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Ornamentation: going from 0 to 60 mph

AKCinBE - 9-26-2018 at 06:20 AM

Hello everyone,

I've played (Turkish) ud for a little over a year now. My previous teacher took a very strict pedagogical approach and forbade me to practice any sort of ornamentation or improv/taksim, no matter how simple.

I've now started studying with a teacher who teaches basic ornamentation from day 1. I've also been lucky enough to start playing in a classical Turkish ensemble in the city where I live. We've got professional and very advanced students in our group who are running circles around me while I'm calmly (but accurately!) plucking my boring, vanilla notes as they're written on the page. I'm being encouraged by my teacher and the group to introduce ornaments into my playing, but I have no idea where to begin.

I'd like to ask you for a little help:
1. What are the top 5 ornaments that you would recommend I focus on?
2. Is there any rules or any sort of logic as to which ornaments you use and where, or is it just a matter of feeling?
3. Do you know of any resources (books, websites, videos, etc) that you could recommend? My Turkish isn't so hot, but I can read virtually all major Western European languages.
4. Do ud players ever plan out and notate which ornaments they will play? If so, is there any sort of notation system that people typically use? For example, % for çarpma, + for hammer-ons, > for pull-offs, / for glissando, ~ for vibrato, etc.?

Any help is appreciated!

John Erlich - 9-26-2018 at 05:08 PM

Hi,

Addressing the issue from an Arabic-style oud perspective, here are my suggestions:

(1) Listen to recordings of solo oud playing popular and folkloric songs. Listen to how the performers embellish the basic melody. Here is one example I especially like: https://www.amazon.com/Oud-Mosaics-Amer-Ammouri/dp/B000SIQ378 (Most the songs a common enough to find a score, if not multiple scores.)
(2) Listen to (1) above, but follow along on a score, to get a sense of how they differ.
(3) Collect and compare multiple scores of the same song, and see how they differ. Often, the differences are transcribed "lazimah" (ornamentation).
(4) Try a taqsim using only the first 3 or 4 notes of the maqam--at least for a minute or two--to discourage you from simply running up and down the scale.

In general, I would say that the use of ornamentation is about feeling, with no special rules other than maintaining the basic "shape" and sound of the song you are playing.

The main ornaments I work on with my student are:

(1) Hammer-on
(2) Pull-off
(3) Slide
(4) Rashi (tremolo)
(5) Çarpma (Turkish "half-hammer-on")
(6) Vibrato
(7) "Shake," i.e., quick/narrow vibrato
(8) "Wrist flick," i.e., a brief tightening of the picking hand wrist to play each note 3x, 2 quick 16th notes, than a quarter note, down-up-down
(9) The "flamenco guitar" effect, where you play triplets with a low note once as a downstroke, then an open high note 2x, down-up (i.e., down-down-up).

I hope that helps!

All the best,
"Udi" John

Brian Prunka - 9-26-2018 at 07:09 PM

To add to John's excellent list, the main thing with ornamentation in my experience is that you have to 'hear' it in order for it to flow into your playing. There's a lot of ornamentation of melodies that occurs that's not any particular ornament per se, but just various ways of elaborating a melody. A note can be elaborated in any number of ways, there are a lot of very common things one can do — upper/lower neighbor tone, turn, doubling up, syncopated 8th/16th displacement, etc. etc.

To answer your question regarding 'notating ornaments': You can and should work out various ways of ornamenting a melody and work on incorporating them. Make sure you come up with more than one way, because you don't want to get tied into having just one set way of ornamenting — the beauty of ornamentation is that you can play the 'same' melody a different way every time. Having multiple ways of playing the same melody with different ornamentation will help free you from a stiff pre-planned approach and allow you to be spontaneous with your ornaments.

John — I've only heard lawazim used to refer to the instrumental commentary between vocal phrases (cf. Jihad Racy: "lazimah: a short instrumental interlude or filler between vocal phrases").
I'm curious about the usage you mention meaning "ornamentation"?

John Erlich - 9-26-2018 at 09:21 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Brian Prunka

To add to John's excellent list, the main thing with ornamentation in my experience is that you have to 'hear' it in order for it to flow into your playing. There's a lot of ornamentation of melodies that occurs that's not any particular ornament per se, but just various ways of elaborating a melody. A note can be elaborated in any number of ways, there are a lot of very common things one can do — upper/lower neighbor tone, turn, doubling up, syncopated 8th/16th displacement, etc. etc.

To answer your question regarding 'notating ornaments': You can and should work out various ways of ornamenting a melody and work on incorporating them. Make sure you come up with more than one way, because you don't want to get tied into having just one set way of ornamenting — the beauty of ornamentation is that you can play the 'same' melody a different way every time. Having multiple ways of playing the same melody with different ornamentation will help free you from a stiff pre-planned approach and allow you to be spontaneous with your ornaments.

John — I've only heard lawazim used to refer to the instrumental commentary between vocal phrases (cf. Jihad Racy: "lazimah: a short instrumental interlude or filler between vocal phrases").
I'm curious about the usage you mention meaning "ornamentation"?

Good question! I think you are correct in terms of the proper definition of "lazimah," i.e., short instrument interlude or filler. I was probably mis-using the term in trying to describe the element of some ME/NA musical scores which transcribe ornamentation(s) that are part of a performance, and not actually part of the "core" melody of the song. Although I find those elaborations irritating and distracting when I am trying to learn or teach a new song from a score, they can actually be helpful in demonstrating some approaches to ornamentation. (The scores by Nicola Marjieh come to mind...).

Thanks for your contributions to this discussion!

Brian Prunka - 9-27-2018 at 10:34 AM

Oh, ok . . . I wasn't sure if maybe there was another alternative usage I just hadn't come across.

I agree that in most cases it's better to have a score that reflects the core melody without too much ornamentation written in — it's difficult to read and process the ornamentation and it often isn't what the instruments should be playing anyway (the more ornamented part is for the vocalist, while the instruments mostly play more simply to accompany).

I do think the dichotomy of "core melody" and "ornamentation" is often somewhat problematic itself and reflects a Western bias regarding melodic conception, but if we're coming from a Western background it's a helpful simplification. At this point it's been thoroughly absorbed in the Arab world as well so probably a moot point unless you're talking about very old music.

It does bring us back to OP's question regarding ornament notation—there are a number of symbols used for common ornaments. The ones borrowed from Western notation are pretty straightforward and universal. I've encountered Arabic scores with specific notation for various common Arabic ornaments, some fairly elaborate. I'll see if I can scan a page and post.

At any rate, the symbols for upper neighbor, lower neighbor, and turn are all standard notation (though particularly with the turn, there are multiple interpretations of the ornament).

dario - 9-28-2018 at 12:48 PM

Some advice I've had and found useful: don't only listen to oud music! In Middle Eastern/Turkish music the most important instrument the voice, so if you listen to great singers and learn to sing or hum along you will develop an instinct for ornamentation (this is also a great way to train your ear for microtones). This may sound daunting but I believe it is a much more holistic way of approaching ornamentation and feel, and indeed many lessons and seminars in this kind of music begin with singing - you can think of the instrument in your hands as a second voice, rather than a mechanical object to be operated with the hands.

Different instruments then ornament in different ways, based on the physical capabilities and limitations of the instrument (and it can be an interesting and worthwhile challenge to try and imitate aspects of other instruments on the oud). A great example of this is Necati Celik, who has been extremely influential in the evolution of the Turkish oud by incorporating tricks from the saz. As another example, to my ears much of the glissando in Turkish oud imitates the ney (incidentally, the second most important instrument in classical Ottoman music - can't comment on its standing in Arabic music).

Khalil_Oud - 9-29-2018 at 07:35 AM

Hi,
To these excellent advices, I can add one related to Dario's ones : start with the maqam and/or the song that you are comfortable with, it helps a lot (not to make additional/double effort).

alchemy - 10-1-2018 at 06:48 PM

Hi, having been there not so long ago, I can also share some things that come to my mind.
What everybody else said is good advice, so I might be repeating, but first of all, take a piece you feel you "know", get the score, and listen to as many different versions as you can for that piece while following the score. Limit the listening to Turkish musicians/ensembles if you're after the Turkish classical flavor since some Turkish pieces are shared in the Arabic repertoire as well but might be ornamented quite different. I pay a lot of attention to the Tanbur in recordings as well, since it's what sets the standard for plucked instruments on Turkish music (very personal feeling). Then, take just one bar and start trying some of the stuff you remember from the recordings, explore as many ways to play that bar as possible, and then move on. If you want to replicate certain ornament in a recording, you can take the audio file (download with "youtube-dl" or similar if it's a Youtube video) and load it in an application that allows you to slow down (I know some for macOS: iRehearse, Transcribe! and Capo). Slowing down will allow you to understand better what's going on.

1) Top ornament in Turkish music: Çaprma. Add it a lot. Also, some notes you can double (ie, play 2 quarter notes or 4 eighths instead of a half note) and add çaprma to each. Same for dotted notes. And whenever you see the same note repeating, add çaprma in between as well. Besides that, you can add more notes to what's written, add vibrato, etc. Slide is also important in Turkish music more than in Arabic I guess.
2) It's a mixed matter of feeling & tradition/style. In the context of Turkish classical music, you would have a certain amount of options available for ornamentation.
3) I don't know any resource on ornamentation, but going step by step with a teacher can be very beneficial (at least it was for me).
4) Not that I'm aware of (although I haven't met as many Ud players). You come up with that either at the moment of playing or you can plan some ornaments for a certain piece beforehand in your study time if you feel personal about a certain phrase you tend to always play in a certain way. Personally, I just notate Makam modulations to some of my scores to have an overall picture of the structure or correct notes that doesn't make much sense.

Most important, soon after some time going like this, you'll start realizing that ornaments kind of come up by themselves. It was weird for me to think it was going to be like that, but suddenly, some ornaments started to appear without thinking. It just requires slow, conscious training first.

Best success with your practice.

Brian Prunka - 10-2-2018 at 09:16 AM

here's a sheet of ornaments from an Egyptian book, along with notation used for each (above the unornamented note)

AKCinBE - 10-10-2018 at 11:23 AM

Wow. What a wealth of ideas and advice. Thanks for your help, everyone!

soner - 10-10-2018 at 11:50 PM

I can recommend the book of Mete Aslan (turkish oud player). Beside the other educating chapters there is one dedicated chapter about ornaments:

https://www.amazon.com/Ud-Exercises-Enver-Mete-Aslan/dp/9944396974/r...