nouphar
Oud Maniac
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Turkish oud tunings
Hi guys,
I bought a Haluk Eraydin's oud a month ago or so. It's the begginer model. By the way, it's a nice instrument. And more, I strongly recommend Haluk -
he's a great person to deal with.
I'm doubious about tunings. Well, now I'm using, from low to high, DGBEAD, which is great for playing in D and G...when playing in E and A I've got to
fret on the two lower strings in order to get octaves of course, but it isn't really a major problem.
Recently I've thought of tuning all fourths, that is, C#F#BEAD. What's your opinion about this?
I also play a standard cumbus which is tuned ADEADG. Tuned all fourths it would be F#BEADG...
So the question really is, which would be the advantages and disadvantages on each tuning?.
Thanks a lot,
Raul.
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sufi
Oud Lover
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HI RAUL,
i am playing cumbus as amateur and i wanna ask the same question for cumbus like you. mu tuning is low to high EF#BEAD, I ALWAYS USE THAT TUNING AND
IT IS QUITE WELL FOR TURKISH MUSIC BUT IN ARABIC MUSIC I REALLY NEEED TO RE TUNE MY CUMBUS.
so i wanna know what other tunings i can use for my cumbus to play arabic or other melodies easier.
thanks for the answers by now.
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adamgood
Oud Junkie
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| Quote: | Originally posted by nouphar
Recently I've thought of tuning all fourths, that is, C#F#BEAD. What's your opinion about this?
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Tuning in all 4ths is a very very common tuning for Turkish musicians, it gives you an opportunity to play in a bunch of different keys fairly easily
and keeps fingerings nice and consistent. Nice if you already play guitar. I live in Netherlands and pretty much every Turkish person that owns and
plays an ud uses this tuning.
One thing i would point out, out of the several tunings being used for Turkish music on ud, the top 4 strings will stay consistent, BEAD. Most of your
melody stuff happens on those strings anyway and then what you put under it is a matter of taste.
So here are some tunings for the lower 2 strings if always on top will be BEAD:
C#F# - already mentioned  )
EA - gives you nice octaves...5th string with the 2nd string, 6th string w/ 3rd. Pretty sure Kadri Sencelar used that and Udi Hrant although I never
heard him hit a low string on any of the recordings i have.
DA - although he changes it up i think Munir Beken uses this a lot (Mav would know better than me). cool and practical tuning. 
BF# - I don't know if Cinucen Tanrikorur came up with it but to me it sounds like he's using that more than anything. and Necati Çelik uses it
exclusively. you get a great octave between the 6th and the 4th strings, great for big fat walls of sound Hicaz and Ussak taksims  
or Rast or anything for that matter works great in this tuning. if your tonic is from the open 4th string that really gives you a chance to explore
the whole range of the instrument.
And don't forget, whatever you tune these strings to, make sure you have the right gauges so you don't put too much stress on the face. i have no idea
how to figure those out.
adam
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paulO
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Just a note about Hrant -- I have an 8x10 copy of a picture from Margo's records in Fresno -- the oud Hrant's playing has only 5 pairs of strings. My
guess is that Hrant didn't use the bottom "6th" string...I'd forgotten about this until you mentioned it. Also, a friend of mine who gave me a copy of
the photo (same photo is on the cover of the Traditional Crossroads "Udi Hrant" - CD) said that one of his early oud teachers told him to take that
6th (in our case E) string off the oud !!
All the oud players here in the SF Bay Area I saw when I was a teenager, all used the 6th string, so I thought that was "the standard".
Sorry for the off topic ness....PaulO
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nouphar
Oud Maniac
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Thank you a lot guys.
Adamgood you're right indeed, concerning turkish tunings there will always be four courses tuned BEAD, as ADGC -just a step lower- will stay
consistent if we deal with arabic tunings. Thus the famous DEADGC cumbus tuning, if we consider western/arabic notation, is really an arabic tuning.
The correct standard cumbus tuning is a fifth higher, ABEADG.
These are my thoughts about the mentioned turkish tunings,
C#F#BEAD (oud), F#BEADG (cumbus) - 'All fourths' provides an easier fingering and a extended tonal range, but if you want to get octaves you have to
be fretting constantly on the fingerboard. As you point oud Adamgood, it's very common among turkish musicians.
EABEAD (oud), ADEADG (cumbus) - good for octaves. I guess it's not uncommon on Armenian music.
EF#BEAD (oud), ABEADG (cumbus) - Five courses tuned 'all fourths' plus a 6th course to get octaves. Besides being the standard cumbus tuning, ABEADG
seems to be good for those used to play EABEAD on oud.
DABEAD (oud) - great for playing D Nihaventi.
DGBEAD (oud), GBEADG (cumbus) - Good for playing in D and G, but if you want to get E and A octaves you have to do some fretting. Useful tunings to
play some makamlar.
As to arabic tunings, just transpose these tunings a step higher.
Sufi, to play arabic stuff you need to tune your cumbus one step lower, GADGCF. If you want to play nice octaves just uptune the low A course to C, so
you will have GCDGCF.
By the way, I'm defretting my old and cheap classical guitar. Defretting, slot filling and fingerboard sanding are already done. I've got still to
ebonize the fingerboard. But I am already playing. I've tuned my guitar to DADGCF - an arabic tuning.
Thanks paulO for your comment, I don't think it's off topic at all.
Cheers.
Raul.
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nouphar
Oud Maniac
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Oh, I forgot to mention something about BF#BEAD. My aquila 6th string's gauge doesn't allow me to reach decently below D. What string sets would you
recommend for this tuning? I'm positive the Aquila's C#F#BEAD could work for this.
Regards.
Raul.
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sufi
Oud Lover
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thanks men for all information, i still use ef#bead tuning for my cumbus and it gives me many adnatages to play hicaz with my cumbus i think. and e on
top gives a nice octave. but i have another question.
i am not an old guitar player and have no education about music. if someone knows can explain me how can i find the chords on my cumbus to play much
more agressive. i like flamneco also and i like the sound of cumbus when i play flamenko riffs with it.
if you can help me with that i will be glad..
thanks
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