Ouds are common in Turkish traditional music. Other traditional instuments there are saz (mentioned above) and canun.

Pronounced "ood" there, BTW.

I have some CDs from there of some of this music, but they're 4000 km away at the moment.

The traditional Turkish music has lots of quarter-tones (and even smaller steps); takes a bit of acclimatisation to get used to ... when I played it on the radio, not too many were impressed, even with some of the more "Western" pieces.

If you go to Istanbul, and go down Iskalal street from Taksim square, you'll find a number of music stores that sell oud, saz, and other such instruments. But the quality is not that great, I'm told, you really want to find a local player and find out where they got theirs; the ones in the easily found stores are more for tourists.

I don't know much about ouds to be found here; whether they are of good quality. I might be able to get a source through my Turkisk comments though; one friend has a friend from college days who plays in a traditional music ensemble. . . .

Just my two cents,

-- Arne Langsetmo zuch@ix.netcom.com