Any Oud players?

Subject: Any Oud players?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 04:27 AM

I mentioned in my "Postcard from Lemnos 2006" thread that one of the local musicians played an oud. This was the first time I've seen one played live. The lighting in the taverna was dim and I wasn't too close to the band but it looked to me as if he was strumming it with a plastic strap bound round his fingers. He played bouzouki with a plectrum in the normal way. Is this the usual way of playing the oud, obviously plastic isn't "traditional"?
I'm sure there are experts out there on the Mudcat who'll give me an answer (or possibly several conflicting ones!).

RtS

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: GUEST,Ian Pittaway
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 07:55 AM

The oud is often played with a long, thin plastic plectrum nowadays, rather than the usual triangular plectrum used by guitarists. This modern oud plectrum is in imitation of the traditional eagle's feather quill plectrum - I kid you not. (How people went about getting these eagles' feathers I have no idea.)

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Duke
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 09:42 AM

I don't recognize the name. What is an Oud?

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 12:05 PM

There was a thread about a month back when someone was taling about the instrument. I think someone asked about using goose quills for playing Appalachian Dulcimer. Th Oud was played using something similar for plucking it.
I think someone had links to sites about the instrument.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 01:16 PM

The European Lute was developed from the oud ( they look somewhat similar); I once saw Leonard Cohen in concert ( early 80s?) and he featured an oud player in his band - very effectively, too.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Oct 06 - 08:51 PM

"Any Oud players?
Any Oud players?
Any, any, any Oud players?
Sure look sweet..."

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 12:36 AM

If you think about it, Lute is really a form of L'Ud. Initially, the oud had frets, but they were eliminated--allowing all kinds of scale alterations--this allows for all kinds of modes, or maqqam, to be played-which is important, because the traditional forms of Middle Eastern music--Arabic, Turkish, and Persian, use no chords or even harmonies--It is all melody and variations, , one string is used as a kind of drone.

I tried to learn once, but gave it up quickly. There are many different traditions, each with it's own tunings, scales, and pitch systems, and even the ouds are different from one to another. Way more that I could handle.

If you want to know more, here are All the Oud Links You Could Ever Want

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 03:34 AM

Thanks, Ted. The article by Brown on the Lark in the Morning webpage in the link you give talks about home made clear plastic, even cut from bottles, picks, this was obviously a variation. It looked to me as if he buckled the strap round his 3 middle fingers and strummed with the free end which would fit in with the quill or long pick tradition. Thanks to all - even Foolestroupe for the pun!

RtS.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Bert
Date: 08 Oct 06 - 02:53 PM

I had a neighbor in Bahrain who played the Oud. He used a strip from a squeezy bottle instead of the tradition eagle quill.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 03:10 AM

Yep. I play the oud, or 'The King of instruments' as it's known just a bit to the south of Watford. Mine is an 11 string fretless, made in Egypt. I play mine with my fingernails. As to what to play it with, a bird quill (Ibis) is one 'traditional' way, but not the only one.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Gedpipes
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 03:57 AM

An oud sounds great with the Northumbrian Small pipes doesn't it fted

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 04:01 AM

It sure does Ged, two instruments of suspect pitch in perfect non-unison!

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 06:16 AM

Hear your own instrument hasn't played for a long time Ted !

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Gedpipes
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 07:24 AM

be difficult to hear then?

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Duke
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 07:39 AM

Thanks to this site, I now know what an Oud looks like. I always thought it was a lute I was looking at.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Kaleea
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 08:02 PM

I have a Laud, which is an Oud from Spain. It has 17 strings & is some real funky fun. I usually just use my fingers, but sometimes I use a small, somewhat small thumbpick. When my Turkish nephew saw it, his eyes lit up & he has to play it most every time he visits. He was raised by a family who is from a large city, & one might say more European and not into traditional Turkish customs. Being a Guitarist anyway, he generally uses a Guitar pick or sometimes his bare fingers. He told me that most people he knows use a piece of thin plastic that they've cut from a water bottle or some other container, or a thin Guitar pick. He said that the older players are more likely to use a feather quill, but some grow long nails to play with. Occasionally a friend from his hometown comes to visit with him & plays it, but retunes it & asks for one of my very pointy triangular Herdim picks.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: M.Ted
Date: 09 Oct 06 - 11:57 PM

Years ago, in Philly, there was a Spanish restaurant that featured flamenco music and dance, next to "The Middle East Restaurant", which featured live music. From time to time, the resident oudist, who I only remember as Chick, would sit in with the flamenco guitarists. He was quite good, and whenever I'd talk with flamenco players in the area, invariably, they'd talk about Chick. He was a classically trained oudist, and had played extensively in the Middle East, and had even played jazz-I think he'd recorded an album with Oscar Peterson.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: GUEST,Mike Miller
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 01:01 AM

I was a regular at The Middle East restaurant in Philadelphia back in the 1960's. The owner, Slimon Tayoun, played the oud but his son, Edmond, was the real musician. I often sat in with the band, imitating the sound of the oud on a nylon strung guitar. I learned enough oud to play three Lebanese tunes, an Arabic arrangement of a Greek dance and the damnedest sounding Hava Nagila you can imagine.
A few years later, when I was living in Israel, I sat in with some oudists in an open air cafe in Jerusalem. My chaverim were impressed, as were the Arab musicians and, needless to say, I skipped the Hava Nagila. No one can say that I'm not sensative.

                         Mike

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 05:24 AM

I have a recording by the Georgian folk group "Rustavi" where they describe Hava Nagila as being a dance tune from North Ossetia (the sleeve notes are in Turkish and give the title as "Simdi" which means "Now"), though they say it's known all over the Middle East. So if it's got that far, maybe Arabs think of it as one of their own tunes too?

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: GUEST,Penguin Egg
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 07:51 AM

Why don't you all check back copies of fRoots. I am sure that there is enough information about Ouds and their players to satisfy the most diehard of World Music fans.

DEATH TO WORLD MUSIC AND THEIR HIGH PRIESTS!

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 07:54 AM

as far as I remember (it was some years ago), the oud players I heard and watched in Morocco used their fingers not plectrums

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 11:23 AM

"Why don't you all check back copies of fRoots. I am sure that there is enough information about Ouds and their players to satisfy the most diehard of World Music fans.
DEATH TO WORLD MUSIC AND THEIR HIGH PRIESTS!"

Actually, Mr. Egg, the level of interest in the oud on this thread suggests fRoots is getting it right and you're getting it wrong.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 11:23 AM

Penguin Eggs-I can assure you that the oud exists quite independently of fRoots, and of "World Music" for that matter.

Mike--By the time I was hanging around, Eddie and Jimmy owned the restaurant. Eddie seldom played--generally it was when a dumbek player was late. I don't know how it worked in the 60's, but by the late 80's, the "band" was consisted of a different "regular" musician each night of the week, plus whatever dumbek player and sidemen Eddie could find-usually it was a trio(and occasionally just a duet) during the week, with a bigger band on weekends. It was truly ecletic music, with Armenians, Turks, Greeks, Egyptians, Lebanese, Druse, Israelis, Persians and the odd American, all tossed together, strictly based on availability.

A few years after I had moved on, the management of the place fell to the third generation kids, who were much more interested in playing music--and started a Monday night thing that brought in a lot of younger people--

Don't know if the place is even there anymore--

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 06:24 PM

It is later in the day, and I discovered that Philadelphia's Middle East Restaurant is now called "The Nile Restaurant"--still with live music and the Belly-dance--Little Joey Tayoun is no longer little, and is a darn good drummer--here is a sample-Joe Tayoun and Roger Mgrdichian--The Road Less Traveled Roger plays Armenian style oud--which means that the scales are Western--meaning no quarter tones--this is traditional music from South Philly--

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 06:25 PM

Just out of curiousity, how is an oud tuned?

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:36 AM

The ancient tuning was four strings, tuned in fourths ADGC--And that is still basic, more or less, with a lot of variations for additional strings. The standard Arabic tuning is DGADGC The Turkish/Armenian cabaret players used EABEAD for years, but apparently have moved away from it.

I don't pretend to be an expert, but here is a link from the above list, to an article at Lark in the Morning written by someone who knows about it.
Tunings Article by David Brown

I tried to learn oud once, but ended up with a very poor quality instrument, and, beyond that, had trouble making up my mind which type of music I was interested in, and just got bogged down.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: GUEST,Mike Miller
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:38 AM

Ted is correct. Once the Middle East became popular and moved from Elsworth Ave. up to Old City, Eddie was too busy in the kitchen to play with the band. Professional musicians were hired, the best of whom were the Mgrdichian brothers, Ray and George. Joe Tayoun is Eddie's son and he far surpassed his father. I bought him his first guitar, a bright red Gibson ES, at a pawnshop in Kensington.

                      Mike

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: GUEST,Ian Pittaway
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 11:35 AM

Penguin Egg, what a strange posting. I've never been really sure what world music is, as it's such a bizarre title for music that just happens to come from somewhere you are not. So your "Death to world music" is death to ALL music: where else is music going to come from? If your location or your tradition habitually plays the oud you're not going to think of it as anything other than your music. So perhaps the misnomer "world music" is just foreignors' music - unless, of course, YOU are the foreignor, in which case, it's not "world music". In a given location, then, the Spice Girls, Planxty or Nic Jones could be your "world music". So if it's "Death to world music" then Mudcat is redundant. Long live the oud!

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 12:49 PM

I googled George Mgrdichian, and discovered that, sadly, he passed on last May. I've opened a belated Obit thread, with the NYT obituary--

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 02:55 PM

I think Egg was being ironic, at the expense of xenophobic gits like myself who felt that money spent of froots was wasted when it never wrote about any of our mates on the uk folkscene.

still if you wanted irony I suppose you'd be reading Jane austen.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: GUEST,steve benbows protege off line
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 04:02 PM

Roger

try http://www.oudcafe.com/mizrap_risha.htm

that should take you straight to the page relating to the picks of the oud.

Regards.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 04:29 PM

Outside of the Middle East, it would be fair to assume that the pre-eminent exponent of the oud would be the redoubtable David Lindley.

An interesting snippet from his road journal reads as follows

Figured out the Buck Owens/Don Rich instrumental tune "Buckeroo" on the oud in harmony parts, two parts at once like two guitars. It sounds pretty good too.

Personally, I am not in the least interested in the oud, but I am sure that Mr Dave will answer any questions you might care to put to him if you visit his website
http://www.davidlindley.com

He is very approachable, I have corresponded with him before.

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 08:46 PM

My guess as to the pre-eminent exponent would run to someone like Simon Shaheen who won the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Lifetime Honors for his work--among other things.

I am naturally suspicious of all those state sponsored "Honors" and such things, however. My award for the Arab-American musician who has made the most impact with his work goes to Dick Dale, the King of Surf Guitar, for his classic version of "Miserlou"--

I

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 09:10 PM

M.Ted you are probably right, it's just that I love David Lindley, I think he is one of the finest human beings ever to have walked the planet. And a damn fine guitarist/fiddler/oud player to boot.

Just for you (despite the fact that you haven't sent me any Cuban coffee in the last four years) I am posting up this link which I know you will enjoy.

Danny Gatton at his most outrageous

Enjoy ...

Subject: RE: Any Oud players?
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 09:39 PM

Damn! You must be reading my mind. I almost mentioned that Dave will be playing over in Alexadria, at the Birchmere, in the Spring(this I found at his website)--this has meaning because the Birchmere was one of Danny Gatton's stomping grounds-actually, the video actually looks like it is the Birchmere. Anyway, my favorite part was the business with the towel. I've heard of damping the strings, but…

As to the coffee—well, no one is a disappointed as I am—the closest we can get around here anymore is Puerto Rican Coffee, and that is roasted and packaged in Hoboken. And it's stale, to boot.

Hope you are well where you are—this is a great time not to be here—unless you like fear and loathing.

All the best.

Ted