naddad
Oud Maniac
Posts: 87
Registered: 6-14-2009
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Oud aging and sound improvement
Someone told me that as the oud wood ages the sound improves.
1) What are the physical attributes that change when the wood ages? (e.g., does it become drier?, more/less dense, etc...?)
2) Is it always the case that sound improves on aging?
3) How long does it take for wood to "age", whatever that means. Can a 20, 30, 40, 50-year old oud sound good?
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fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
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I don't know about the wood aging, but as we play, the instruments seem to "open up", the timbre becomes more definite and more pleasing. There's an
electronic device they rent and sell to do this on guitars, it basically applies strong tones to the soundboard through a speaker driver over a couple
of days. They guarantee that it will improve any instrument. I think it causes the soundboard/bracing to be shaken and to settle into its strongest
resonances. Of course, SOMETHING measurable has to be changing. But what exactly?
I cannot find the device now, it was available a couple of years ago.
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Brian Prunka
Oud Junkie
Posts: 2939
Registered: 1-30-2004
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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There are a number of theories about this, but I
m not convinced that anyone really knows why older instruments tend to sound better.
Instruments definitely "open up" with playing, even the difference between an oud that hasn't been played in a few days and how it sounds after 40
minutes of playing is noticeable.
I would guess that the wood's characteristics change somewhat over time as well, but this doesn't really explain much, since many instruments are made
with 40+ year old wood . . . does the wood change much between year 40 and year 60?
Also to be considered (not as relevant with ouds as many instruments) is that the age of the trees has been getting younger as we have cut down much
old growth and that a lot of species of wood are not available any more (Brazilian Rosewood) or available mostly in lower quality (ebony). Spruce
grows quickly and so is still available in quantity and quality, but I would guess that the overall age of the spruce trees is getting lower.
Many of the old oud masters (Nahat, Bedrossian, Leon, etc.) did not directly pass on their knowledge to today's makers, so it should also be
considered that old ouds were often made with a higher degree of skill. If you consider recordings of those ouds made when the ouds were new, it's
clear that they sounded great even then.
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jdowning
Oud Junkie
Posts: 3485
Registered: 8-2-2006
Location: Ontario, Canada
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Lots of subjective based theories but probably no one knows for sure. My opinion is that a good instrument will sound good from the very start and
then improve further with age. A poor sounding instrument may improve a bit with time if played a lot (which may not happen if it is an unresponsive
instrument).
Probably an exaggeration but some reckon that the useful life of a thin sound board instrument like an oud or lute - when played continuously at
relatively high string tension - may only be about 30 years before the acoustic properties start to deteriorate eventually requiring a replacement
sound board.
My theory is that any acoustic improvement with time is due to 'stress relief' of the sound board structure while being played under conditions of
cyclic temperature/relative humidity changes where the hide glue used in the construction will temporarily soften slightly and then recover again
(this process will not happen if modern synthetic 'waterproof' glues are used) - another good case for using traditional materials perhaps. I have
noticed changes in responsiveness of my lutes at times of high ambient temperature and relative humidity when the instrument will sound 'dull'
temporarily and there is a slight smell of warm hide glue from the bowl interior.
Some sound boards of 17th C guitars have scorch marks on the underside made by the deliberate application of a hot iron over the lower half of the
sound board. The reason for this is subject to some speculation but from recent tests that I have carried out on spruce wood samples, scorching the
spruce causes it to become mechanically more flexible. In which case it is possible that this was an artificial 'aging' or stress relieving technique
to make a thicker sound board instrument (like a Baroque guitar) sound good 'right out of the box'.
I am currently testing this technique on a rebuild project (Renaissance guitar) - currently posted on the Oud Projects Forum. It will be interesting
to see how this turns out acoustically.
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