Oud love or how Sylvain Bouancheau Dugast electrified the flagship instrument of Arabic music

A former industrial designer with a passion for Greco-Turkish music, Sylvain Bouancheau Dugast became a luthier by inventing the Sylent oud, an electric travel oud. Which is exported to Japan.

«VAre you sure it’s here? “, asks the taxi driver as we approach the workshop of luthier Sylvain Bouancheau Dugast. There is room for doubt: the inventor of Sylent-oud, a compact and silent travel oud, is based in the middle of an industrial port, south of Nantes. For a year and a half, he has shared, with other craftsmen and artists, a hangar sublet to a transport company. It is there, far from everything, that the 44-year-old creator makes around twenty-five instruments per year. He sells them all over the world, from the Emirates to the United States, including Japan.

Sylvain knows the circuitous paths. Before designing instruments, he was first an industrial designer – “in automobiles, aeronautics and even aerospace” – in Vendée, where he comes from, but also in Toulouse. Four years in the sector were enough for him to understand that it was not « [s]on truc » : “I have saturated the industrial environment. » Far from being completely mapped out, what followed took him from stays abroad to precarious jobs in the socio-cultural sector, through communication for an association or the life of an intermittent musician. And even, a return to industry which brought him to Nantes, where he designed also giant animals for the Royal de Luxe company, a pioneer of street theater: “I went to offer them my CV every week, and after two months they told me: “Sylvain, we know you, we know who you are, we are thinking of you for a project”. »

The oud is a large instrument, fragile, the body, plump, measures twenty centimeters. I almost had one confiscated at the airport.

During these thousand lives, the Greco-Turkish music enthusiast found the time to learn to play the oud, a string instrument very common in Arab music. It was through advanced training courses abroad that he found his way. “The oud is a large instrument, fragile, the body, plump, is twenty centimeters. I almost had one confiscated at the airport. I said to myself “never again”. » The rest seems quite simple: “I know how to draw on a computer, so I drew myself an oud in 3D. » He took a Yamaha travel guitar as inspiration and was helped by a luthier from Vendée. The instrument, designed in 2013, seems reduced to its simplest expression: a neck and a body which form a single line, removable hoops which, once in place, suggest the silhouette of the traditional oud.

The result, which only sounds once amplified – like an electric guitar – does not immediately create support: “My teachers and traditional players insisted that it could not be called an oud. » The apprentice luthier does not dismantle himself, perfects his creation and regularly posts videos on the Internet. And one day he receives a call: a Saudi singer who wants to remain anonymous – Sylvain later learns that it was Rabeh Saqer, a star in his country – wants to get one. This is the trigger: “His desire made me understand that the instrument could please people. » The Vendéen created his company in 2018, reinvented the tuning system and the microphones, sold to big names like the Egyptian virtuoso Mohamed Abozekry and ended up making a living from it.

Since then, the luthier has expanded his range, offering the Oud Moon, still amplified but closer to the traditional form, as well as guembri and loutar, two popular instruments in North Africa. All of his creations, sold between 1,300 and 2,500 euros, are made to order and made to measure, using computer-controlled machines. They are so successful that they are copied by unscrupulous manufacturers in Egypt, Morocco and Indonesia. The craftsman remains confident: “My innovations give me a head start. »

L’OBJET : L’ALBUM HEAVEN’S DUST, D’EKOVA
Heaven’s Dust (1998), Ekova’s first record, introduced me to the oud. The group no longer exists, they only made three albums, with an original lineup: a singer (the American Dierdre Dubois) who used machines like Groove Box, an Iranian percussion player, Arash Khalatbari, and a oud player, Mehdi Haddab. I came across it by chance in a record store. I heard this improvisation, which we call a distribution in Arabic and Turkish music. It is a melodic but ambient suite, which is not measured in time, and which often serves as an introduction to a piece. I tried to reproduce this atmosphere on the guitar, but certain notes – quarter tones – do not exist on this instrument.