The earliest Arabic music treatises dating from the 9th C to the 15th C provide a little information about the construction of the oud in those early
times.
The earliest account by Al-Khindi emphasises the importance of the thinness of the body and soundboard woods as well as the uniformity of thickness -
unevenness of the thickness resulting in uneveness of the sound produced.
A writer in the 14th C. tells us that Larch wood - cut very thin - was used for the belly - two or three pieces being joined together to make up the
desired width. The body was made up of eleven (sometimes thirteen) ribs of equal width. The ribs were thinner in thickness than the belly. The rib
joints were reinforced with fine quality paper strips.
The bridge should not be weighted or made from (heavy) precious materials (including ebony) because of the detrimental effect on the sound of the
oud.
A 15th C account indicates that less dense woods produced a better tone. The preferred woods (for the body) were Beechwood (which is resonant),
Elmwood (which gives a finer but softer tone), Walnut (which resists the attack of wood boring insects) and Vine - considered to be the finest choice
of material.
I have never used Larch as a tonewood but know that it is a fairly dense tough wood that was often used in building construction for rafters during
the 19th C in North America. It is a tree that does not grow to any great size or diameter - hence the need to join several strips together to make a
soundboard.
Making the ribs of an oud thinner than the belly thickness does not seem to be current practice among oud builders but is the norm for lute
construction.
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