majnuunNavid
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Is there a case for one tuning over another?
I've recently been writing an Oud method and the question of how to use or when to incorporate the low bass string has popped into my mind.
As a result of this reflection, a few realizations came to me.
1. The bass string isn't really that important to the main technique of the Oud.
2. The bass string isn't that effective in melody making. Half the time it sounds sloppy anyway.
3. I have tried several tunings before such as a 5 course oud tuned GADgc, and FADgcf, and I've noticed I'm "addicted" to the bass string, especially
using it to beef up drone notes during taqsim and at the end of phrases.
4. Some of my favourite Oud players do not use the bass string and either use FADgc or FADgcf or GADgc. (Said Chraibi, Nasser Houari, my teacher
Hossein Behroozinia)
5. In most videos of Farid Al Atrash he uses a five course oud, no bass string.
6. Tuning to CFADgc requires some kind of "temperament" of the F when using your ear to tune. If you derive open F from open A you get an open F which
is out of tune with top open C string. And likewise if you derive F from tuning open C, then the F to A open strings are not a perfect major 3rd and
likewise out of tune. So this tuning is always going to require compromise where you find the pitch for F where it's in tune with open C and not to
crunchy with open A.
7. GADgc and CGADgc and DGADgc are easy to tune by ear. It's stable and in tune with itself mathematically if you derive all the notes by frequency
and ratio.
8. When I first started using CFADgc, I hated it. The overtones were strange. I kept on hearing the F string vibrate throwing off the soundscape .
9. Beginner Oud players usually begin with a five course Oud.
10. I like the possibilities of the high F course for Persian music.
As a result, I asked myself some question about my use of the bass string, and wondered if I rely on it too heavily.
What if I had no bass string, how would that affect my playing?
Without low bass string or extra high F string, how would that change my playing?
Not sure I have any answers, only more questions.
I guess I just have to have one Oud tuned to each tuning and go nuts.
What do you guys think, is there a case for one tuning vs another?
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MattOud
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I think it comes down to preference.
I prefer the Bass string(s) and use them!
I am currently studying Mohammed Reza Ebrihimi's album which i believe is based on the radif. He is a good player and even after several months I am
still challenged, which is great!
He uses the Bass all the time, by all the time, I mean, consistently.
This is the sound i prefer.
The 'newer' ladies all seem to love the bass string, and I am drawn to their sound.
I know what you mean that many do not play or avoid. Again preference. When i consider the tunes i enjoy over the ones I like less, the ones using
Bass are more catchy to me.
Maybe it is a Western to Eastern ear thing?
I have tried several tuning. I alwasy default back to the standard I like which is:
DGADgc on a 6 course.
Cheers Navid!
PS: I am not sure if this is relevant, but comparing to Westernized music, there are only a handful of tunes i ever try to change tunings to play. It
is rare for me to change my guitar anymore. So i am wondering how many changes are necessary. I guess you would tune per song or artist if they used
alternate tunings?
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Khalil_Oud
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Hi,
1. The bass string isn't really that important to the main technique of the Oud.
For me yes and no : Yes if you consider it like a 'bass' string, and use it, like you said in taqssim (just some notes to respond...). No if you use
it as a sting and play a melodies on it. And that's the important point, I think' the problem reflected in all your good questions: I've tried many
tuning over the years on many ouds; so, on a good quality oud, you can use bass strings as a 'strings' and play melodies on them, if not, it's
difficult (...Half the time it sounds sloppy anyway.). The second point is related to the tension. It's difficult to find a good string with a good
tension for some ouds. That's why many oud players don't play on the bass string, because it doesn't sound good, the y ovoid it, or remove it.
2. The bass string isn't that effective in melody making. Half the time it sounds sloppy anyway.
Yes but there are counter-examples : ِAs3ad al-Chater. Good oud quality, good tension strings, he makes many melodies on bass strings : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2suBrw1Uo18
The other example is yurdal tokcan : a good oud, good strings, he plays on the melodies and use them many times as a bass strings.
What do you guys think, is there a case for one tuning vs another?
It's difficult to play 'every styles' on one oud. I played many times with Said Chraibi, and I know that he had many oud. He had a FCDGCF and FADGCF
tuned ouds, and he had a CFADGC, some times CEADGC tuned oud four andalousian style.
I think, the strings producers have to work on bass oud strings to find better tension/sound equilibrium...
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Brian Prunka
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The problem with bass strings is not really with the string makers—there are strings that work as well as possible, really.
The problem is mainly with the size of the oud—most ouds are not really long enough for the low string tuned to C.
Most ouds are 60-62 cm. The same note on a cello (good for reference, as cello is ideally proportioned) is 69.5 cm, 7.5 cm longer than even a large
oud.
Strings that are at extremes behave less like a theoretically "ideal" vibration—as I understand it, the nodes at the end have an impact that causes
the harmonics to deviate from theoretical ideals (essentially, the fundamental and higher harmonics have slightly different effective string lengths,
because the endpoints don't vibrate freely). You can compensate for the short length with heavier/stiffer strings, but stiffer strings also cause
more harmonic deviation.
The size of the body has an impact as well on how evenly and effectively the vibrations are amplified by the soundboard. An oud is rather small and
will have a hard time with such a low frequency.
In other words, if you were building an instrument from scratch that was supposed to be able to produce that low C, you would certainly plan a larger
instrument than the oud. The oud clearly reflects the history that it was made for 4-5 courses with the lowest note being around F.
That said, it's not too hard to find strings that work well for the low end if the oud is good. D'addario strings are a bit stiffer than many other
brands and consequently might work well if you're finding other strings to be floppy. Pyramid lute have a wide variety of heavy strings for various
lengths/tunings/tensions, as do LaBella.
Buying a prepackaged set of strings (like Pyramid 650/11, D'addario EJ95A, etc) will always be a compromise since the are expecting people to tune it
either C or D and so they lighten the tension a bit for the higher tuning. If you keep the string in one tuning mostly, you can fine-tune it more—a
whole step difference is a big tension change.
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Brian Prunka
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Just to add—when tuning the lower two strings, it can be advisable to use harmonics, since they may be more reliable than the fundamental.
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Jody Stecher
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When I saw the title of the post my first reaction was "Why on earth would an oud player need to put his oud in a different *case* according to how
it's tuned? Oh wait a minute... Navid is up in Canada, getting near the North Pole. He's angling for Santa Claus to bring him a new oud case and made
up this crazy reason. Then I read the post and realized what "case" actually meant. I had a good laugh at myself over that one.
My responses.
1) the first, second, third, fourth and fifth strings are also not important for oud technique. I agree that that oud retains its identity with five
courses. But is that what you meant?
2) the lowest string on any instrument colors the tone quality of the higher strings because of the overtones it produces when certain notes are
played on the other strings. The pitch of the lowest string will determine which fingered notes are reinforced and colored. This is why some of the
sarode traditions in India use an instrument with 5 melody strings, on which the bass string is carefully tuned but never used for melody. It
confounds the players of the sarode with 4 melody strings. "A string that is tuned but never played? They must be crazy. ". I use this principle in
choosing string gauges for 5 string banjo. Heavier gauge gives more power and less sweetness. Light gauge is sweeter and quieter and also allows for
the pulling (deflecting, "bending") of a string to get a microtones and also a continuous range of pitches in one stroke. But if I use a bass string
that is just a bit heavier than the one that comes in packaged set the overtones coming off it color the notes on the higher strings and they sound
fuller or wider.... and louder.
5) and Hrant
6) correct! But in my opinion the F needs to cooperate with the C more than with the A. It depends on the maqam of course. Also don't forget
Shahidi uses F or G for the fifth course depending on the dastgah he is playing.
7) how does one tune by ratio? How can a ratio be heard or discerned with any of the senses?
8) when i first tried using CFAdgc I *loved* it. It enabled me to get closer to how the ouds of my favorite Arabic players sounded. But yes I
sometimes had a nightmare getting the whole system to work as one. There were some lovely overtones in one maqam and then I'd try a phrase in another
jins/ tetrachord and it was a sonic nightmare. But somehow I got it all to work. I hope so anyway.
9) I don't understand this. As far as I can tell, beginners begin with whatever oud they can get. I began with a six course oud. There was no 5
course oud available.
10) this I do understand.
Having no bass string would change the sound of your oud (see my response to your point 2). Your playing might be affected according to whether you
liked this different sound. You might play in such a way as to increase or decrease the new sonority.
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Jack_Campin
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Anyone here like the bass-nearest-the-floor setup?
My oud (Syrian) was set up that way when I got it. I didn't see any advantage so I changed it, but maybe it would have been worth persevering with?
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DavidJE
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I think what Jody wrote about the bass string(s) changing the sound of your oud is a big deal. I've never tried removing the lowest (pitched) string,
but I have experimented with a variety of different tunings. Here are the tunings I've tried and what I think the strong points are:
BF#Bead - I started out with this Turkish tuning that Necati Celik uses, and I think some other well known players like Yurdal Tokcan and Zeynel
Demirtas use it too. It's used when playing with "dugah" on the 4th/B string instead of on the 3rd/A string. So a makam like Hicaz would start on
the open B instead of the open e. If you like a lower/deeper sound, this tuning is awesome for makams that start on dugah, like Ussak, Beyati,
Hüseyni, Hicaz, etc., etc.. There is an awesome resonance between the two open B strings with this tuning. But the downside for me is that for
makams that begin on the note rast, like Rast, Nihavend, Nikriz, etc., and even for makams like Sedaraban, it's cumbersome. So most people who tune
BF#Bead will change their tuning to C#F#Bead when playing makams that don't begin on dugah.
C#F#Bead - This is the all 4ths Turkish tuning that seems to be pretty common these days. This tuning is nice/easy since it's all 4ths, but I have
never liked it because you don't get the resonance you get in the above or below tunings.
EABead (DGAdgc) - This is my favorite tuning. For makams that begin on dugah you have that awesome resonance and the open drone bass string. If the
makam has the 4th as a dominant (neva), you also have great resonance for the dominant too. And if the makam begins on the note rast, it's very easy
to change this tuning to DABead or CGAdgc. So I find this tuning extremely versatile for any makam, and I love how it maximizes the resonance of the
tonic, octave, and sometimes the dominant. Also, if the dominant is the 5th instead of the 4th, ("b" in Turkish tuning or "a" in Arabic tuning) you
also have an open string there. So actually, with this tuning you have open/resonant bass strings for the tonic and dominant in most makams if you
drop the bass string down for makams beginning on the note rast. I have yet to try a tuning that sounds so full and resonant across makams.
CFAdgc - I used to keep my Arabic oud tuned this way, but I don't see much benefit to the "F" string being tuned to "F". Since most Arabic players
use this tuning, I do think Jody is correct that it sounds more like the classic Arabic sound. I agree with that, and I do like it for that reason.
But for the kind of resonance I like, I would prefer CDAdgc for rast makams and DGAdgc for dugah makams. For makams like Segah and Sedaraban, I also
prefer the DGAdgc tuning.
Obviously this comes down to personal preference, but I feel my ouds can really "sing" with DGAdgc (Arabic)/EABead (Turkish).
I should add that at least with modern oud playing, vs. the four or five course ouds of the past, I think that using the bass strings for drones,
ornamentation, and increased resonance is a big deal.
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ChanningPDX
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I started out in CFAdgc because, well, that seemed like what most people said to do for Arabic tuning on the Internet... Eventually curiosity got the
better of me and I tried DGAdgc, which I immediately liked a lot better, though still being a beginner, I was initially unsure why. Discussion with a
much more experienced oud player confirmed what I already felt but hadn't really consciously put together: G is often a dominant note in many
maqāmat (or a common transposition), whereas F almost never is. Tuning CFAdgc or in a "faux Turkish" CEAdgc" means that you either have to mute
the string or "waste" a finger to get the G that you need anyway. There are times when playing in Rast that I miss the F, and I wouldn't be at all
surprised if there is a particular resonance that is more apparent in that tuning, but I don't personally find it worth it. My current oud teacher
also uses DGAdgc, so that pretty much sealed the deal. If I'm playing a lot in Rast, 'Ajam, Nahawand, etc., I tune the bass down to C.
I currently play a Ziryab Shami 1 oud that was a bit of a fixer-upper project (needed some refinishing of the fingerboard and pegs) with Pyramid Lute
strings that Brian Prunka helped me pick out. I'm quite happy with the resulting sound and playability.
Before I got the Ziryab, I had tried to tune my Ali Nişadır oud to the various Arabic tunings above with Kürschner Arab 2 strings. At
first, I thought it sounded fine, but the more I heard oud players close up (often, like me, playing Turkish-made ouds in Arabic tuning), the more I
realized that my oud didn't sound "right." It's a very loud, bright, dry-sounding oud, and the heavy-gauge strings just seemed to clash with how the
oud wanted to sound.
After I got the Ziryab, I bought a few sets of Turkish strings to try on my Turkish oud and experimented with different tunings. For many of the same
reasons outlined by David above, I can understand why B/C#F#Bead is so popular for Turkish players. For Kiz tuning or for playing in Hüseyni or
Uşşak, the low B bass really does give the music an absolutely deadly buzz... (I mean that in a good way.) With the C# bass, reaching over
to get the D or E didn't bother me that much, but playing with the 5th course F# was annoying. Things that I found relatively simple to do on my
Arabic oud were consistently more frustrating and tedious on the Turkish oud. If I had fingers as long as Cinuçen Tanrıkorur or Yurdal Tokcan, I
might have happily persevered with this tuning, but I've got stubby little Donald Trump hands, so in the end, I gave up and changed the bass strings.
I currently play EABead with light Özten strings on the top 4 courses and LaBella strings on the E and the A, and this seems to suit my Turkish oud
quite well. Very big, bright, resonant sound.
It's a hugely personal issue, and no tuning is perfect, but for most beginners, it seems best to go with the tuning that your (ideally) experienced
and helpful teacher uses, learn the ropes, and then experiment if you feel like trying something different.
For putting together an oud method with 5-course tuning, I'd definitely go with GAdgc. (I just checked and this is what Tareq Al-Jundi uses in the
Izif.com beginning oud videos.) My one concern with that, I guess, is that many beginners buy ouds with strings meant to be tuned to to a 5th course
F, so G might be better for the player but not necessarily the oud.
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Badra
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I tried the low bass string so that the oud would look more "complete" in my videos, that is, so that part of the fingerboard isn't empty. Was going
to have it there even if I don't play it, just for the looks. Turns out it got in my head and made me hesitant when playing my F and A strings. So
off it went! But I guess bottom line is tune and use whatever strings that fit your style and comfort.
I never saw Farid use a low bass string. Was always FAdgc, sometimes tuned 1/2 or whole step down. Only once you can hear/see him using a wound DD
string, which was in a televised taqsim for Kuwait. He was given a oud to play, he only played it once. You can tell he wasn't 100% comfortable with
it. https://youtu.be/cthalqWsHwA
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OudSwede
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I know this is an old thread, but it made me wonder why not the CGDagc tuning is more common? Here focus is on the dark G-string (G2).
Tareq Jundi uses it, as previously stated here, on the Izif course, and the old 5 string tuning used it. It is also frequently used as a drone in
playing, but why not use it as a loose string instead of F? I have tried it, and it gives in my opinion more uses of drone tones than an F-tuned
string. It also easy double up the brighter g-string (G3) nice - a string that is much in use in practically all tunes that I have tried.
I am quite new as oud player, and I guess that someone much more experienced can explain why F2 is to prefer as to the G2.
(Perhaps I should note that I use a seven course oud, currently tuned CGAdgcf, but it was originally made for CFAdgcf)
Kind regards,
Viktor
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franck leriche
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One of the reasons is that the harmonics of the F make a nice resonance with the segah(E) note. The second one, it gives more emphasis to the first
jins of Rast. So when you reach Nawa ( G) there is more of a surprise and feeling to reach a higher point.
It makes Bayati sound very beautiful on some ouds, especially with very low tuning.
On Nahawand, it prevents it to sound too much like a minor scale.
On Saba, it gives the tonic.
This is how I feel it, it has nothing theoretical.
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Brian Prunka
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Quote: Originally posted by franck leriche  | One of the reasons is that the harmonics of the F make a nice resonance with the segah(E) note. The second one, it gives more emphasis to the first
jins of Rast. So when you reach Nawa ( G) there is more of a surprise and feeling to reach a higher point.
It makes Bayati sound very beautiful on some ouds, especially with very low tuning.
On Nahawand, it prevents it to sound too much like a minor scale.
On Saba, it gives the tonic.
This is how I feel it, it has nothing theoretical. |
I agree with all of these, but I've never heard anyone in the tradition refer to F as the tonic of Saba, the F is a note of emphasis for sure though
and it's common to hear it reinforced with the low string.
To add to the original question, having F also gives you the notes F# and F1/2# (useful in several G-based maqamat).
Also, for Hijazkar Kurd and Hijazkar, F is the dominant (ghammaz), and a very useful note to have in the lower octave.
I wouldn't say that F is universally better than G, it's true there are plenty of situations where the G is better to have. But if you're playing a
varied repertoire, the F gives you a little more flexibility (almost everything you can play with G you can play with F, but the reverse is not true).
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majnuunNavid
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| Quote: Originally posted by Brian Prunka |
I agree with all of these, but I've never heard anyone in the tradition refer to F as the tonic of Saba, the F is a note of emphasis for sure though
and it's common to hear it reinforced with the low string.
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Neither have I heard F as a tonic. Regardless of my notion that the term 'tonic' is difficult to reconcile with maqam music, but I admit it's
difficult not to use that term myself.
Off the topic of tuning, but... Brian, this might interest you. I heard an example of what Franck describes from one of my all-time favorite Arabic
music albums. Al-Kindi Ensemble & Shaykh Hamza Shakkur, "Syrie: Musique des derviches tourneurs de Damas".
There's this muwasha and it plays Saba in a way that uses F as a tonal center. And the end of the piece doesn't even resolve on D as we might expect.
F becomes the finalis.
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/5GDIKpciUGDLevkpH3uXQY?si=c6af0c74779...
YouTube: https://youtu.be/zOpMjfH5v7k
I don't know anyone nowadays who plays Saba like that... This rendition of Saba reminds me of the way we look at modal relationships and themes that
develop around moveable "tonics" in Persian music.
Have a listen... What do you guys make of that?
On the topic of tuning. (C) GADgc is the 'default' tuning you start on when learning Persian style Oud. It just works out better for the keys used
commonly. When I started dabbling in Arabic music and tuning to CFADgc I HATED IT. The damn F string was so jarring. I kept hearing it come out when
it's not supposed to. It doesn't bother me anymore now.
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Brian Prunka
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| Quote: Originally posted by majnuunNavid | | Quote: Originally posted by Brian Prunka |
I agree with all of these, but I've never heard anyone in the tradition refer to F as the tonic of Saba, the F is a note of emphasis for sure though
and it's common to hear it reinforced with the low string.
|
Neither have I heard F as a tonic. Regardless of my notion that the term 'tonic' is difficult to reconcile with maqam music, but I admit it's
difficult not to use that term myself.
Off the topic of tuning, but... Brian, this might interest you. I heard an example of what Franck describes from one of my all-time favorite Arabic
music albums. Al-Kindi Ensemble & Shaykh Hamza Shakkur, "Syrie: Musique des derviches tourneurs de Damas".
There's this muwasha and it plays Saba in a way that uses F as a tonal center. And the end of the piece doesn't even resolve on D as we might expect.
F becomes the finalis.
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/5GDIKpciUGDLevkpH3uXQY?si=c6af0c74779...
YouTube: https://youtu.be/zOpMjfH5v7k
I don't know anyone nowadays who plays Saba like that... This rendition of Saba reminds me of the way we look at modal relationships and themes that
develop around moveable "tonics" in Persian music.
Have a listen... What do you guys make of that?
|
That is indeed very interesting. It's an unusual tune in other respects, in that it extremely repetitive, and doesn't follow any of the normal seyir
of Saba or usual modulations. I hear this as like an opening phrase in Saba, where it's oscillating between the F and D, but then nothing else really
happens (other than the modulation to ‘Ajam F, which is also unusual for Saba) and it just keeps repeating the opening phrase over and over.
I'm curious what you mean when you say you think that "the term 'tonic' is difficult to reconcile with maqam music." I know little about Persian
music, so I have no opinions there, but with respect to Arabic music it seems to me that the term tonic is extremely easy to reconcile with Arabic
maqam generally. There are a few cases where it is a bit more ambiguous (Lami, for example), but generally it seems a perfectly appropriate term.
What is your objection to the term tonic?
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franck leriche
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From a theoretical and traditional point of view, Navid and Brian, you are totally right, but I keep hearing Saba centered on F.
Resolving finally on D, but that doesn't make it sound like the tonic of Saba for my ears.
I hear it more like going back to uchaq or bayati as you prefer.
Saba is one of those maqams that challenge the analysis and that's really the beauty of it.
Dugah( turkish or arabic, not persian!) is also one of them.
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majnuunNavid
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| Quote: Originally posted by Brian Prunka |
I'm curious what you mean when you say you think that "the term 'tonic' is difficult to reconcile with maqam music." I know little about Persian
music, so I have no opinions there, but with respect to Arabic music it seems to me that the term tonic is extremely easy to reconcile with Arabic
maqam generally. There are a few cases where it is a bit more ambiguous (Lami, for example), but generally it seems a perfectly appropriate term.
What is your objection to the term tonic?
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In general, I agree it works. I use it all the time when speaking to students that have western music background.
But for beginners and everyone else in between, they seem to understand all the concepts of maqam music in absence of the term tonic. In Persian
music, we use the term 'Shahed' which can be translated as the witness note in that it acts as a witness to the rest of the notes played. The same way
as an underlying drone note might always be present. But this note 'shahed' or witness can also move around.
In the case of the tune I referenced, the shahed is at first D as the melody moves around another important pausing note, the F. If you play that tune
with a D note as a drone or "witness", it sounds just as we might expect Saba to sound. Beautiful harmony appears with F and F# against the drone
D.
Then we have that modulation to Ajam on F. The witness note moves from D to F. Try playing that ajam melody with D as the drone and it will not sound
"right".
The same will occur if you start playing melody in the hijaz tetrachord on F of maqam Saba. D as a drone note starts to become weaker, and you can
shift the weight to F creating a drone there. I speculate this is why Maqam Saba doesn't agree with analysis because it is a maqam with an inherent
shift in the underlying drone note or witness note.
Now here's where tuning comes in. You can use your open F string as the witness note for this new melody.
So where's the tonic?
The term tonic disappears from this discussion and kind of becomes irrelevant. Instead we have moving modal centers of gravity.
There's something permanent about the term tonic, in that it's a start and end point that bothers me a little bit and doesn't serve to explain very
much. My Western music theory is a bit weak, so correct me if my understanding of tonic is wrong.
Again we might just be talking about the same thing with different terms and language, or a different approach.
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Brian Prunka
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Thanks for taking the time to explain, Navid.
I think you're right in everything you describe. But I don't perceive that idea of "tonic" has quite the same "permanent" qualiity that you seem to
associate with it.
Certainly it's true that there are many aspects of maqam music that differ in the specifics compared to western music, and so the exact details of the
tonic's behavior certainly wouldn't be expected to be the same. Just like the ghammaz isn't exactly a "dominant" in the same sense as western music.
This too is a useful concept, but it's really more of an analogy than a direct translation of the concept.
But just to compare, in any piece of classical music, there are whole sections where if you played a drone of the tonic, it would sound 'wrong.' The
idea of a tonic doesn't in any way suggest that a new center can't be felt at different points. In fact, it's extremely common. So the fact that
maqam music can shift the tonal focus at various points isn't at all inconsistent with the notion of a tonic, from my perspective.
Additionally, though, I think of maqam as mainly being organized at the level of the jins. So each jins has its own tonic, and then the maqam has an
overall tonic. In some ways, this is closer to the medieval concept of "finalis" or a final - the note that everything ultimately resolves to (and
the primary drone if there is one). So I don't think we disagree about the phenomena here, mainly I just don't think it contradicts the concept of a
tonic. Western music modulates as well, and has hierarchies of stability and emphasis. While no musical concept translates 100% from one
language/style to another, I actually think "tonic" does more than most.
Part of the idea of the tonic is not so much that you can't move away from it, but that there will be a feeling in sensitive listeners that at some
point, you will feel unresolved if you don't eventually return. This concept tracks very well with maqam music. Yes, in a traditional Saba seyir,
you will hear some hijaz F (though it moves a bit more like hijazkar F, really it's not the same vocabulary exactly as regular hijaz or hijazkar),
and definitely ‘Ajam Bb and some Nikriz Bb or Hijaz C. And you might change the drones to match (though I don't think it's always required). But if
it doesn't eventually resolve back to D, it doesn't really feel complete. This to me is why the tonic concept works. You can definitely feel this
if you are doing a suite in Rast and then after several tunes try to do a taqsim in Bayati — it can be challenging (especially without a drone) to
make D sound like tonic if the C is well-established.
A great example in a way is the famous Abdel Wahab tune "Aziza,' where he deliberately ends on the 2nd note of Kurd — it's quite strange not to
resolve to the tonic! Every Sama‘i, Longa, Pesrev, etc. all resolve to the tonic.
in a way, I get what you mean that it doesn't 'explain' much, but really it's just putting a name to a phenomenon. Like the word "chord" doesn't
explain anything, neither does "beat" or "perfect 5th", they just name things that happen often. Having names for things is useful in itself as it
allows us to chunk complex phenomena into a single unit. The phenomena described in Western music by the word "tonic" has much in common with the
phenomena of a "qarar" in Arabic music, even if it's not a perfect translation. I think it translates better than a lot of the terms we use! Like
"scale" is a much worse concept for explaining maqam, but that still gets used all the time (I'm on board with avoiding that though).
Ultimately, "tonic" is a word that described the anchoring tone whenever we have a sense of a key. Western music even has a term (tonicization) for
the common event of creating a temporary tonic, even if it's only for a split second. So the idea that there is a sense of key is not at all
incompatible with also being able to change it. Some western theorists have argued that even atonal and polytonal music still exhibits tonicization
and key-based perception at any given moment, it's just very rapidly shifting so that there is never a stable or persistent sense of key.
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majnuunNavid
Oud Junkie
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Thanks Brian. I guess it's pretty much the same thing 
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Eric Stern Music
Oud Maniac
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Speculating that the tune Naavid shared might be thought of as being on "old Cargah". From what my teacher, (Turkish and coming from the Sufi
tradition) has told me is that in Turkish makam (I know the piece that was shared is Syrian though) Cargah used to be more like saba but ending on the
cargah note. Since the piece is from a dervish album perhaps there is some cross-over of makam to maqam! Please school me if my speculation is
misguided. Of course seyir and even tonics might not always be obvious, and this saba/old cargah is slippery.
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coolsciguy
Oud Junkie
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I recently tuned my oud to Iraqi tuning FCdgcf and came to the stark realization that this tuning is a perfect 4th higher than my standard Arabic
tuning CGAdgc, string for string! I know this is a discovery for me (as it's my first diversion from Cc) and not news to anyone else, but brings me to
this question:
I have seen melodies that are written in lower registers being played a perfect 4th higher using Iraqi tuned ouds, so same finger positioning as one
would have with Cc tuned oud but on Ff - naturally it sounds different (higher) but it works for that melody.
Here is one example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxlxOHQV2yc
So in case of Iraqi tuning (or high F tuning), can one say that Iraqi ears are more accustomed to lower registers therefore Ff tuning? Or is it that
Iraqi repertoire is easier played on Ff hence this tuning?
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