The Secret to Making the World’s Best Oud

Ensar Oud

Well-Known Member
#1

Being immersed in the arts hones your artistic eye, and as a result… your olfactory acumen.

Sitting with masters of their craft and people with artistic vision has shaped my aesthetic and thus my approach to making oud oil. From the way it’s produced to the OCD it takes to capture a specific scent—no matter the toil it takes to get there.

The ‘lines’ and finishing of the letters, the strength and dexterity of the calligrapher’s execution of the letters, these are minute details that separate the 99%-ers from the 1%. The precision of the alif that heads the string of beads, the symmetry and artistry that is mirrored in the separators—how the details make up the whole. How it PERFECTS the whole. These are the nuances I try to embody from studying with artists in various fields, and to project what I learn and take from the way they see the world and approach their craft, into oud distillation.

Your pot is your canvas, and crassna your indigo blue. Temperature curves the strokes of your brush, and the condensers your lathe.

Every oud is, like every oud, unlike any other. A microcosm unto its own that has the power to peel open a new layer of experience. Just like you can lose yourself in a painting; like you escape the grip of time when consumed by a beautiful song, or gaze at the perfection of a bead shaped out of ancient amber.

Art is about expression, about the transfer of feeling from one heart to another, and comes in a million forms. In academic disciplines, physics cross-pollinates with biology and economics just like Coltrane takes the stage with Bach. My oud is distilled not just from aloes, but is the product of an infatuation with the perfect tasbih design and the sweet flow of naskh.

So, here’s a peak behind the scenes into what goes into making quality oud in the company of the most renowned artists of our time, including master calligraphers Mehmed and Osman Özçay, Bunyamin and Metin Usta, world class illuminators Necati Sancaktutan and Orhan Dağlı, and the-one-and-only Sabah Arbili.
 
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