John Erlich
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1463
Registered: 8-26-2004
Location: California, USA
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Mood: Oud-Obsessed
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Oud Teachers - How Do You Teach Intonation?
I have a question for Forum members who teach oud: How do you teach intonation?
I am teaching a beginning student. They are doing quite well for a beginner, but I want to find more ways to help them learn to "tune" the notes as
they finger them.
At our previous lesson, I had them use open strings and octaves to help them tune some fingered notes.
For our next lesson, I am thinking of having them hum the scale first, then play it, starting with the easiest, a C ajam/C major scale and adjust the
fingered notes of the scale to match.
Any other ideas?
Thanks, Shukran, Mamnoon, Todah, etc.,
"Udi" John
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DoggerelPundit
Oud Junkie
Posts: 141
Registered: 7-28-2010
Location: Pacific Northwest
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Mood: Odar
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Erlich Bey,
Around 17 years ago, in one of his master classes, John Bilezikjian used that very octave method to settle intonations on the first string at the 2nd
and 6th positions. And later, on other notes and positions as well.
Near the end of that session, he "assigned" everyone to learn and play the chromatic scale all the way from the open 6th string to 1st string 6th
position (using EABEAD). He said "once you have that, you must learn all the major and minor scales, A through G."
Everyone groaned and wondered aloud variations of "why go into all that if what we wanted was Armenian, Turkish and Arabic maqam based music?"
At length Mr. B asked: "If you don't know where the whole and half tones are, and how they sound, how will you ever find the quarter tones and the
koma notes?"
No reply but...study.
-Stephen
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luan
Oud Junkie
Posts: 157
Registered: 11-25-2011
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I teach them that octaves and fifths don't lie.
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John Erlich
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1463
Registered: 8-26-2004
Location: California, USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Oud-Obsessed
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Thanks, Stephen Effendi & Luan Effendi! It sounds like I am going about this in more or less the usual way. I also did have them play
chromatically up each string to 5th position.
I think I'll try the singing method, using only ajam/major and nahawand/minor for now, at the next lesson. I'll let you know if this helps.
Over and out,
"Udi" John
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mavrothis
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1674
Registered: 6-5-2003
Location: NJ/NYC
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Mood: big band envy
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Hi,
As your students get more comfortable on the oud, you can also point out that the oud 'sings' - resonates - best on certain fingered notes when they
are played correctly, because there are open strings acting like sympathetic strings when the intonation is just right.
It's not such a practical tip, but it does make them slow down and listen to how beautiful their ouds can sound, just by letting one note ring out.
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elreyrico
Oud Junkie
Posts: 107
Registered: 5-1-2012
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Hi
As a (mostly autodidact) student, I think that the sucession of tunes and exercises proposed in the method of Mutlu Torun (particularly the series of
DVD version if you have no teacher to show you) are very good for learning the intonation.
Regarding what Mavrothi wrote above. One good thing to do i think is to change the tuning of the bass strings from time to time : for example in
turkish tuning sometimes AE , sometimes F#C#, ... so that it makes the oud sing differently.
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luan
Oud Junkie
Posts: 157
Registered: 11-25-2011
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Also, it's important to make them understand that tuning is relative.
That means, if you're playing with a ney player, you know that it may go higher in tuning as the flute gets warmed up. So, the fixed spots no longer
exist in the fingerboard. Of course, this is not that much cool since if you're using open strings they are tuned differently, but it's an important
lesson that says you must use your ears and distinguish in first place what is in tune and what is out of tune. If everybody is playing higher you
gotta play higher, what can you do?
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