Mike's Oud Forums

Ouds and Frets

Musa - 12-1-2005 at 12:37 PM

Daniel and other Oud History Experts,

The historical record, including contemporary illustrations, shows that at certain periods there where ouds with frets. Were these similar to those of the oud's European descendant, the lute? Are there any that have survived? It would also be interesting to know what changes in music could have occurred so that ouds became exclusively unfretted. This is also interesting in light of the fact that many other middle and near eastern intuments are fretted, e.g. the saz, lavta, tar and dutar, tambur, etc. The advantages of not having frets are obvious, so why is the modern oud the only non-bowed instrument (that I can think of off-hand) from the region that isn't fretted?

If anybody any insights regarding this, please let us know. Furthermore, it would be nice to bring some more active discussions back to this site.

Salamat,

Musa

SamirCanada - 12-1-2005 at 07:23 PM

The arabic violin known as the kamanja is not a freted instrument and is now used instead of the rebaba. So the oud is not so unique in that sence. I dont think Its the oud that became unfreted but rather the rest of these instruments that became freted. You also have to take in concideration that the buzuq or Saz have such a long neck that frets were indead added to them to allow playing further down the neck. One thing for shure tho is that the frets on them are in much higher number to allow to play the quarter tones of Middle eastern music. Iam no expert on the subject but I think what I have said could be generaly approved.
It would be interesting to see what one of the members here called (al halabi) has to say about that he has a great knowlege of those topics.

DJCrabtree - 12-2-2005 at 01:39 AM

Good morning folks,

I have always thought that the oud was a fretted instrument as late as the 15th/16th centuries. I've certainly seen a photograph of a Turkish oud from that period with frets, although that doesn't mean that this was the case with all ouds. Maybe both types coexisted for a time, or that there were regional differences. I'm sure it's purely coincidental that the oud was losing its frets at about the time that the fretted lute was becoming Europe's premier instrument. Interesting topic, and I'm sure there are one or two people on this forum who are far more qualified than me who might like to contribute their thoughts.

David

mavrothis - 12-2-2005 at 08:54 AM

Hi David,

Could you post the picture you mentioned? I'm pretty sure that the Turkish oud has only been in existence for a little over 100 years, evolving from the Arabic oud. The instrument you are referring to might have been a related lute instrument (like the lavta which has been around longer than the Turkish oud), since really all of these instruments including the kopuz, etc are related but not necessarily the same.

I have seen icons from the Post-Byzantine period (just after the fall of Constantinople - 1453) with unfretted oud-like instruments, which also had the single bass string under the trebles.

mav

David Parfitt - 12-2-2005 at 09:00 AM

Hi Mav/David

I just checked in Walter Feldman's book "Music of the Ottoman Court", and here is what he has to say about the oud in Turkey:

"Sixteenth-century illuminations in Turkey, Iran and Transoxiania display very similar, sometimes identical forms of the 'ud."

"Safavid [Persian] miniatures occasionally portray fretted 'uds, but the Ottoman instruments always seem to have been unfretted."

"In the 16th century the 'ud still maintained a central position in the courtly instrumentation."

"The 'ud continued to be represented with great frequency in miniatures into the early 17th century."

Hope this is of interest.

Best wishes

David

mavrothis - 12-2-2005 at 09:12 AM

Thanks David. This is very cool, I hear different things all the time about the subject of when the oud as we know it was used in the Ottoman Empire.

mav

al-Halabi - 12-2-2005 at 10:22 AM

David pre-empted a couple of the comments I was going to make. Basically, in the premodern period ouds of both fretted and un-fretted types were in use. The great theorist al-Farabi (10th century) used the fretting of the oud to analyse the tone system. He gives exact string-length ratios to indicate the location of the frets on the fingerboard, which allow us to figure out the size of the intervals involved (there were, for example, three sizes of half-tones of 90 cents, 98 cents, and 114 cents respectively, two sizes of "half-flats" of 145 and 168 cents, etc.). Interestingly, he refers also to additional notes played between the frets (by touching the string lightly to prevent the interference of an adjacent fret). The frets clearly did not accommodate all possible pitches used in performance, and musicians had to work around them. This was a technical limitation that accompanied the oud, which could not easily accommodate all the pitches of the more elaborate tonal systems on its short neck without creating awkwardly crowded fretting.

In the time of the Iraqi theorist al-Urmawi (13th century) ouds had frets on them. Fretted ouds remained in use in Iran into the seventeenth century, but contemporary Ottoman manuscript illuminations show unfretted ouds. The oud actually disappeared from the Ottoman classical ensemble in the mid-17th century, to be replaced by the tanbur; before that it was a prominent classical instrument. This shift is associated with a change in the musical aesthetic, with a new preference for the crisp, bright timbres of metal strings over the mellow and darker sonorities of the oud. The same shift happened in Iran, where the oud began to disappear in the 18th century, and metal-stringed instruments like the setar and santur took center stage as core instruments. The oud was reintroduced to Turkey only in the late 19th century (from Syria and Egypt where it had remained a popular instrument). It steadily reestablished itself in Turkey as a core classical instrument, especially in the second half of the twentieth century (Cinucen Tanrikorur was important in this process, which was similar to the growth of respectability for the guitar as a classical instrument, with Andres Segovia leading the way). In Iran the oud has not re-emerged to occupy its previous prominence, even though its use has increased noticeably in recent years.

A lot about the long history of the oud remains unknown, but what we do know indicates that it had a varied past, with forms that differed between regions and periods in fretting and other features, and with ups and downs in popularity. The universal disappearance of frets on the oud in the Middle East is a relatively recent phenomenon (some ouds in North Africa, most notably in Tunisia, are still fretted). And just as ouds were not always unfretted, long-necked lutes in the region were not always fretted: al-Farabi describes a long-necked lute in his time (called tanbur baghdadi) which was unfretted.

David Parfitt - 12-2-2005 at 11:44 AM

Al-Halabi,

This is absolutely fascinating - thanks for sharing that information. It certainly fills in some huge gaps in my knowledge. To repeat what someone asked on another thread, do you know if al-Farabi's "Kitab al-musiqa al-kabir" has ever been translated into English? (I understand there is a French translation.)

Can I ask a bit about your background? Are you an academic with a particular interest in the oud?

Best wishes

David

mavrothis - 12-2-2005 at 11:46 AM

Very interesting and inspiring discussion! Thanks guys!

mav

al-Halabi - 12-2-2005 at 02:43 PM

David,

You are welcome. Al-Farabi's 'Kitab al-musiqi al-kabir' has not been translated into English. Rodolphe d'Erlanger translated it into French in the first two volumes of his 'La musique arabe' (which appeared in 1930 and 1935). His was the first translation of the full text into a European language. Remarkably, the first Arabic edition appeared in print only in 1967, so that even readers of Arabic had no access to this major work until then except through excerpts quoted in other works (unless they went to the trouble of consulting one of the seven surviving Arabic manuscripts of the treatise scattered in libraries around the world).

For those who may not be familiar with it, Farabi's book is regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, work on the theory of Middle Eastern music. It is particularly interesting because Farabi was also an accomplished performer and his descriptions and analyses are informed explicitly by contemporary practice and his own playing. In that sense he was different from many other medieval writers on music, whose works were sometimes rather abstract and divorced from actual practice (they explored things like the relationship of music to the cosmic order, to the four humors, and to arithmetical ratios). The tetrachord structure that we use today to understand the building blocks of the maqams is something that Farabi laid out and analysed a thousand years ago. His genius is pretty humbling.

Musa - 12-3-2005 at 07:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by al-Halabi
David pre-empted a couple of the comments I was going to make. Basically, in the premodern period ouds of both fretted and un-fretted types were in use. The great theorist al-Farabi (10th century) used the fretting of the oud to analyse the tone system. He gives exact string-length ratios to indicate the location of the frets on the fingerboard, which allow us to figure out the size of the intervals involved (there were, for example, three sizes of half-tones of 90 cents, 98 cents, and 114 cents respectively, two sizes of "half-flats" of 145 and 168 cents, etc.). Interestingly, he refers also to additional notes played between the frets (by touching the string lightly to prevent the interference of an adjacent fret). The frets clearly did not accommodate all possible pitches used in performance, and musicians had to work around them. This was a technical limitation that accompanied the oud, which could not easily accommodate all the pitches of the more elaborate tonal systems on its short neck without creating awkwardly crowded fretting.

In the time of the Iraqi theorist al-Urmawi (13th century) ouds had frets on them. Fretted ouds remained in use in Iran into the seventeenth century, but contemporary Ottoman manuscript illuminations show unfretted ouds. The oud actually disappeared from the Ottoman classical ensemble in the mid-17th century, to be replaced by the tanbur; before that it was a prominent classical instrument. This shift is associated with a change in the musical aesthetic, with a new preference for the crisp, bright timbres of metal strings over the mellow and darker sonorities of the oud. The same shift happened in Iran, where the oud began to disappear in the 18th century, and metal-stringed instruments like the setar and santur took center stage as core instruments. The oud was reintroduced to Turkey only in the late 19th century (from Syria and Egypt where it had remained a popular instrument). It steadily reestablished itself in Turkey as a core classical instrument, especially in the second half of the twentieth century (Cinucen Tanrikorur was important in this process, which was similar to the growth of respectability for the guitar as a classical instrument, with Andres Segovia leading the way). In Iran the oud has not re-emerged to occupy its previous prominence, even though its use has increased noticeably in recent years.

A lot about the long history of the oud remains unknown, but what we do know indicates that it had a varied past, with forms that differed between regions and periods in fretting and other features, and with ups and downs in popularity. The universal disappearance of frets on the oud in the Middle East is a relatively recent phenomenon (some ouds in North Africa, most notably in Tunisia, are still fretted). And just as ouds were not always unfretted, long-necked lutes in the region were not always fretted: al-Farabi describes a long-necked lute in his time (called tanbur baghdadi) which was unfretted.

Ouds and Frets

Musa - 12-3-2005 at 07:28 PM

Hi Halabi,

Thanks for the great and useful info!! Do you have any ideas regarding the posiible changes in music that have occured that could have caused the almost universal abandonment of frets on ouds?

Also, it would be really interesting if you could provide descriptions, pictures, etc. of modern fretted ouds from Tunisia and other places. Is there a particular type of music that they are used for as opposed to unfretted ouds? Are these frets movable? Where the ones on the historical instruments movable?

David Parfitt's site shows illustrations of a reconstructed oud qadim from the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Frankfurt, Germany. It appears to have 4 frets. Was this oud based on ones from Baghdad? It would be great to also get some input from Daniel Franke regarding this.

Salamat,

Musa

al-Halabi - 12-4-2005 at 02:48 PM

Hi Musa,

The abandonment of frets took place unevenly in various parts of the region and over an extended period of time. It appears that Ottoman influence may have had a lot to do with it. An unfretted oud became common in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul and in the sultan’s court by the sixteenth century, perhaps because it was better suited to playing an Ottoman art music that was growing more elaborate in its modal structures and intonational variations. In the course of the 16th century the Ottoman Empire came to rule the entire Middle East and North Africa with the exception of Iran and Morocco. The unfretted instrument spread with Ottoman cultural influence in the region, which extended to the local musical traditions in the provinces. In the area of Tunisia a local fretted oud was commonly in use before the coming of the Ottomans. It was well suited to the Andalusian nuba music, which did not have the microtonal intervals current in the Middle East. But after it was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire (in 1574), Tunisia saw major changes in its musical scene. One was the arrival and spread of the unfretted Middle Eastern oud, which Tunisians call oud sharqi, or Eastern oud, to distinguish it from their indigenous oud (called oud tunsi or oud arbi), which was different in construction, tuning, and playing technique. In addition, the Tunisian modes began to incorporate microtonal intervals reflecting the influence of Middle Eastern maqams (something that did not happen in Morocco, which was a kingdom independent of the Ottomans), and pieces in the Middle Eastern/Ottoman style became widely played. The oud arbi used today in Tunisia (as well as in Algeria and Morocco) is generally unfretted, and the dropping of its frets may have been yet another adaptation to the general spread of the Middle Eastern unfretted oud in the area.

The fretted variety of the Tunisian oud arbi is among the last and disappearing examples of fretted ouds. I have not seen one in person, but I have a photograph of one that I will try to find. I have some older recordings (from over 40 years ago) of this fretted oud, by the master of the instrument Khemais Tarnan, and by Salih al-Mahdi, who was also an accomplished performer on the Middle Eastern oud. Their solo pieces are in Tunisian modes with microtones. The oud arbi’s sound box is smaller and longer than that of the Middle Eastern oud, and it has three large sound holes close together in the center of the soundboard. The instrument is a challenge to play because its peculiar tuning requires playing routinely up the neck in difficult positions, including on the extension of the fingerboard (the Algerian oud arbi is tuned G e A d). Also, unlike the Middle Eastern oud it is suited to playing mostly in the upper octaves. These limitations help to explain why it has lost ground to the more versatile Middle Eastern oud, which most oud players in North Africa now play. The North African oud is still in use in a limited way, mostly in Andalusian ensembles, in which it sometimes plays alongside a Middle Eastern oud that covers the lower registers. As for the fretted version of the Tunisian oud, it is disappearing fast. Perhaps the Tunisian case is a useful example of the kinds of dynamics that affected the fortunes of the oud historically. Changes in the musical system and repertoire as well as the exposure to a different type of oud that catches on as a technically superior instrument may help account for why fretted ouds steadily gave way to the unfretted oud we play today, and why the North African oud has been so widely replaced by the Middle Eastern oud.

The frets used on ouds were movable (typically gut tied around the neck), which allowed them to be adjusted when playing with other instruments, changing modes, or transposing. Players of the European lute similarly made adjustments to their movable frets, especially as there was no agreement on a standard intonation before equal temperament became dominant. Frets are useful for playing in tune and for learning the instrument, so removing them in the Middle East represented a certain trade-off.

The oud qadim (ancient oud) of four courses was mentioned in Middle Eastern writings on musical instruments for a number of centuries, although a new oud called oud kamil (complete oud) with five courses appeared as early as the ninth century. Al-Farabi (tenth century), al-Urmawi (thirteenth century) and other medieval writers used the five-stringed instrument in their analyses. The “new and improved” oud came to be dominant, and the earlier type used in the region before it came to be known as the “old oud.” One of the earliest writers on music, Ibn al-Munajjim (ninth century), gives the fretting of the four-stringed oud qadim. He lists four frets in these positions: a whole tone, followed by a half-tone, followed by another half-tone, followed by a whole tone. This sequence seems to correspond to the fretting of the historical reproduction on David Parfitt’s web site. This fretting reflects the tone system of the early Islamic period, before the new microtonal pitches crept into Arab music (primarily from Persian music).

My apologies for writing at such length.

LeeVaris - 12-4-2005 at 03:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by al-Halabi
My apologies for writing at such length.


No apologies necessary - great information, well presented! This historical info is more than fascinating.

Could you perhaps expound on pre-Ottoman modal systems? What was the relationship between arabic and greek systems? Did arabic maqams evolve steadily over the centuries prior to the Ottoman empire or were there major shifts where change occured more suddenly?

Ouds and Frets

Musa - 12-4-2005 at 08:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by al-Halabi
Hi Musa,

The abandonment of frets took place unevenly in various parts of the region and over an extended period of time. It appears that Ottoman influence may have had a lot to do with it. An unfretted oud became common in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul and in the sultan’s court by the sixteenth century, perhaps because it was better suited to playing an Ottoman art music that was growing more elaborate in its modal structures and intonational variations. In the course of the 16th century the Ottoman Empire came to rule the entire Middle East and North Africa with the exception of Iran and Morocco. The unfretted instrument spread with Ottoman cultural influence in the region, which extended to the local musical traditions in the provinces. In the area of Tunisia a local fretted oud was commonly in use before the coming of the Ottomans. It was well suited to the Andalusian nuba music, which did not have the microtonal intervals current in the Middle East. But after it was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire (in 1574), Tunisia saw major changes in its musical scene. One was the arrival and spread of the unfretted Middle Eastern oud, which Tunisians call oud sharqi, or Eastern oud, to distinguish it from their indigenous oud (called oud tunsi or oud arbi), which was different in construction, tuning, and playing technique. In addition, the Tunisian modes began to incorporate microtonal intervals reflecting the influence of Middle Eastern maqams (something that did not happen in Morocco, which was a kingdom independent of the Ottomans), and pieces in the Middle Eastern/Ottoman style became widely played. The oud arbi used today in Tunisia (as well as in Algeria and Morocco) is generally unfretted, and the dropping of its frets may have been yet another adaptation to the general spread of the Middle Eastern unfretted oud in the area.

The fretted variety of the Tunisian oud arbi is among the last and disappearing examples of fretted ouds. I have not seen one in person, but I have a photograph of one that I will try to find. I have some older recordings (from over 40 years ago) of this fretted oud, by the master of the instrument Khemais Tarnan, and by Salih al-Mahdi, who was also an accomplished performer on the Middle Eastern oud. Their solo pieces are in Tunisian modes with microtones. The oud arbi’s sound box is smaller and longer than that of the Middle Eastern oud, and it has three large sound holes close together in the center of the soundboard. The instrument is a challenge to play because its peculiar tuning requires playing routinely up the neck in difficult positions, including on the extension of the fingerboard (the Algerian oud arbi is tuned G e A d). Also, unlike the Middle Eastern oud it is suited to playing mostly in the upper octaves. These limitations help to explain why it has lost ground to the more versatile Middle Eastern oud, which most oud players in North Africa now play. The North African oud is still in use in a limited way, mostly in Andalusian ensembles, in which it sometimes plays alongside a Middle Eastern oud that covers the lower registers. As for the fretted version of the Tunisian oud, it is disappearing fast. Perhaps the Tunisian case is a useful example of the kinds of dynamics that affected the fortunes of the oud historically. Changes in the musical system and repertoire as well as the exposure to a different type of oud that catches on as a technically superior instrument may help account for why fretted ouds steadily gave way to the unfretted oud we play today, and why the North African oud has been so widely replaced by the Middle Eastern oud.

The frets used on ouds were movable (typically gut tied around the neck), which allowed them to be adjusted when playing with other instruments, changing modes, or transposing. Players of the European lute similarly made adjustments to their movable frets, especially as there was no agreement on a standard intonation before equal temperament became dominant. Frets are useful for playing in tune and for learning the instrument, so removing them in the Middle East represented a certain trade-off.

The oud qadim (ancient oud) of four courses was mentioned in Middle Eastern writings on musical instruments for a number of centuries, although a new oud called oud kamil (complete oud) with five courses appeared as early as the ninth century. Al-Farabi (tenth century), al-Urmawi (thirteenth century) and other medieval writers used the five-stringed instrument in their analyses. The “new and improved” oud came to be dominant, and the earlier type used in the region before it came to be known as the “old oud.” One of the earliest writers on music, Ibn al-Munajjim (ninth century), gives the fretting of the four-stringed oud qadim. He lists four frets in these positions: a whole tone, followed by a half-tone, followed by another half-tone, followed by a whole tone. This sequence seems to correspond to the fretting of the historical reproduction on David Parfitt’s web site. This fretting reflects the tone system of the early Islamic period, before the new microtonal pitches crept into Arab music (primarily from Persian music).

My apologies for writing at such length.

Ouds and Frets

Musa - 12-4-2005 at 08:43 PM

Hi Al Halabi,

I agree that your reply was a goldmine of information and certainly not too lengthy - alf mabruk! Thank you for reminding me about the oud gharbi as opposed to oud sharki. It certainly makes sense that the oud gharbi could be more suitable for the traditional Tunisian and Morrocan music, which is less microtonal than the sharki music. These North African musical forms are extremely beautiful in their own right, and it would be a tremendous loss if they and the oud gharbi should be lost.

It is interesting the classical Turkish and Turkish art music are highly microtonal, but the saz (the most popular Turkish stringed instrument), lavta, and tanbur are very much used for playing this music, and they are fretted. Although I've never really played any of these, wouldn't it make sense that they should also be not fretted, for maximum performance?

Salamat,

Musa

al-Halabi - 12-5-2005 at 11:31 AM

Lee,

Briefly, Arab music theory was definitely indebted to ancient Greek ideas, which became increasingly available as Greek works were translated into Arabic after the Arab conquest of the Byzantine lands in the Middle East in the seventh century. The Arabs adopted the rigorous mathematical approach of the ancient Greeks to analyzing intervals, tetrachords, and melodic modes. But they developed and refined this science, building a more elaborate classification of tetrachord types and a system of modes which is the foundation of the maqam system we know today. Maqam Rast, for example, was already described by Ibn Sina (Avicenna) a thousand years ago. The Arabs also adopted the Pythagorean diatonic system of half and whole tones, but superimposed on it microtonal intervals that created an original tone system. The system of Pythagorean commas for measuring intervals was also borrowed from Greek theory and remains in use in Turkish music today. But Persian influence was not less important in shaping the development of Arab music in the medieval period. The Arabs built on various indigenous traditions, which they combined into a new creation.

By the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries the theoretical understanding of tones and modes in the Middle East had become systematized, with the classification of modes into primary and secondary categories, etc. It is interesting that at the time Persian and Arab art music shared the same musical system. Treatises written in Persian and Arabic described music with remarkable uniformity. After that, though, we begin to see a bifurcation, with Persian and Arab music developing along separate lines. And the Ottomans on their part also evolve their own distinct repertoire and tone/modal system that establishes what becomes a distinct Turkish tradition. In the sixteenth century the court musicians in Istanbul were mostly imported Iranians who played Persian-style pieces on instruments typical of Persian music. At that time the Ottomans saw Safavid Iran as representing the height of regional culture and emulated it in music as well as in art, poetry, and other areas. By the seventeenth century, however, Ottoman music had come into its own and developed its distinct repertoire, instruments, musicians, and elaborate system of intervals and makams. This broke with some of the earlier patterns and created the basis of a new tradition that remained the basis of Turkish classical music until today.

What is known about the historical patterns of development remains rather fragmentary and many of the details will never be known. Scholars have had to rely on a set of treatises on music that are sometimes centuries apart to infer what happened between one period and another. It is not always clear whether a treatise is describing actual performance practice or abstract theory that is not an indication of how musicians actually played. A major problem, which the study of medieval and early modern European music does not have, is the absence of collections of notations for the music actually performed in the Middle East. We have no way to know what the music played in Baghdad in the tenth century, or Tabriz in the twelfth, or Cairo in the fourteenth actually sounded like. The only exception for the entire pre-modern period is the two collections of notations made by the late seventeenth-century Ottoman musicians Ali Ufki and Cantemir, which give us several hundred pieces from the repertoire of Istanbul at the time. Based on this corpus it has been possible to study the structure and development of Ottoman music in more detail than any of the other traditions of the region. We get a rare picture of the actual instrumental and vocal forms of the time, the makams and their melodic features, the rhythmic cycles, etc. Against this benchmark it is possible to see some interesting changes that occurred in the following couple of centuries: some previously popular makams went out of fashion, new makams appeared, and the tempo of pieces slowed down, with their melodies becoming more dense and ornamented. This dynamic is one of many indications of a basic feature of Middle Eastern music over the centuries: it was never static and frozen, even though we may not know many of the details of its development over time.

al-Halabi - 12-5-2005 at 11:58 AM

Hi Musa,

I agree with you that it would be a shame to see traditional instruments such as the North African oud decline and disappear. But this kind of development is not unusual. Descriptions of Middle Eastern instruments in past centuries list all kinds of string instruments that have disappeared. The ensemble of the Ottoman sultan’s court in the sixteenth century, for example, included a large bass oud (shahrud) tuned an octave lower than the standard oud, a harp (cheng), and a fretted lute called kopuz, all of which have become extinct. And many instruments, including the oud, were modified over time, even though we tend to imagine sometimes that they were always the same. Until the turn of the twentieth century, for instance, qanuns did not have the levers (urab or mandallar) that they now have to change the pitch of strings; qanun players used their left thumbnail to raise the pitch when needed.

Unlike the oud, long-necked lutes like the saz and tanbur would be very difficult to play without frets. In both instruments the melody is played essentially on one course by moving up and down the neck, with the rest of the courses serving mostly for harmonic effect. This kind of linear playing requires fast runs back and forth, for the saz on a neck of around 21 inches covering about one and a half octaves, and for the tanbur on an even longer neck of about 31 inches covering two octaves. You need frets if you want to navigate these long fingerboards and play in tune. (The tanbur has about 60 of them - imagine memorizing their precise location if they were not there.) On the oud, on the other hand, the vertical pattern of playing using all the strings for melody-making allows us to cover two octaves and even more without moving our left hand as much as a couple of inches along the neck. The scale of the fingerboard is just right for the human hand, so that even by staying in the first and second positions our fingers can fall naturally on every note in a two and a half octave range. This has made it possible to drop the frets without creating serious technical difficulties for the player. The lavta’s fingerboard of a full octave is substantially longer than the oud’s, and because of this and the instrument's tuning in fifths or a mix of fourths and fifths it requires more left hand movement along the neck than the oud. Playing the lavta without frets would be tough. Comparing the oud to other lutes can remind us how remarkably logical the oud's structure and proportions are.

Ouds and Frets

Musa - 12-5-2005 at 05:01 PM

Hi Al Halabi,

Thanks for the excellent explanation as to how going fretless is an advantage for producing microtones in the oud and a disadvantage in the saz, tanbur, and lavta. Nevertheless, it seems that due to the frets, the progression between microtones should be more inhibited in the long necked lutes as compared to the oud.

I'm also curious to know how the kwitra compares to the oud.

If you have any pictures of oud gharbi, please post them.

Speaking of fretted ouds, there is an excellent thread on this site about the Chinese pipa. Explorations of how this and other far eastern ouds and their relationship to near and middle eastern ouds are quite fascinating.

Salamat we alf mabruk,

Musa

al-Halabi - 12-5-2005 at 05:29 PM

Hi Musa,

You are right that the oud is not constrained by frets and can produce pitches that fretted instrument may not be able to. Tanbur players in Turkey routinely add frets to their instruments to accommodate microtonal gradations. Turkish music theory recognizes one "half-flat" but tanburs often include three sizes of half-flats, flattened roughly by one comma, two commas, and three commas. The number of frets on the saz has almost doubled in the twentieth century as the instrument became more urbanized and musicians adopted the classical fretting of the tanbur to allow them to play taksims with correct intonation.

I will look for the picture of the oud arbi.

Allah yibarek fik.

stringmanca - 12-6-2005 at 10:42 AM

Moh Alileche plays an Algerian 10-stringed instrument called a mondol that looks like a fretted oud.

http://www.flagoffreedom.com/CD1.html

Musa - 12-7-2005 at 09:54 AM

Hi Stringmanca,

That manol certainly looks interesting! Does anybody have any more info about the Kwitra? David Parfitt has a picture of one that's over 200 years old.

Salamat,

Musa

al-Halabi - 12-7-2005 at 02:49 PM

Musa,

The kwitra is the only other short-necked lute in the Arab world in addition to the oud sharqi and the North African oud (which, by the way, is called in the Maghrib oud arbi, Arab oud, not oud gharbi). It is close in appearance to the Middle Eastern oud, but has a longer, smaller, and flatter sound box, with four courses. Algerian and Moroccan nuba performances still include kwitras, often alongside the oud arbi and the oud sharqi. I saw one in a performance of Andalusian music in Fez.

The mandole, or mondol, is really a hybrid instrument, combining features of the oud and mandolin, mostly of the latter. It was invented around the 1930s in Algeria (it is said by an Italian), and has been used in both popular (sha'bi) and Andalusian music. Unlike the oud, its sound box is flat. Some mandoles have two small soundholes with rosettes similar to the oud's in addition to the main soundhole (which is usually oval or diamond-shaped). Mandolins have also been incorporated into Andalusian ensembles.

Musa - 12-8-2005 at 10:29 AM

Hi Al Halabi,

More great info! Thanks for the correction about the oud arbi - I thought that it referred to the "western" (gharbi) as opposed to "arabic" oud.

Is the kwitra, with its 4 courses, in any way more similar to the oud qadim than the conventional ouds? If you have any pictures of modern kwitras, I would love to see them.

What you said about the mandol makes a lot of sense; besides the similar name, it does seem to resemble a big mandolin.

We have to be thankful to the Nuba and Andalusian ensembles for helping to keep alive the beautiful instruments of the Maghreb.

Salamat,

Musa

al-Halabi - 12-8-2005 at 11:34 AM

Hi Musa,

The oud qadim was tuned in fourths, and that has remained the core of oud tuning until today. The kwitra's tuning is very different. The two inside courses are used for melody while the two outside ones are used for drones and drop notes.

There are pictures of kwitras in the liner notes of a couple of albums of Andalusian music that I have. They look quite similar to the picture posted on David Parfitt's site.

Musa - 12-8-2005 at 06:47 PM

Hi al-Halabi,

That's quite a different tuning! I wonder if the name "Kwitra" is derived from the Spanish "cuatro," being that is has four courses. There is a Puerto Rican instrument called a "cuatro," but there the name might refer to the size or tuning, since it has ten strings.

Thanks again!

Salamat,

Musa

al-Halabi - 12-9-2005 at 07:40 AM

Hi Musa,

The name kwitra is believed to come from quwaytara, the Arabic diminutive form for qitara. The qitara (or qithara) was a lute played in Islamic Spain from around the 10th century. Like the kwitra it had four strings, although descriptions of it indicate that it had a flat rather than rounded back.

Musa - 12-9-2005 at 08:15 AM

Hi al-Halabi,

I recall that there are those who theorize that the guitar (guitara) was derived, at least in part, from the qitara. The flat back might be some additional evidence for that. There are others who claim that the Arabic word "qitara" was influenced by the Persian "tar" (string), as used in the tar and dutar.

Salamat,

Musa

Musa - 12-11-2005 at 09:26 PM

Hi al-Halabi, etc.:

On the Oud Page's message board, Phillippe wrote,

"Hello Musa,I was is Europe recently and I saw an oud with fret, it was made by Luis de la Failla, 1885,Valleta-Malta.The player told me that they are not unsusual in Malta.
(gut string tie on frets)"

Have you seen Maltese ouds? Are they similar to the oud arbi? How are they tuned and played?

Also interesting is an oud on today's posts ("Egyptian Oud"). It has simulated frets to indicate playing positions on the face leading up to the rosette.

Salamat,

Musa

billkilpatrick - 12-12-2005 at 06:47 AM

learned something new today ... thanks for the thread!

there's another interesting oud/lute instrument without frets in hungary called a cobsa or kobsa. i've only seen it in pictures but it seems to have a very short neck:

billkilpatrick - 12-12-2005 at 06:49 AM

here's an earlier looking example:

al-Halabi - 12-12-2005 at 08:47 AM

I was not aware that ouds were in use in Malta these days. An article I read recently on music in Malta, written by an ethnomusicologist, reviews the common instruments played on the island but makes no mention of the oud. Guitars, including a local variety with a smaller body and a tuning different from the standard guitar tuning, are the common string instruments. But it is not surprising that ouds would be present in Malta. Not only was it ruled by Arabs for some two hundred years in the medieval period, but it has had since then continuing trade and migration contacts with North Africa and the Middle East. Maltese workers and merchants migrated throughout the Mediterranean, some even spending time in places as far as Aleppo. The Maltese language itself is a peculiar variety of Arabic. A picture of the Maltese oud mentioned would tell us if it is in the style of the fretted oud arbi, which would make sense.

I have seen one kobza made in Romania. Kobzas were found in many parts of eastern Europe, and were often the typical accompaniment instrument of minstrel singers. There is an amazing variety of kobzas, differing in appearance, construction, number of strings (some had as many as thirty), tunings, etc. The two photos posted here are typical examples of this variety. Even within countries or national groups in eastern Europe different kinds of kobzas co-exist. This instrument originated from the Anatolian kopuz, a folk lute that became diffused into the Balkans and Eastern Europe from around the late fifteenth century, when the area was under Ottoman rule.

kasos - 12-12-2005 at 09:14 AM

Thanks, Al Halabi, Musa, et al., for an extremely informative thread. Al Halabi, is there anything you could tell me about the spread of Persian instruments and musical styles into North India in the early period of the Mughal empire? Would the oud, fretted or not, have appeared there in any significant way?

Mark

Musa - 12-12-2005 at 10:21 AM

Hi Bill, al-Halabi, etc:

It would be great if someone could attach a picture of a Maltese oud. I have also heard about kobzas. I believe that the previous pictures that I saw showed frets, but I can't tell from the above pictures whether they are fretted or not. Do kobzas come in both fretted and unfretted varieties?

Another interesting interesting fact that al-Halabi mentioned was the extent of influence of the Ottoman empire on Eastern Europe. The Ottoman empire extended into present day Rumania, Russia, Poland, Bessarabia, Hungary, etc. and had a great deal of influence on music, foods, etc. The Ottomans were in Romania until the late 1800s. I have family that migrated from Northern Turkey (Black Sea area) to Romania in the 1800s, when it was still under Turkey.

Does anybody have pictures showing how kobzas are played? The varieties shown above seem to resemble types of European lutes in the old paintings.

Salamat,

Musa

billkilpatrick - 12-12-2005 at 02:27 PM

do an on-site search for "The COBZA." there are some wonderful sound clips and photos.

- bill

peppeo77 - 12-12-2005 at 02:52 PM

billkillpatrick, I sent you a u2u messsage. see you.

al-Halabi - 12-12-2005 at 05:35 PM

Mark,

The Empire of the Persian-speaking Mughals which dominated large parts of the Indian subcontinent from the early 1500s was very much indebted culturally to Persian influences. This showed in art, literature, architecture, and music. Several musical instruments arrived in India from Iran and were adapted over time to the Indian musical tradition. In the Mughal period they included the qanun, which was then replaced by the Persian santur; the tambura, which originated in the Persian/Middle Eastern tanbur and was transformed in Mughal India from a melody to a drone instrument; the sitar, which is believed to have originated in the Persian setar in the 18th century; the rabab, a long-necked lute with gut strings which originated in Iran and became highly regarded in the Mughal court (it is now extinct); the sehnai, a shawm which came from the Persian surnay; and folk instruments like the setar, dotara, and dambura, which had their origins in Iranian lutes of similar names. I have seen no mention, though, of the oud being played in Mughal India.

At least at the level of court music an Indo-Persian musical style was common in the early Mughal period. (At the same time, the court music of the other great Islamic Empire - the Ottoman - was likewise heavily influenced by Persian music, and most of the musicians were in fact imported Persians playing on Persian instruments.)

All these Persian influences on the Indian musical scene need to be put in perspective. South Asian music did not become a subset of Middle Eastern music; it remained a distinct music culture with its own identity, aesthetic, instruments, repertoires, tone systems, etc. It absorbed and adapted instruments and other aspects from Iran, but incorporated them into its own musical tradition. Something similar happened in the Balkans under Ottoman rule - the musical traditions of that area remained separate from those of the Middle East, despite certain shared characteristics that developed in the course of long periods of contact. The Middle East sits on the crossroads of three continents, and it influenced and was in turn influenced by regions on its periphery such as South Asia, the Balkans, sub-Saharan Africa, and Spain. These regions remain distinct in their music cultures despite their extended intercourse with the Middle East.

kasos - 12-13-2005 at 08:21 AM

Thanks so much, Al-Halabi. Your scholarship is a blessing and an inspiration, as well as a practical help. Just one more question: what about the earlier period of the Delhi Sultanate, and the so-called "Slave Dynasty" [Mamluk]? Do any special comments or considerations apply to that period, or is it very much the same sort of thing as what happened later in the Mughal period - I'm curious in particular about what is now known as the Afghan rebab - it seems to have a lot in common with the modern Indian sarod, but I have read elsewhere that the modern sarod is a comparatively recent innovation, dating to the 19th century. Might either the Afghan rabab or the Sarod be related to the extinct rabab you mentioned in your reply?

Mark

al-Halabi - 12-13-2005 at 02:23 PM

Mark,

The Delhi Sultanate beginning in the thirteenth century drew early on on Persian models in its definition of political authority, the establishment of Islamic institutions, and cultural life in general. In the early phases of the spread of Islam in the subcontinent there was a tendency on the part of the new Muslim elites to push out Hindu elements and replace them with Islamic ones, but that zeal relaxed over time, and a new synthesis of Hindu and Islamic elements evolved, becoming established in the Mughal state. Persian and Middle Eastern instruments were used in India before the Mughals, but over time were adapted to regional Indian musics in ways that changed them significantly from their Middle Eastern inspirations. In the fifteenth century the city of Herat, which was the capital of the Timurid empire and the cultural center of the Persian-speaking world, used in its court music Middle Eastern instruments like the oud, ney, and qanun, and the music was based on Middle Eastern maqams. Things changed after that, not least in Iran itself, where the oud and qanun disappeared as core art music instruments by the 17th-18th centuries.

You are right about the connection between the modern sarod and the Afghan rabab. The sarod developed in India in the nineteenth century as a modification of the Afghan rabab. It was equipped with metal strings, unlike the gut strings of the rabab, and with the metal plate that define the modern instrument. The extinct rabab was the Indian dhrupad rabab, whose predecessor was the Persian court rabab. It was played in India until its disappearance at the beginning of the twentieth century, but its repertoire and techniques were transferred to the sarod and other instruments.

Peyman - 12-14-2005 at 02:40 PM

Hi al-Habibi,
I got my copy of "great music" (Farsi translation) today after a month of waiting. I had a glance over it and read some of the parts about the oud. The oud Farabi describes indeed had frets. Other interesting instruments (to me) are the tanbur of Baghdad and tanbur of Harazan (Khorasan), which you mentioned too. I already had heard about these but now I have a chance to find out the differences. By the way, apparently this book was written in two volumes but only the first has survived.
Also, as I told Mark before, one of the people of interest in Indian music is Amir Khosro Dehlavi, a sufi poet who travelled to North India around the time of the Moghul invasion.

al-Halabi - 12-14-2005 at 06:41 PM

Hi Peyman,

Enjoy the "Grand Book of Music." It gives the most comprehensive picture of the musical system of the Middle East as it had developed a thousand years ago. It is from al-Farabi that we learn about the entry of microtonal intervals, apparently from Iran, into Arab music. It is these intervals (primarily what we call the half-flats) that until today define the uniqueness of the tone systems of the region, whether Arab, Persian, or Turkish.

The poet and court musician Amir Khosro was indeed a major figure in medieval Indian music (he actually died in 1325, about two centuries before the beginning of Mughal rule). His role was so exaggerated over the centuries, though, that he was mistakenly believed to have introduced the sitar and invented the tabla, both of which actually appeared in India several centuries later. But he may have helped introduce a new style into Indian music that included Middle Eastern instruments and accents.

With the discussion of India we have somehow drifted far from the Middle East. My own knowledge of the music history of India is very limited, although I find it interesting to observe how the Middle East influenced and was influenced by the neighboring regions. The boundaries of the Middle East have been porous all along. In the medieval period the oud found its way into Spain, Afghanistan, the Balkans, and western Europe. Today the oud has reached us here in America, and the Middle East itself is awash in western instruments and influences on its music.

Musa - 1-1-2006 at 07:34 PM

Philippe wrote on the Home Page Message Board:

"Hello Musa again,I'm from Oakland California,but at the moment I'm in Indonesia and I just bough a CD,"le blues de Khartoum,Abdel Gadir Salim",inside the CD there is a little pamplet with photos of the Oud player (Abdel)...his oud has7 frets (juging from the photo)...just taugh I let you know....Have a Happy new year, PHILIPPE"

It would be great if someone could post at least one of those photos.

Salamat,

Musa

Old Hungarian imaginry of lutes...

Koya - 1-2-2006 at 01:41 AM

Hi Folk,
There is some contemporary representation of an instument
between oud and modern cobza.

Koya - 1-2-2006 at 02:12 AM

Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos (the lute player, songwriter and singer 1510?-1556): Hungary's most famous bard, narrator of many heroic songs about battles against the Turks. Texts and authentic melodies of his songs have been preserved.


here is his crest.:
http://mek.oszk.hu/01800/01885/html/index1091.html

Koya - 1-3-2006 at 01:16 AM

Al- Harabi wrote about the cobza:
"This instrument originated from the Anatolian kopuz, a folk lute that became diffused into the Balkans and Eastern Europe from around the late fifteenth century, when the area was under Ottoman rule. "


I think we hungarians use cobza and their relatives form many year ago, berofe a Ottoman conguest.
Our tradition save the memory of King Atilla, when he died one thousands of cobzas mourned him.

others:
We Hungarians are a nation who camed from Asia, we are some descendent of Huns. This type of instrument we can find all over Middle- East.

Koya - 1-3-2006 at 01:18 AM

al-Halabi wrote.
Sorry...