Oh Nos!

[merchimerch]

I know that it is just a thing, but I'm upset right now. My dutar has come unglued I assume from the dry weather. Luckily it's my practice/demo dutar not my stradivarius equivalent, but I am still pretty upset. PMS will be gone in a day or so, but my broken dutar is more permanent and there just *isn't* anywhere that works on dutars in this country or even this hemisphere.

I should have noticed it earlier, but this dutar has always had a duller sound and the wood was staying in place because of the strings. I unstrung it this evening to change the strings since I noticed they were sounding old and then I noticed that the entire base of the face of the instrument had separated from the body.

I don't know what the right choice is to do. If I have to travel to an interview I am NOT risking taking my master dutar (no matter how amazing it sounds), and my 3rd dutar is either in PA or in Livermore, so I have to get this one fixed or fix it myself. I guess I start with McCabes tomorrow, or maybe try to contact Prof. R the Middle Eastern musician. This is just one more thing that needs to be taken care of before I leave.

It's just a thing, but it is a really important and irreplacable thing *pout*

I know everything is better in the morning; man do I ever wish I could wake up to a whole dutar.

Why do I feel like I just dropped my baby or something? I feel like a bad dutar mommy...

Comments

[sasha-khan.livejournal.com]

Actually, I may have some resources for repair for you - I knowof more than a couple of ethnic luthiers here in SoCal who may be able to help, I'm not sure how familiar they are with dutar, but are familiar with rabab (koshkarjeh), tar and baglama...

My email is sasha_khan AT temurkhanlar DOT com

Lovers of odd instruments gotta stick together and all

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

Good call - I'd appreciate the help. After I wrote this I thought of asking the prof who gave me my Baroque exam about luthier advice, since a theorbo is pretty much the closest Western equivalent I can think of to a dutar.

I'll drop an email and hopefully can find something workable. Dutars really are quite different from rubabs and many other stringed lutes from the region because they are more fragile and can be because tension tuned silk strings just don't put up as much tension as metal ones.

And really this could have been much worse - it's a glue problem, not a crack in the wood and for that I'm incredibly grateful.

[nisaa.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, if I had been more with it, I would have told you to contact Sasha. I know him thru the SCA. Good thing he found you!

[nisaa.livejournal.com]

Thank you Sasha! I should have thought of you last night when merchimerch called me.