Originally posted by kasperhauser
Umm... why?
No worries about contrariness, Kasper, I just didn't get around to posting this last night
The ud as an instrument posesses a mellow depth - rounded and warm with a hint of fuzziness, but at the same time an attack - what flamenco connoisseurs sometimes call "bronze" - that is beyond the scope of a single guitar.
It has a very strong character that imposes itself on whatever is being played, whereas the guitar is more of a chamelon instrument; capable of imitatation but slightly limited profundity (blues is obviously very deep, but you can get equally deep blues with a single string lute, a finger piano, a jew's harp, an ud or a couple of rocks...).
Also crucial to the ud, IMO, are the double strings and tunings that allow for a drone of genuine sophistication and nimbleness, and the fretless neck which enables the microtonality of the maqam scales to be fully realised (the Euorpean lute is essentially a fretted, retuned version of the ud). I suspect that the relatively short fretless neck is what enables the amazing sense of fluidity that true masters can create.
So essentially the ud gives depth and attack (light and shade if you want), and, in the right hands, allows for a quite astonishing variety of invention within the well-defined and extensive framework of the maqam.
What this adds up to is an instrument of explosive and emotional power.
There are a variety of ud styles and schools, Turkish, Iraqi, and Egyptian being the most obvious, that have different styles of instrument as well as different tunings and maqams. The most pwoerful modern school is the Egyptian school, which has produced scores of udists and a really large number of recordings. I don't know where to start here especially since I've only listened, so far, to a minute fraction of what's available.
Hamza el Din's album "Escalay" The Waterwheel (Smithsonian-Folkways) is mostly solo ud as I remember, and is one to check out
You could take a listen to Naseer Shamma's mostly solo "Bagdhad lute" on Institute du Monde Arabe, or the somewhat overwrought emotionalism of Tunisian uddiste Yosra Dhahbi's Rhapsody for Lute (also on Institue du monde Arabe - most of the titles of which you can get from the cdroots.com or the harmoniamundi.com webshop). And of course there is always "elephant in the kitchen": Munir Bachir whose Art of the Ud (Ocora) is a classic, and but one of the *many* recordings he made over his life.
Said Chraibi's "La clef de Grenade" (Institute du Monde Arabe) is the best place to start with the Ud coming from the guitar IMHO.
