Hey guys, welcome back to my series called
Introducing. Today is a special episode. Today, I'm leaving my comfort zone
of Western Classical music and we are heading east. Today we're
going to learn about the Arabic oud. So I am fascinated by the oud for a number
of reasons but mainly because the oud is the ancestor of the European lute. That European
lute by the 15th century would fully blossom and become one of the most important instruments
of the musical period we call the Renaissance. So in 711 the Moors, who were the inhabitants
of northwest Africa of the time, they decide to invade Spain(The Iberian Peninsula) and when
they did they brought with them the oud. In the Arabic world the oud was commonly referred to as
the king or the Sultan of all instruments and in fact the "oud" or "al'oud" in Arabic simply means
"from wood." So, you know, it's an instrument made of wood. The oud is a likely descendant
of an ancient instrument called the Barbat, which was a Persian instrument dating back to
something like 3500 years ago. Now the earliest form of the oud would have just four strings made
of gut, sheep intestine. And over the centuries, they added more and more strings until nowadays
the common stringing for an oud is 11 strings. That's five doubled strings tuned in unison's and
then one low string, which is single. So for the tuning, we have C, two F's, two A's, two D's,
two g's, and two C's. So notice all the strings are tuned in perfect fourths except for the F to
the A, which is a major third. So this instrument is played with a plectrum or a pick and this
is called a "Risha" which just means feather and that's because the original plectrums for this
instrument would have likely been an Eagles quill. But today often players just use plastic or wood
like a piece of bamboo. All ouds are pear-shaped on the soundboard and they typically have three
sound holes. Sometimes they are full of incredibly beautiful ornate decorations. The back of the
instruments is always bowl shaped and this is made up of individual strips of wood called ribs
usually made of a hardwood which are heated up and bent and glued together to make this gorgeous
shape here, which also gives the instrument its characteristic tone. Then on top here we have a
bent backward peg box, which is quite beautiful. And we have friction pegs just like a violin these
pegs you just push in and turn and that's what holds the notes at pitch. The most interesting
and distinguishing part of this instrument for me as a fretted player is that this doesn't have any
frets. This is a fretless instrument. Now at first it seems a bit daunting not to have frets however
it has its advantages. For example, I can slide between notes right I have no frets in the way.
So I have infinite gradations between each note and when I play a melody instead of playing three
distinct pitches all the time, I can for example slide between them, which very characteristic
of that sound. In the beginning of this video I played a Turkish song called you Uskudara Giderken
and the simple melody just sounds like this but I was utilizing a lot of those ornamental slides
to make the song sound more vocal and in fact, oud players are often meant to improvise over
the melodies to make them more interesting. So I came up with... Another reason this instrument is
fretless is in order to play all of the varieties of maqams. A maqam is simply a scale. There are
roughly something like a hundred regularly used maqams in Arabic music and when you compare
that to basically the seven church modes that we use in western classical music, maybe plus
the chromatic scale in the whole tone scale, it's pretty impressive. Okay, so let's hear
some of these maqams. The easiest one for me to wrap my head around is called Nahawand and that's
basically the Aeolian mode which is just the minor scale. So in D, it would be D, E, F, A, Bb, C, D.
And that's actually the same scale I was using for the Turkish tune Uskudara Giderken. Another maqam
that I found pretty relatable is called Kurd and that's basically the Phrygian mode. So it's the
same as the natural minor scale the nahawand maqam, except there's an E flat which makes it
Phrygian. So we have D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb, C, D. Now here's where things get complicated,
especially for me as a complete newbie to the oud and Arabic music in general. So depending
on which become you're using you might have to use microtones. Microtones that exist in between the
western semitone. The western scale is basically an octave. So C to C divided up into 12 half steps
or semitones. Each semitone is like one key on the piano or one fret on the guitar but in Arabic
music certain Maqams use notes in between those Western semitones. So for example if we take A and
then we use a Bb. That's about a Western semitone. A B half-flat would be sharp. So something around
there and apparently depending on which region you're from, that'll determine just how sharp or
flat that semitone is and I find that to be just so cool. It's so challenging to my ear because it
just sounds out of tune because I'm only used to playing in the western parameters but if we hear
it in context we can start to understand why that can add some interesting flavor to the music. So
here's the normal b-flat and now the behalf flat. It actually makes a lot of sense to me now when I
hear it in context. It doesn't sound out of tune, it just sounds kind of like a different emotional
effect. My favorite Maqam that I found so far is called Hijaz and basically that is D, E half-flat,
somewhere around there so it's like a sharp E flat, F#, G, A, B half- flat, C, D. When I first
heard that scale, I thought it kind of reminded me of that theme from pulp fiction. If I decide
to take this instrument seriously and study it one of the challenges would be memorizing a
long list of maqams and then being able to endlessly improvise over any of them. This is
another beautiful piece called Halfouine. It uses the nahawand maqam which again is basically
Aeolian. So bringing us into the 21st century, the oud is no longer just an Arabic instrument.
It comes in many shapes and sizes and is played all around the world in many different musical
styles. It's such a beautiful and versatile instrument and if you are as fascinated about
this instrument and its music as I am, I would strongly suggest that you listen to some real oud
players. I am just a beginner on this instrument. I have officially taken one oud lesson but I have
just scratched the surface of the capabilities of this instrument. If you want to hear what this
instrument can really do, I suggest you listen to some of the great oud players of the world.
My favorite right now is a Tunisian player named Anouar Brahem. There's also this fantastic Iraqi
oud player named Naseer Shamma. Alright guys, I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about the
oud today with me. If you haven't already, please do SUBSCRIBE to this channel and if you hit
the bell notification, you'll get an email when I release my next video of my introducing series. So
thanks for watching and we'll see you next time!
