Mike's Oud Forums

Back, question about tuning a guitar to play oud music

Oud987 - 12-18-2006 at 02:42 PM

Hey guys,

Joshua H. here,

Im sure yall all remember me, I had the oud who's bridge ripped off. That oud eventually took another suicide attempt and had its neck just sorta fall apart.

So ive resorted to using my vintage 1963 Kimberly Stratocaster clone guitar as a temporary oud.

My friend William S. suggests the tuning EADgcf

what would someone suggest for a arabic tuning for a six string guitar, and some examples of playing arabic style music? or rather music played on the oud?

Brian Prunka - 12-18-2006 at 07:27 PM

I've used EADGCE and DADGCE. The high F is not a bad idea either. Depending on the height of your frets, you might be able to add quarter-tone frets using narrow zip ties (garbage ties). It's best to get it as tight as possible next to the lower fret and then slide it into position so it fits as snugly as possible. The advantage of having the high string remain E is that with quarter tone frets you can easily have E F1/2# G, for rast on G.
You could also use much heavier strings and tune down to CFADGC or CGADGC, though this might not work with your existing nut.

will_oud - 12-19-2006 at 10:16 AM

You can have microtone frets put on the neck like my mandol has Josh.

William F. Sparks

adamgood - 12-19-2006 at 10:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by will_oud
You can have microtone frets put on the neck like my mandol has Josh.

William F. Sparks


Williamn, what is your "mandol" ? mandoline? I'm very curious what you have done! Got any pics?

I've got a curious mind here...

Adam

excentrik - 12-19-2006 at 06:00 PM

yo, oud987-

you dont have to tune the guitar in any special way, you can just figure out some scales that match those of the maqamat that don't have 1/4 notes- and when you need them- bend the string.

I have played guitar like this for years- try the C minor harmonic scale, it's similar to nahawand- and also trills and minor arpeggios can lend a oudish sound when you do it to the right rythm-

I also tried getting a Buzuk kind of sound by tunning the the the string just below the High E to E... repeat if you want to experiment, it's just fun... you know? get your whole guitar tuned in pairs... and bar the two strings, it sounds kinda cool-

P.S. check out Henry Kaiser, he does some fretless guitar work- he studied arabic music for a few years-

tarik