I am interested in learning more from the experts on this forum.
All comments appreciated.
Thanks

adamgood - 11-16-2007 at 01:44 PM

I'm 100% sure that to no one's knowledge has there been any sort of and "oud orchestra" over time. Now there are a few ensembles that play duos and trios but historically i believe there's nothing of the sort. At most maybe you'd have several ud players in some larger ensemble but that's in addition to the neys, tanburs, kanuns, etc... They would all play basically the same instrument.

there is though the "şah ud" or i think that's how it's spelled. It's like a bass ud kinda thing. check youtube for some videos of the ensemble Bezmara to see it in action.

Maybe you're aware of it already but check out some of the rich folk music coming out of Croatia and Serbia that is commonly referred to as "Tamburica" or "Tamburitza". These are ensembles with a lead player (prim) that plays on a violin sized tambura, two second tamburas that are like viola, a cello tambura and a bass tambura usually complete with frets and played with a pick. These groups go back to late 19th century, the music is really fun to play and listen to.

adam

Brian Prunka - 11-16-2007 at 02:34 PM

To add tp adam's post, there's historically been an aesthetic interest in heterogeneity in Arabic music (not sure about Turkish, but I would guess similar). As explained to me, this is distinctly in contrast with the European interest in grouping like-sounding instruments together (string quartet, brass choir, recorder trio or whatever).

The string sections in Arabic music (such as Abdel Wahab, Oum Kulthum, etc) are a relatively recent development. For the most part, ensembles would aim for contrasting sounds among the instruments.
You still hear this aesthetic in the large orchestras in the way that nay and qanun will often be paired up, or oud and violin, etc. Qanun and oud together would usually be less desirable, since they're both plucked instruments. The strings sections are generally treated as one instrument, from an arranging perspective, unless they are divided into arco and pizzicato groups (making them contrasting timbres).
So a bunch of oud players together wouldn't be able to give listeners a satisfactory amount of tonal contrast.

Sazi - 11-17-2007 at 04:34 AM

I once owned a cd of Andalousian music, it would be about 10 or so years since it was released, and unfortunately I don't recall the name of it. I'm pretty sure it was a French label. In the booklet it mentioned quite a bit about the instruments and tunings used, and one of them was an oud like you mention, smaller and tuned a fourth higher than usual. They reconstructed this instrument from historical information... all a bit vague I know but the info is "out there somewhere"

jdowning - 11-18-2007 at 06:07 AM

Interesting - thanks for your comments and observations everyone.
I had a look at Farmer's paper "The Structure of the Arabian and Persian Lute in the Middle Ages" ( from 'Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments' Henry George Farmer, The Civic Press, Glasgow, 1939) hoping to find something and - sure enough - he quotes from 'Hawi al-funun wa salwat al-mahzun' of the 14 Century by Ibn al-Tahhan al-Musiqi.
Ibn al-Tahan gives some interesting information about the construction of the oud of his time as well as some dimensions. Farmer observes that the oud described "is of considerable dimensions" and "It is a real archlute such as we sometimes see delineated in Arabic and Persian manuscripts".
According to Farmer - who converted the dimensions from early Arabic scales (asabi madmuma, asabi, shibr, aqd etc) to centimeters - this oud measured 1800 mm overall length by 720 mm wide by 270 mm deep with a pegbox and neck each measuring 292.5 mm in length and with the bridge placed at only 45 mm from the bottom of the bowl. It carried four or five courses or pairs of strings. As can be seen from these dimensions, this large instrument (not surprisingly!) had a bowl of flattened section.
So this would seem to be some evidence in earlier times for larger than 'normal' ouds. All of this, of course assumes that Farmer converted the dimensions correctly. The length of the neck given would convert - on an oud of 'normal' proportions, I would reckon - to a string length of about 850 mm which would be around the upper limit of what would be playable. However, the overall length of the instrument given doesn't seem to fit even if it is assumed that the pegbox extends flat from the end of the fingerboard and is not bent back at about 90 degrees?

MatthewW - 11-20-2007 at 09:26 AM

There is this interesting picture of 'The Oud Family' and wonder if it relates to this thread in any way?

jdowning - 11-21-2007 at 05:48 AM

Is there more information available about the instruments in the photo "The Oud Family" or how they are intended to be used. Judging by the relative string lengths they appear to cover a pitch range of just over a fifth - so the size variation is likely not intended to cater for players with different sized hands? Is this family of instruments just a concept of the maker - an interesting experiment but without any historical precedence? Note that the two largest instruments seem to be fitted with guitar bridges.

eliot - 11-22-2007 at 12:27 PM

I think if we did an exhaustive historical scour we probably could find a few moments in history when 'ud-derived instruments were experimented with in different sizes, but I've never read anything in the Turkish histories about even more than one 'ud playing at a time let alone different sizes being a prominent feature.

However, if you want to see what happens when 1200+ baglama-saz players try to play together, check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrECDSOqrOQ

jdowning - 11-24-2007 at 12:12 PM

Out of interest I sketched three early oud profiles to scale for comparison.
Sketch A is an Egyptian oud by Hosam Muhi Al-Deen Holmy in my possession - subject to the posting in the Oud Projects Forum "Restoration of an Egyptian Oud"
String length of this instrument is 620 mm and is thought to date from the early 20th C.

Sketch B is a Syrian oud by maker Baseel Al Tounjy, in the possession of Richard Hankey - see his posting in the Oud Project Forum "Oud or Lute"
This oud is dated 1889 but the belly is missing and , therefore, string length unknown. With a 'low' bridge position the string length could have been around 750 mm?

Sketch C is a reconstruction of an oud described by Ibn al-Tahhan (Egyptian?) with "corrections" made to dimensions that do not "make sense" geometrically. This results in a much smaller oud than described by Ibn al-Tahhan.
String length is about 850 mm and date 14th C.
See also "Ancient Scales of Measurement" on this Forum.

jdowning - 11-26-2007 at 10:16 AM

I learnt yesterday - for the first time - that an analysis of the Ibn Al-Tahhan oud appears in an article published in the Galpin Society Journal in 1979 "Reconstructing the Medieval Arabic Lute: A Reconsideration of Farmer's ' Structure of the Arabic and Persian Lute'" by Curtis Bouterse. The author questioned the dimensions derived by Farmer from the original manuscript and sought to resolve the problem - as I did - by assuming that there had been scribal errors in the units of measurement and that the unit "isba madmum" had been used instead of "isba" making the length and width of the oud twice what it should be. (not that this speculation made independently by two researchers means that it is correct!)
Bouterse then went further than I did and proposed that , conversely, the unit "isba" used to locate the bridge position should have been "isba madmum" resulting in the bridge being located at 9 cm from the bottom of the bowl instead of 4.5 cm. I have edited the image of oud C in my previous posting to reflect this change - bridge 1 being the original and bridge 2 being the position proposed by Bouterse. As can be seen, bridge position 2 works better proportionally and results in a reduced string length of about 810 mm.

A further thought arising from this comparison of three 'early' oud profiles - is it possible that the neck on oud B has been cut down some time in the past to reduce its length? Was it at one time proportional in length to that of oud C? Just a thought

jdowning - 12-4-2007 at 11:45 AM

The attached image is a sketch of another early oud from the
14 th C Persian manuscript Kanz al-tuhaf as translated by Farmer.
As with the Ibn al-Tahhan oud the overall length given does not make sense so half the length has been used assuming scribal error in the units. The oud dimensions are then, overall length 810 mm, width of body 337.5 mm, bridge 135 mm from bottom of bowl, neck length (at 1/4 of overall length) 202.5 mm, depth of bowl 16.9 mm.
I have reconstructed the geometry of the oud as shown in the sketch. The bottom of the bowl is semicircular with radius half the maximum width.
The radius of the upper outline of the bowl is the length of the bowl with the centre located at 1/3 bowl length measured from the bottom. (This layout also works for ouds A,B, C previously posted)

jdowning - 12-29-2007 at 12:22 PM

Jameel has posted an image of a child's oud on his website that he has recently rebuilt - string length 515 mm. Apparently, child sized ouds are not uncommon.
I came across another snippet of information from 'Musick's Monument' by Thomas Mace 1676. In Chapter 3 he goes into detail on how to set up a lute. Concerning the marking out of the nut he says:
"But here you must note of what length (ie width) the nut should be.
The length of the nut of a full sized consort lute, fit for a man's hand or a woman's, should be just two inches, quarter and half quarter long (ie 2 3/8 inches or about 60 mm wide for
7 courses); and in a nut of this proportion you will have full scope and freedom to lay your strings so conveniently that they shall all speak clear and your stopping will be very roomy and large which is a mighty matter for clear and good play. Yet too much room is an inconvenience.
But upon little sized lutes for children or the like, the nuts must be shorter (ie narrower) according to discretion and proportion."
So there were small lutes made for children of the 17th C too - although none survive today to my knowledge. Not sure what is meant by "or the like" though.

Peyman - 12-29-2007 at 10:31 PM

I had forgotten about this link. It might be useful: http://www.muzikbilim.com/3m_2004/ozek_e.html
It's a description of proportions used in Turkish ouds and lavtas.

jdowning - 12-30-2007 at 04:52 AM

Thanks for the link - interesting information.
Little success with Google auto translation of the text from Turkish to English but it looks as though the diagrams and tables are self explanatory.

El Nashaat Kaar

Butrous - 12-30-2007 at 07:13 AM

The oud orchestra is probably a westernize concept that would be organized by a state funded conservatory. I know the Conservatory in Beirut wanted to organize such an orchestra about 6 years ago.

I know of a so called "bass oud". I have seen William Shaheen play one in his brother's group.

There is a short necked lute in Syria and Lebanon known as el-nashaat kaar. It is smaller than an oud.

Matthias - 1-4-2008 at 12:35 PM

Hello Jdowning,

the idea you had about lutes for children in the renaissance time does not show the reality. It is correct, that during the renaissance time the lute has been build in different sizes from trebble over descant and alto lutes to the "normal sized" lute up to a bass lute. But theese instruments were not made for children, they have been build for consorts playing music that has been written for different lutes with different sizes and pitches. I do not know any single remark or iconography that there have been lutes made for children. Later on in the baroque period of the lute, the small instruments dissappeared, better to say haven't been build any more. There was no new music for such consorts.

Regards Matthias

Quote:

Originally posted by jdowning
Jameel has posted an image of a child's oud on his website that he has recently rebuilt - string length 515 mm. Apparently, child sized ouds are not uncommon.
I came across another snippet of information from 'Musick's Monument' by Thomas Mace 1676. In Chapter 3 he goes into detail on how to set up a lute. Concerning the marking out of the nut he says:
"But here you must note of what length (ie width) the nut should be.
The length of the nut of a full sized consort lute, fit for a man's hand or a woman's, should be just two inches, quarter and half quarter long (ie 2 3/8 inches or about 60 mm wide for
7 courses); and in a nut of this proportion you will have full scope and freedom to lay your strings so conveniently that they shall all speak clear and your stopping will be very roomy and large which is a mighty matter for clear and good play. Yet too much room is an inconvenience.
But upon little sized lutes for children or the like, the nuts must be shorter (ie narrower) according to discretion and proportion."
So there were small lutes made for children of the 17th C too - although none survive today to my knowledge. Not sure what is meant by "or the like" though.

jdowning - 1-5-2008 at 06:05 PM

Hello Matthias - It is not my imagination, I am simply quoting Thomas Mace who wrote in 1676 about "little sized lutes for children". What could be clearer evidence from 17th C England that small sized lutes were being made for children at that time?

jdowning - 1-6-2008 at 06:39 AM

Further evidence for child lute players in 16th/17th C England (although it was unlikely to be any different in continental Europe at that time) is provided by Julia Craig-McFeely in her important and valuable thesis "English Lute Manuscript and Scribes 1530-1630". She has made her thesis available in pdf format for free download at http://www.remesescats.co.uk/thesis
She is also director of the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music project at Oxford University details of which may be found on her website.
In Chapter 1 of the thesis she examines the evidence supporting how the lute was taught in 16th/17th C England, and it is clear that children, in well to do households, started learning the lute under the watchful eyes of professional lutenists, as early as 7 years of age - even before they had learned to write - as an essential part of their education. Those apprenticed to become professional lutenists also began their training as early 7 years of age. She goes on to suggest that " Even the size of a pupil's hands may not have been very important, as lutes came in a large variety of sizes allowing a pupil with small hands to begin on a small treble lute" This may have been the case, but from the observation of Thomas Mace, the string spacing on an instrument intended for an adult - regardless of the size of a lute - would have been wider than on a small sized lute specifically intended for a childs hand. This then begs the question about whether or not some surviving lutes of small size - currently assumed to have been played by adults in lute consorts - are, in fact, lutes that were originally made for children. An examination of string spacings at the nut of these instruments might be an indication of whether or not a lute was made for child or adult. I shall look at data that I have to hand to see if this might be the case.
It should also be noted that there are a great many depictions of child and infant lute players in the European iconography of the 16th C and earlier. Iconography, however, should be viewed with distrust as historical evidence because artists often used convention and considerable imagination in creating their paintings. So, for example, paintings depicting infant 'putti' (many with wings!) playing lutes can hardly be considered as real world images. Also the size of a person in a painting relative to others may be made unnaturally small by convention - as an indication of their inferior social stature.

jdowning - 1-6-2008 at 10:11 AM

I have briefly reviewed lute overall string spacing at the nut of several original lutes from data that I have to hand. These lutes range in size from a string length of 300mm (mandores) as well as a 'descant' lute of 440mm string length up to about 730mm in the case of Baroque lutes. String spacing was found to be variable dependant to a certain extent on whether or not a single or double top course is fitted but averaging about 38mm across 6 courses and about 47mm across 7 courses for Renaissance period lutes and between 40mm and 50mm across 7 courses for a Baroque lute (because these are usually fitted with single first and second strings).
For comparison, the lute that I currently am using - a 7 course copy of a lute by Giovanni Hieber of the late 16th C. with a single top course - measures 38mm across 6 courses and 46mm across 7 courses. I have an average sized hand and do not have small fingers so can conclude that none of the surviving lutes for which I have data were made for children - based upon measurement of string spacing at the nut. On the other hand Mace gives a nut length of 2 3/8 inches for an adult sized lute which equates to an overall string spacing of about 56mm which would be quite wide for a 7 course lute but about right for an 8 course instrument.