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THE TUNISIAN
UD
This instrument belongs to the family of chordophones. It produces a sound when its strings are made to vibrate by plucking them with a plectrum. The Tunisian ud is different from its Eastern cousin (played in most Arab countries and in Turkey) because of the number of strings (it has four pairs rather than five), its longer neck, the shape of its sound box and the way it is played. The general appearance of the Tunisian ud recalls the medieval lute, especially its pear-shaped or piriform sound box, the sound holes that decorate its soundboard and its pairs of strings. The Tunisian ud began to disappear from Tunisian orchestras in the 1960s. |
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