The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hi

    I've recently got myself an Oud, and though I'm primarily a fingerpicker, I've been getting back into flatpicking because the Oud is played with a flatpick (risha in the Arabic).

    Are there any other Oud players in this forum? (I suppose I shouldn't really call myself an Oud "player"as yet: I'm just an Oud beginner.) Have you played Oud in Jazz? What gotchas are there?

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  3. #2

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    Not me, but I'd be up for learning - what Oud did you get?

  4. #3

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    Not me either but I love the instrument. I saw Anouar Brahem around 2000 and it was one of the best performances of improvised music I've ever heard.

    Last edited by mrcee; 07-05-2015 at 09:30 AM.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Not me, but I'd be up for learning - what Oud did you get?
    Just a beginner Egyptian Oud, with all the wonderful decoration on the neck and back. Got a sweet tone, though, which is all I'm worried about.

  6. #5

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    Serendipity!!....

    because I'm currently listening to Anouar Brahem's album "Le Pas Du Chat Noir" whilst perusing this forum and came across this thread......lol

  7. #6

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    I am playing and learning the Turkish oud.

    Beautiful instrument but hard to master.


  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by michael_bxl
    I am playing and learning the Turkish oud.

    Beautiful instrument but hard to master.

    Amen to that. I thought at first I would find it easy, because of my violin/viola/cello experience in playing in tune (or a reasonable semblance thereof ) but it was harder than I thought, because the sound was plucked, not bowed, and for a while I was all over the show.

  9. #8

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    If it is to play some western things we use to ear, I think it is doable.
    I found the instrument closer to the player, more intuitive (as maybe a trumpet player will feel each note differently, vibrating in his body). We need to listen ! Plus : only 1 or 2 positions most of the time, and no polyphonic sounds/chords.

    My main issue is more with eastern things : we do not have the sounds in our ears, neither the melodies. We have no idea of what the classics are. Even child songs we use to find in the first pages guitar methods.

    I should try to apply some jazz on it.

  10. #9

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    While I haven't laid my fingers on one yet I want to. I was in an old tobacco shop a few years ago that had a range of middle eastern instruments ranging from those hand drums to a wide range of violin and mandolin looking instruments. While they had an oud or two they were complete crap. Seemed to be made out of plywood and they strings were totally out of tune. If I ever find a playable one for a decent price I'd buy one any second. Either that or a lute.

  11. #10

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    I don't play one myself but they are fantastic instruments. I listen to a fair bit of oud and would love to get my hands on one. The only one I've seen in person is in local a guitar shop as part of the owners decorative collection (along with a few shamisens, another great instrument), which bugs me, yes its a nice looking instrument but they are meant to be played, that's when any good instrument is at its most beautiful.

  12. #11

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    check out gordon grdinia...oud and electric guitarist..real hip material..lotsa good recordings



    cheers

    ps- another fave is brandon terzic



    cheers
    Last edited by neatomic; 06-18-2016 at 10:22 PM. Reason: ps-

  13. #12

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    Great thing indeed, I can't stop listening to this guy, his ethno-jazz team kicks hard:


  14. #13

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    Yes! Back in the '80s I picked up a Turkish oud at the Music Inn in Greenwich Village. At first, I approached it like a guitar, but then soon became entranced by Munir Bashir and Hamza El Din, the latter who I caught live a coupla times. After discovering Umm Kulthum, I transcribed a few of her epic songs and put together a small group with a violist, a string bassist and a percussionist; we even got good enough to play out one summer. Next, I was groovin' on Riad Sunbati, who penned several of Umm Kulthum's most famous songs, and who also played them solo. But my favorite oud player eventually became the Yemeni artist Ahmed Fathi, especially the traditional old Sanaa "qat" songs. On a trip to the Middle East in the '90s I made my way to Aleppo, where I'd heard there were still some old school oud luthiers among the Armenian community there, and ended up bringing one home. Still have the first old Turkish oud, and tune it up and play it once in a while. Godin has an electric oud that piqued my interest recently, but now mostly I enjoy listening to some of the crossover artists you all have mentioned in this thread. Thanks!

    Here's Riad Sunbati playing and singing a tune he wrote for the legendary Umm Kulthum, Alatlal, solo:



    And this is Ahmed Fathi doin' his rendition of one of the old funky odd-timed traditional Yemeni numbers:



    BTW, though Fathi was revered for his virtuosic oud flights, purists despised him (his oud overshadowed the vocal prominence of the old music). Wait for the odd groove to kick in at around 2:20. What's that in, 7 or is it 11? Enjoy!

  15. #14

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    ^ great post..and to think it all started at the music inn! haha...they treated it more like a museum than a store..with a chain across the entrance!!...but they had the "weird" instruments!! hah

    cheers

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    ^ great post..and to think it all started at the music inn! haha...they treated it more like a museum than a store..with a chain across the entrance!!...but they had the "weird" instruments!! hah

    cheers
    Thanks, my pleasure to recall those days! A museum indeed. Here's a piece about the place for the uninitiated:

    Sixty Years of Survival in Greenwich Village - UpstartCity - Medium

  17. #16

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    apparently the great hamza el din tuned his oud down from the traditional egyptian tuning(fadgcf) to e g# c# f# b e...which is very close to guitar tuning..with the a, d & g strings tuned down 1/2 step...try it on your guitar...certainly makes you rethink in terms of melody rather than just playing in familiar positions

    cheers

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    apparently the great hamza el din tuned his oud down from the traditional egyptian tuning(fadgcf) to e g# c# f# b e...which is very close to guitar tuning..with the a, d & g strings tuned down 1/2 step...try it on your guitar...certainly makes you rethink in terms of melody rather than just playing in familiar positions

    cheers
    Neat, thanks, will have to give that a whirl!

  19. #18

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    90% of the tone and the style without the scale precision required- for guitar players:

    Godin Glissentar – Unfretted

  20. #19

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    I bought a gig bag from a member of this forum, who played on Broadway for the show "The Band's Visit". He was on WNYC playing like Coltrane on the Oud! Phenomenal player!

    Tony Scott wrote a tune for one of his albums called "An Ode for an Oud".

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by JazzPadd
    BTW, though Fathi was revered for his virtuosic oud flights, purists despised him (his oud overshadowed the vocal prominence of the old music). Wait for the odd groove to kick in at around 2:20. What's that in, 7 or is it 11? Enjoy!
    oh man, great clip. yeah that's seven, 2-2-3 (EDIT, it's 3-2-2, heard the downbeat in the wrong place. hey, these laptop speakers are really crappy! yeah that must be it). That meter/grouping is common in balkan/greek, but this one has its own little twist. No idea what they call it in Yemen, but thank you so much for posting it. That percussion was puzzling, you can hear a riq and maybe a bendir, but what's that other thing? Could it be....
    Last edited by whitebeard; 08-09-2019 at 11:19 AM.

  22. #21

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    Check out Joseph Tawadros, he did a great record with John Abercrombie
    and I think another with Mike Stern...

    PK

  23. #22

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    Heya! What’s a good starter Oud?

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by whitebeard
    oh man, great clip. yeah that's seven, 2-2-3. That meter/grouping is common in balkan/greek, but this one has its own little twist. No idea what they call it in Yemen, but thank you so much for posting it.

    That percussion was puzzling, you can hear a riq and maybe a bendir, but what's that other thing? Could it be....

    Bongos???!! Well that was not one of my guesses, but apparently it's common in Yemen.
    Thanks, glad you liked it! That's it, the seven groove. There's also an eleven one, I'll try to track down a recording.

    The bongos sound right, and from live Yemeni oud combo music I've seen the other percussion sounds right, too.

    Quote Originally Posted by whitebeard

    My fave "crossover" is Brenna MacCrimmon's stuff with Selim Sesler, no dumbing down of the source material, just the real thing beautifully rendered -- (the "oud" here being a cumbus)
    Wow, thanks, that MacCrimmon clip is wonderful!

    Intriguingly, cumbus seems etymologically linked to qunbus, an old Yemeni lute that migrated along old world sea trade routes, especially those riding the monsoons to the east. For example, here's one of several articles in which ethnomusicologists have drawn connections between the Yemeni qanbus (specifically from Hadaramut, or southern Yemeni) and the Indonesia gambus.

    https://repository.nie.edu.sg/bitstream/10497/20697/1/ASA-2003-455.pdf

    And here's a clip featuring the Yemeni qunbus:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-XZIIWb7Cg

    There's no percussion, but you can hear several similar riffs to the Ahmed Fathi clip above. Fathi has adopted the more standard Turko-Egyptian oud, but he seems to be playing it Yemeni style, at least on some tunes.

    [Edit: Adjusted some wording and added the cumbus/qunbus/gambus bits instead of posting a new reply.]
    Last edited by JazzPadd; 07-28-2019 at 10:24 PM.

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by JazzPadd

    Intriguingly, cumbus seems etymologically linked to qunbus, an old Yemeni lute that migrated along old world sea trade routes, especially those riding the monsoons to the east. For example, here's one of several articles in which ethnomusicologists have drawn connections between the Yemeni qanbus (specifically from Hadaramut, or southern Yemeni) and the Indonesia gambus.

    https://repository.nie.edu.sg/bitstream/10497/20697/1/ASA-2003-455.pdf
    ]


    yep, endlessly intriguing -- the Portuguese once again appearing as cross-pollinators of european/african/arabic/asian culture -- and then Brazil. Not that there's folk samba in odd meter, but these distinctive groupings show up inside the traditional Brazilian rhythms. Oddly enough.

    Possibly the apparent etymological connection is just an artifact of transliteration. "Cumbus" isn't transliterated, it's the actual Turkish word (well, with the diacriticals missing). The (perhaps partly or wholly apocryphal) story is that when Zeynel presented his invention to to Ataturk as an instrument for the New Turkey, he replied hey, this thing sounds happy! You should call it Happiness! -- cumbus (djoom-boosh) meaning happiness, revelry, party time).

    Speaking of which, someone should mention Richard Hagopian --

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf0-WJ9l57o



    hunh --"automatically parse links" doesn't seem to be working. Copy and pasting the link works fine though

    Last edited by whitebeard; 07-29-2019 at 01:52 PM. Reason: formatting

  26. #25

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    Got a swell Yemeni CD in the mail -- "Music From Yemen Arabia". Oud, vocal, percussion and some kanoun. Sanaani, Laheji, and Adeni styles, all recorded in the '70s. The youtube link is track 1 of this disc, the pic is of the '70s LP. The CD I got is a 1999 Rounder reissue, different cover art, same music.

    Some tracks sound like clay drums and others bongos. There are some characteristic doumbek things on some tracks, although I guess it's possible to get those strokes on bongos held vertically. The music seems uniquely Yemeni, other than some minimal ornamentation the melodies are oddly not particularly Arabic.

    My fave track of the moment is somewhat related to the groove on Hamza El Din's "Nagrishad", eight beat cycle with doum on 1 and 6 but faster and funkier in contrast to the more ethereal Hamza thing. Liner notes say the percussion is a "double clay drum" called "der booga". No picture and no hits on searches, but I wonder if this is the traditional predecessor to the adoption of bongos (ironically there's a picture of bongos on the case).

    Also has a Sanaani track in seven, 3-2-2, which made me wonder if I mis-heard the earlier one (EDIT yes I did) . Apparently (EDIT apparently not) they use both directions (like balkan lesno vs rachenitsa). Reminds of a funny bit about some name guy (Dave Liebman, maybe?) telling his band before a Cuba trip "don't EVER ask these guys where one is".

    anyway, beautiful record. Hats off to JazzPadd for hippin' us to this stuff. thank you thank you thank you
    Last edited by whitebeard; 08-09-2019 at 11:24 AM.