Description
Handcrafted by İzmir master oud maker Mustafa Gezerdag, this Turkish lavta pairs a striped maple-and-mahogany bowl with a spruce top and a fingerboard carrying decorative inlay work rarely seen on lavtas at this price point. A fretted plectrum lute with a pear-shaped body, the lavta sits between the Arabic oud and the Anatolian saz — closer in geometry to the oud, but with movable frets that give it a brighter, more precisely articulated voice.
The bowl is built from alternating maple and mahogany staves — the brightest, fastest-attack pairing in this series of four bowl-wood options. Maple contributes clarity and speed, while mahogany rounds out the midrange and adds sustain. The soundhole carries a carved, lattice-pattern rosette in the Ottoman tradition, and the black pickguard is finished with a hand-inlaid bird-and-feather motif in mother of pearl — a decorative signature shared across the series.
What distinguishes this lavta series most, though, is the fingerboard: rather than the plain dark wood most lavtas carry under their tied frets, this neck is inlaid along its full length with a continuous scrolling pattern. It’s a decorative touch drawn from Ottoman lutherie ornamentation, more commonly seen on museum-grade instruments than on workshop production, and it makes the neck as much a visual centerpiece as the bowl.
The top is solid spruce, carved for the stiffness-to-weight ratio that gives a pear-shaped lavta body its projected, clearly articulated tone — bright enough to cut through ensemble textures, warm enough to hold up in solo taksim. The neck carries pine fingerboard construction under the inlay work, and tuning runs on ebony friction pegs, the traditional choice for lavta’s fretted, makam-tuned courses.
| Body | Maple & 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 |
This lavta suits players moving from the oud into the fretted lavta tradition, as well as intermediate and advancing players who want the brightest, most articulate voice in the series — an edge in mixed-ensemble settings where a lavta needs to cut through rather than blend into the background.
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 warmer solid mahogany model, the classically-toned solid walnut model, or the balanced walnut & mahogany model. 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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