Description
Handcrafted by Izmir master oud maker Mustafa Gezerdag, this Turkish lavta pairs a solid mahogany bowl with a spruce top — part of a small series built around the same decorative fingerboard and pear-shaped body, distinguished from its siblings by bowl wood alone. A fretted plectrum lute that sits between the Arabic oud and the Anatolian saz, the lavta trades the oud’s fretless slide for a fretted neck that gives it a brighter, more precisely articulated voice.
Solid Mahogany Bowl
Where the rest of the series staves the bowl from two contrasting woods, this model is built from solid mahogany alone — no maple or walnut strips breaking up the surface. The result is a more tonally unified bowl: without alternating wood seams, the resonance moves more evenly across the surface, giving a warm, present midrange with a slightly slower, rounder note decay than a mixed-wood bowl. Visually it reads as a single deep reddish-brown sweep from neck joint to base, glossy and continuous rather than striped.
The Rosette and Inlaid Fingerboard
The soundhole carries the same carved lattice-pattern rosette as the rest of the series, and the black pickguard is finished with the same hand-inlaid bird-and-feather motif in mother of pearl. The fingerboard, too, shares the series’ signature: a continuous scrolling inlay running its full length, more commonly seen on museum-grade instruments than on workshop production — here set against the darker mahogany tone below.
Spruce Top, Pine Fingerboard and Ebony Pegs
The top is solid spruce, carved for the stiffness-to-weight ratio that gives a pear-shaped lavta body its projected, articulate tone. The fingerboard is built on pine under the inlay work, and tuning runs on ebony friction pegs, the traditional choice for lavta’s fretted, makam-tuned courses.
Specifications
| Body | Solid mahogany |
|---|---|
| Soundboard | Spruce |
| Fingerboard | Pine, with decorative inlay |
| Pegs | Ebony friction pegs |
| Bowl Length | 44.5 cm |
| Bowl Width | 30.5 cm |
| Body Depth | 15.5 cm |
| String Length (Scale) | 68 cm |
Who This Lavta Is For
Players who want the warmest, most even-sustained voice in the series tend to reach for the solid mahogany bowl — it suits solo taksim improvisation where a rounder note decay lets phrases breathe, and blends comfortably into fasil ensemble textures rather than cutting sharply through them. It’s equally at home with intermediate players moving from the oud and advancing players who want a warmer alternative to the brighter maple-mahogany model in the same series.
Care and the Rest of the Series
Keep the bowl away from direct heat and sudden humidity swings, and check the tied gut or nylon frets periodically, as they can shift slightly with playing and need occasional repositioning for accurate intonation. This model is one of four bowl-wood options built by Mustafa Gezerdag on the same body and fingerboard: see the brighter maple & mahogany model, the classically-toned solid walnut model, or the balanced walnut & mahogany model. The whole series sits in our lavta category; for a case and spare strings, see our accessories collection. Readers curious about the instrument’s place in Ottoman music can find more on the lavta on Wikipedia.
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