Christian1095
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Beginner - Bayati Semai
A short while ago, SamirCanada challenged me to start learning the Semai form and recommended Samai Bayati...
So here's the first part. Mostly, I wanted to show that I've been paying attention to posture and attacking the strings. Even thougth I'm still
struggling with playing the piece at a fast pace... It just sounds all wrong... but I'll keep working on it... and will post a part II once I have it
down...
Any encouragement or advice is certainly appreciated.
Click here for the Video
Chris Walters
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DaveH
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Nice one Christian - keep at it, it's a great start. I would say practice sticking to the semai rhythm - something I also need to work on. For people
not used to assymetric rhythms, it can be a little difficult to "get". The think that really clicked it for me was listening to Ghada Shbeir & co
on her superb CD. The pieces aren't semai, they're muwashahat, but most of the music is in the semai thaqil iqaa and it's played very precisely and
clearly but with a lot of feeling, so you hear the dums and taks very distinctly and really get a good feel for how the rhythm works. When you're on
rhythm in your recording, it's very clear and a nice tone. I like the way you've tackled it quite simply. I posted this piece here a few months back,
trying to put in a fair bit of ornamentation when my technique wasn't quite up to it and I hadn't really got the rhythm, so the ornamentation got in
the way of the clarity of the rhythm. Listening to it now I wish I'd kept it a bit simpler. Keep it up!
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SamirCanada
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Wow I am blown away.
I keep at it my friend. I all ready see massive improvement.
Just even in the way you have tuned the oud a lot more precisely then in your other videos.
keep it up.
Samir
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cjmichael
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Nice tone. And the fish seem to think so too. 
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Oud Freak
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Good oud sound and tuning. Must be a sukkar.
This Ibrahim 3aryan, is a bayati one as we know, however our friend Christian is playing it Kurd because he is using an Eb instead of the oriental E
which is E half flat (Mi noss bemol or sikah). This changes the whole feeling and spirit of the samai. Good effort though, rhythm must also be more
accurate.
Keep it up and regards
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Christian1095
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Thanks for the feedback and encouragement  The whole rhythm thing is
something that I've been really struggling with... So for the past month or so, I've not been listening to hardly ANY western music...
Our cat, Leonardo, has taken to sitting with me when I play too.... So, between the fish, Leo the cat, and Ursa the dog, who sits at my feet when I
play... I'm starting to feel like St. Francis 
I'm pretty sure the best way to learn to play E1/2b would be to have an instructor, but since I'm about as far away from the Oud center of the world
as possible.... when looking at the image I've attached, how would I see it on my tuner?
Chris Walters
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DaveH
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Hi Chris
As everyone will say, it's really hard without a teacher. But I guess that's not really very constructive, as you don't have one. I've never tried it
with a tuner but if you set the tuner to E I guess it would be pretty much half way between that and Eb - somewhere between 317-320 Hz or so. At least
that's the simple answer, but it's not actually exactly a quarter tone and it can change between different maqamat (the bayat E/b is slightly flatter
than the Rast E/b, though I'm not sure I'd spot the difference) and between different contexts and different players even - but those subleties would
be completely lost on me. The other way is to just listen lots, especially to anything in bayati. That will help your head get used to the interval.
But I think the easiest way for me at least was to start with the physical note by just sticking your finger half way between E and Eb on the
fingerboard and getting your muscle memory used to sticking your finger in that place every time, even if at first it sounds wrong. Eventually your
brain catches up with your muscles and it starts sounding natural. Then it starts sounding actually nice, then you get addicted to that slightly dead
or "neutral" sound. That's where your problems really start.
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Brian Prunka
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it's not very precise, but the half flat notes should fall pretty much on the 50 cent mark on a tuner. 100 cents is a half step, so 50 cents is a
quarter step. HZ is tricky, since it's relative, while cents are a fixed measurement.
So the needle will be all the way to the right or left, sometimes even flipping back and forth (all the way to the right on an Eb and then flipping to
all the way to the left on an E). That's the ballpark, anyhow.
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Brian Prunka
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when I said that HZ are relative, I meant that the number of HZ between steps depends what pitch you're talking about, not that the measurement itself
is relative, which it's not--or maybe kind of, because time is relative, maybe there's a physicist here who can answer that one! 
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cjmichael
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Haha, Brian. I guess it would be different only for ouds traveling near the speed of light.
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