Cedar, ivory, walnut, purple, fir, mahogany. As he carefully handles the thin wooden slats, Syrian Rajana Olba, 35, names each one and looks at its different shades in awe. “Look at that beautiful wood,” he says, pointing to a jacaranda tree.
They are the raw material for the lute, an instrument that Rajana has played since she was a teenager and that he is now building in the back room of the house where he lives in the south of São Paulo.
“The secret is to have the right measurements, the quality of the wood and the base, which has to be very thin, about two millimeters”, he explains. Despite the delicate thickness, he emphasizes that the instrument is resistant. “When I’m done, I can throw it on the ground and step on it and it doesn’t break.”
The lute, which Rajana describes as “the grandfather of the guitar”, is an ancient stringed instrument made up of a pear-shaped wooden box with a short neck with a sloping end and usually eleven strings – five doubles and one single. It is fundamental in Middle Eastern music groups, and the origin of its name is usually attributed to the word “al-oud” (wood, in Arabic).
At the age of 14, after insisting a lot, Rajana got a lute from his mother and trained alone at home, taking advantage of his keen musical ear. In addition to being an electrician and stone sculptor for construction, in his other professions, he became a musician and teacher.
In Brazil since 2015, he also teaches and performs. But the coronavirus pandemic came, and the presentations were interrupted. “I’ve wanted to learn for a long time [a fazer alaúdes] and I was waiting for the right time,” he says. “It is very difficult to find lutes in Brazil, the freight to import them is very expensive and it is also not easy to find people to do repairs. All this led me to make the decision [de se tornar luthier].
The Syrian learned to build lutes the same way he started to play them: as a self-taught person. He used YouTube videos, but his experience as a lute player also helped him in the process.
Even not finding all the wood used in Syria for manufacturing, he found Brazilian options that worked.
“I soak the wood for 24 hours in water, then fold the wood, trash to stay straight until they fit right together. When I finish the bottom, I start making the arm, then I make the top, then I prepare the pegs and then the ropes”, he describes, while showing the equipment used in each stage. “Each mold gives a different sound. This one is lower, this one higher.”
Rajana says that it takes 20 to 30 days to build each lute, and the price varies from R$2,500 to R$5,500, depending on the raw material used and the instrument model.
His clients are Brazilian — some of them are his students and most of them already work with music, but there are also people who have never played anything and decide to start with the lute. He has already shipped instruments that he manufactured to five states, and, in the pandemic, he also dedicated himself to teaching online.
Rajana left Syria in 2012, at the start of a civil war that has already left 500,000 people dead and millions of exiles around the world. He fled his homeland so as not to be forced to do compulsory military service and fight in the conflict. For three years, he lived in Lebanon, until in 2015, he migrated again, this time to Brazil —the only country that, at that time, was granting visas to Syrians.
In Brazilian lands, he arrived without knowing anyone or speaking Portuguese. He worked as an electrician in São Paulo and as a farmer on a farm in the interior of the state. Then he managed to bring his parents, two brothers and a sister.
Over time, Rajana returned to acting as a musician, created an oriental music band and also performed as a soloist, performing in spaces such as the Mário de Andrade Library and the stages of Sesc’s São Paulo units.
The Syrian who fled the war and became a lute builder also composes. One of his songs is called “A Refugee’s Journey”. From national music, he especially listens to choro and samba.
“Brazilians like Arab music and get to know other cultures. This helped me to continue with my work,” he says. “Before I arrived, I had no idea that Arab culture had this influence here.”
In São Paulo, Rajana created the band Nikkal, made up of Brazilian and immigrant musicians who play the flute, drums, piano and derbak (a type of drum of Arab origin). In the group there is also a Lebanese vocalist and a belly dancer.
Even if he returns to performing in a post-pandemic scenario, he intends to keep his work as a luthier. “I like both playing and doing [instrumentos]. One completes the other,” says Rajana. “The lute is part of me, it’s been with me for 22 years. I translate my feelings for him.”
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