UD

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Oud

The oud (/uːd/; Arabic: عود‎ ʿūd  Arabic pronunciation: [ʕu(ː)d, ʢuːd], plural: أعواد aʿwād; Armenian: ուդ, Syriac: ܥܘܕ ūd, Greek: ούτι oúti; Hebrew: עוּד‎ ud; Persian: بربط‎‎ barbat; Kurdish: ûd‎; Turkish: ud or ut;Azeri: ud; Somali: cuud or kaban) is a pear-shaped stringed instrument commonly used in Persian, Arabic, Greek, Turkish, Jewish, Byzantine, Azerbaijani, Armenian, North African (Chaabi, Classical, and Spanish Andalusian), Somali and Middle Eastern music. Construction of the oud is similar to that of the lute. The modern oud and the European lute both descend from a common ancestor via diverging paths. One instrument that has been suggested as ancestral is the Barbat. The oud is readily distinguished from the lute by its lack of frets and smaller neck. Alongside the lute, it is considered an ancestor of the guitar.

Etymology

The origin of the name oud (and its etymological cousin, lute) for the musical instrument is uncertain. The Arabic: العود‎ (al-ʿūd) literally denotes a thin piece of wood similar to the shape of a straw. It may refer to the wooden plectrum traditionally used for playing the oud, to the thin strips of wood used for the back, or to the wooden soundboard that distinguished it from similar instruments with skin-faced bodies.

Ulster and Delaware Railroad

The Ulster and Delaware Railroad (U&D) was a railroad located in the state of New York. It was often advertised as "The Only All-Rail Route to the Catskill Mountains." At its greatest extent, the U&D extended from Kingston Point on the Hudson River, through the Catskill Mountains to its western terminus at Oneonta, passing through the counties of Ulster, Delaware, Schoharie and Otsego.

History

Rondout and Oswego Railroad

During the early 19th century waterways formed the principal transportation network in New York. An important point on this network was Rondout. Located at the confluence of Rondout Creek and the Hudson River, in 1828 it became the eastern terminus of the Delaware and Hudson Canal. Here cargo and passengers were transferred from canal boats to the larger vessels navigating the Hudson.

By the end of the Civil War, railroads were pre-empting waterways as the preferred method of transportation. Thomas Cornell, founder of the Cornell Steamboat Company and a resident of Rondout, was among those who noticed. Although Cornell made plenty of money from shipping, he planned a railroad that would bring supplies from towns in central or western New York to his port in Rondout. So Cornell chartered the Rondout and Oswego on April 3, 1866, with himself as the first president.