NBSD!

All instruments that aren't guitars (or bass guitars).
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Embenny
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Re: NBSD!

Post by Embenny » Sun Nov 07, 2021 8:12 pm

Larry Mal wrote:
Sun Nov 07, 2021 7:06 pm
So I felt that their bread and butter products would probably be safe.

I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with it other than learn to play it and enjoy. The saz is not set up in equal temperament, or at least I would not imagine, so I'm not really sure I could add it easily to acoustic guitar songs like I could the banjo and such. Honestly I have no idea what to expect there. Maybe I can.

The frets are not metal, but movable nylon, so I could put it in equal temperament if I wanted to, except I have nowhere near the mathematical skill or knowledge to do that.

I'm sure I'll have fun with it. Logic Pro can be set to use other temperaments, if I feel like setting the synths in that otherwise. This will be new to me.
Yeah, I'm positive their Turkish instruments are going to be pretty great. Lutes are just about the most niche instruments out there, other than Lautenwercks or something, but I bet this saz will be all the things a decent saz should be.

About the temperament though, you can get tuning apps like the Strobosoft one that have selectable temperaments. Then you just nudge the frets until things look and sound reasonably in tune. You might have to tie new ones in order to do that, though - my Sandi lutes had their frets tied on really tight, so you couldn't shift them easily. These might be the same.
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Larry Mal
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Re: NBSD!

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Nov 08, 2021 6:24 am

mbene085 wrote:
Sun Nov 07, 2021 8:12 pm
Yeah, I'm positive their Turkish instruments are going to be pretty great. Lutes are just about the most niche instruments out there, other than Lautenwercks or something, but I bet this saz will be all the things a decent saz should be.

About the temperament though, you can get tuning apps like the Strobosoft one that have selectable temperaments. Then you just nudge the frets until things look and sound reasonably in tune. You might have to tie new ones in order to do that, though - my Sandi lutes had their frets tied on really tight, so you couldn't shift them easily. These might be the same.
Yeah, I'm excited! I have been wanting a saz for well over ten years now and I don't know why I haven't gotten one already.

Regarding the temperament, I will probably leave it just as it is. I have probably never played an instrument that used other than equal temperament for any real length of time. And I honestly don't even know if this saz will have equal temperament or not.

Some time ago I was looking into Indian music and I came across an article that was talking about how the author was annoyed at the encroachment of Western temperament into their music, as composers there add Western style instrumentation the evolution away from just intonation is occurring, according to the author. And this person feels that this is destroying the purity of the music, which of course it is, although there's nothing wrong with equal temperament or anything.

Although equal temperament isn't a totally settled issue in even Western music, apparently.

But anyway as I read that article it occurred to me that all the music I've ever played and 99.9% of the music I've heard all uses equal temperament, so I'll be happy to geek out with my saz in whatever tuning it arrives in. Maybe I'll learn something.
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Re: NBSD!

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Nov 08, 2021 7:46 am

Well, there certainly is a lot to unpack here!

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Re: NBSD!

Post by Embenny » Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:25 pm

That looks great! How's it sound?
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Re: NBSD!

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Nov 08, 2021 7:24 pm

mbene085 wrote:
Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:25 pm
That looks great! How's it sound?
It sounds good! It's a nicely made saz from what I can tell. There is a scratch on the wood in the back, nothing I care about, and more concerning the bridge seems to be a little low. It seems like the very highest notes on the saz is a fundamental part of the instrument, and the strings are too low down there, and there's a sitar effect of the strings on the frets. So that's disappointing. I suppose I could shim it but getting another bridge would be the real solution.

No adjustable bridge, you know? No truss rod.

But I'll give it a little bit anyway. Maybe the top will change in the new environment here.

I play a lot of instruments to some degree or other, and this one is very different. For one, the main melody strings are in the center of the three courses. Maybe this should have been obvious, but the top strings have the deep bass string (for this instrument, anyway), and the lowest strings (the course of three) has a slimmer wound/bass string.

The center course has two thing strings that are the same gauge. So that's where a lot of the magic can happen, or at least so I seem to think so far. The outer two course can function a bit as the pedal tones while the middle course is good for sliding notes around and such. It can give that ghostly sound that this instrument can have there.

This instrument loves dissonance. It's built into the instrument to an extent that it's like nothing I've seen before, and it handles it well. Some of those frets on there are quarter tones, to start with, but even some of the half steps sound more dissonant somehow.

But it's nice, actually. So far I suck, of course, and I'll talk about that a little bit more. But I've been finger picking on it since I'm cumbersome with the picks, and I did a little thing that was a nice, wholesome, consonant chord, and it sounded something like a banjo roll. But then I throw in some quick dissonance there and slide into another consonant note, and it just works.

It seems to me that this is what this instrument is designed to do, give you a way to quickly resolve dissonant notes. It works here in a way that I have never found it to on the guitar or whatever. Not sure how to describe it, but it really seems to me that playing dissonant notes and then resolving them in some way is a fundamental part of the design of the saz. It wants you to do that. The guitar will do that, if you want it to, but the guitar prefers to play beautifully. The saz wants to be dissonant. That's what it does.

Now, I thought I would be able to do a little more on it than I am so far, so bear all that in mind. The layout of the frets doesn't make any sense to me. I guess it will some day. The spacing of the frets isn't spaced out in a way that my mind can make sense of yet. I mean, the distances between any two frets bears no relation to the distances between any other two frets. It's just, this is this, and that is that. I play something and it's wrong and I have to make a very conscious effort to think of what would be right, or even what right really means here.

That being said, it's very easy to play. The action of the saz is designed to be very, very low, and the strings are very, very light.

However the pick is vexing me, but now I realize why it's so thin and flexible, because otherwise you will be digging into your top all the time and you'll destroy it.

It's also incredibly awkward to hold. I guess I'll get used to that.

Don't take too much into this... it took me a couple hours just to figure out how I wanted to tune it, and I may not have really found the tuning that's best or anything. This is all just first day total novice stuff from a person who isn't at all familiar with the instrument nor the musical culture it comes from. I'm just bullshitting my way through this.

Oh, and friction tuning pegs are quite a trip. I had no idea.
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Re: NBSD!

Post by Embenny » Wed Nov 10, 2021 9:37 am

That's really cool. I love when a new instrument does new things! Lots to explore there.

I'd wait for it to acclimate before worrying about those high notes - though that is a bit of a bummer.

I can tell you from experience though, that nylon-fretted chordophones with low string tension commonly face that challenge, and the solution is much simpler than changing the bridge. I learned, from my lute setup research, that it is common practice to make action adjustments through graduated fret size.

If the issue is that the bridge seems too low at the highest frets, there may be one of two issues at play. If the very highest fret chokes out by hitting fretboard, you need a thicker fret there.

But if the highest fret rings clear while the ones behind it choke, you need graduated frets, like the way luthers file fallaway on the highest guitar frets sometimes.

If the highest fret chokes and the ones behind it choke worse, you probably need both (thicker highest fret, graduating to even thicker ones as you move down the fretboard).

The good news is that nylon/nylgut frets are extremely cheap and player-adjustable! You could get 2-3 feet of 4-5 sizes for the cost of a pack of strings, because that's basically what they are! Plus, you uninstall with a pair of wire cutters and install by tying a knot (and sealing it with a bic lighter if you want to do it like the pros).

My lutes came with 3 small nylon frets tied next to each other to make each "fret", which was an issue since it provides enough width but not height. If your saz is the same, tying $10 worth of new, thicker, graduated frets onto it might fix all it's problems.

Also, yeah - friction pegs are wild. Getting some peg compound makes all the difference in the world, but there's a learning curve as well. Always remember to apply some inward pressure toward the headstock as you turn, or it'll all spring loose as I'm sure you've experienced.
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Larry Mal
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Re: NBSD!

Post by Larry Mal » Fri Nov 12, 2021 7:53 am

Thanks, Mike, that's good advice and I'll look into it. It's only the highest notes choking out, the last four or five frets or so. Sadly, though, upon the limited acclimation the problem seems to be getting worse and not better, which was the alternative, I suppose.

And no, I never heard of peg compound. I also didn't push the tuning pegs into the thing, but man, they are hard to use as it is. I got my string winder out to recruit some mechanical assistance since using my hands is so hard. Maybe it'll loosen up, but as of now, the problem is that it's way too stiff and it scares me.
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Re: NBSD!

Post by crianlarich » Mon Nov 15, 2021 7:22 am

That is quite an interesting approach - making up a tuning and experimenting from there on. I wish I'd be as free in that respect. But things like tuning in fourths would not make a big diffrence in my case, it would still be awkward on this bizarre long neck instrument that I have. Plus: it's a very delicate neck that should be well over 50 years old and is not only bowed in the obvious way but also already bent to the side.
It is about the first time that I see fretboard markers on a saz. (I made side dots, 3, 5, 7,...style, on mine as soon as I found out that it is possible to play a major diatonic scale. These dots are everywhere where yours has none ;D ) A bit later I took a few classes , the Turkish teacher was by no means a musical master, but he taught me a song, using more or less these diatonic notes, almost all on the treble string. Off course drones were part of the accompaniment. Still can't make any use of the off scale frets, it seems like those are used for grace notes only.
Last night I met a young turkish guitarist at the local jam who told me it was possible to play the baglama in any key, not just 1 or 2. I'm not convinced yet...
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