Michelle Webb
Oud Lover
Posts: 22
Registered: 3-19-2009
Location: Washington DC
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Mood: Happy
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Oud Tunings
Hi Again Everybody !!!! 
( Have told you guys how much I love this site ....all of you rock !!!)
I have a question about seemingly endless choices for tuning an Oud.
These are a few I got from Wiki
G A D G C The most common tuning for 5 double strings
F A D G C F Very common tuning for 6 double strings
C F A D G C Also a very common tuning for 11 strings (5 double strings and the lowest string is single)
D G A D G C Older tuning but still used by many
E A D G C Five Strings (Syria, Palestine and Lebanon) - by Eduardo Haddad Ribeiro
B E A D G C F Seven strings oud tuning.
.....now,
I have tried several of these....most of you guys know that I'm primarily a guitar player who has fell head over heals with the Oud.....it's basically
all I'm playing these days....well I'll always be playing guitar....
Having said all this.....I have started to get very interested in Oud music from Israel and Palestine & Lebanon and I'm currently in the middle of
a book titled Palestinian Arab Music .....so here's a tuning:
E A D G C Five Strings (Syria, Palestine and Lebanon) - by Eduardo Haddad Ribeiro
Now when I got my Oud (from Egypt) It came as a 5 course Oud....I quickly changed it to resemble Ouds played by Oud players I'm influenced by...namely
Rahim Al Haj. However......I didn't like it.....interesting.....
So I switched back to 5 courses.....then I see this on wiki
E A D G C Five Strings (Syria, Palestine and Lebanon) - by Eduardo Haddad Ribeiro .....
a 5 course tuning that is also.....extremely similar to the guitar ( minus a string and imagine tuning the 2nd string of a guitar to C instead of
B)
I have recently tuned my Oud to this tuning......I love it.....and it allows me to read....all of my guitar music on it as well.....
So, Im interested in what you guys think of all this tuning stuff......do you think I'm crazy for tuning it that way.....?
Also I've been trying to find out more info on Eduardo Haddad Ribeiro.....does he actually tune his Oud this way.....or is this him just adding
information to the wiki site ???
Do any of you guys tune this way ??
Are there any great Oud books out there.....dealing with 5 course only ?
Thanks......!! 
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katakofka
Oud Junkie
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Location: Cleveland
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Commercially available strings for arabic oud are made as F A D G C but you can easily tune the F into E
ur on the right track..E A D G C or F A D G C. Worth trying D A D G C for playing on D makams ( D minor, major etc...)
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ameer
Oud Junkie
Posts: 458
Registered: 9-14-2009
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In my admittedly limitted experience, every oud I've seen is tuned to straight fourths except for the fifth course which varies between fourth and
major third. As to absolute notes I've seen a lot of shift: my Sukar just sounds better for some reason when tuned to A# F C# G# F A#, my uncle has an
oud with the highest course tuned to D like wiki says, and I used to shift everything down a halfstep to B instead of a wholestep. Also tuning the
fifth course allows you to echo the E which will do wonders for a few songs where it's highly poignant. Does tuning this way have its advantages? Yes
it does. Are you crazy? No.
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Christian1095
Oud Junkie
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Location: North Carolina, USA
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Hey for my 6 course oud, I tend think of the top two courses as being there mostly for being used as drones... so if I'm playing in D or G (which is
pretty much always the case) then I have the drones to hit...
I'm a fan of DGADGC
But much like you're tuning, most of what you'll play for music will be on those bottom four courses.... so if I were in your oud, I would think
about how I'll drone or not drone and make my choice from there.
Chris Walters
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fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
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Mood: m'Oudy
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Michelle, I am reading Al Farabi's treatise on music (10th century) that includes a (thankfully) long section on the oud. He describes the "standard
tuning" of the oud as being in ascending fourths on four strings. There is no absolute pitch information but the deduction of the commentators is that
the tuning he described starts on C (lowest):
C, F, Bb, Eb or A, D, G, C in our standard pitch
Al Farabi then describes adding a 5th low string that extends the range to a full 2 octaves, making the tuning as he lists it:
G, C, F, Bb, Eb or E, A, D, G, C in our pitch reference.
[file]11879[/file]
The oud's 4ths-based tuning is derived from having the important notes at the same longitudinal positions on the neck, like being able to tie on (gut)
frets so that the most important notes are available across the whole neck.
So, let's be traditional. That is the fundamental tuning, E, A, D, G, C, just as you have it.
Al Farabi also mentions that there are other ways to tune, including dropping the lowest string to produce a fifth with the next one up, which he says
works better for some melodies. He also mentions retuning the whole instrument to ascending fifths, and other variants.
The idea of tuning the low course to anything other than the same series of ascending fourths is considered a secondary tuning, and when a 6th course
was added below, much after Al Farabi's time, its natural tuning would have had to be B.
The custom of treating the low two courses as drones then had to take into account the overwhelming dominance of maqams with tonics in D and C, not E
and B, and so it made sense to drop the E course to D and raise the lowest course a half tone from B to C, neither of which present a problem with
tension. Raising the E course to F a half tone is also within reason, though I'm not sure why F and not D. With what does F work as a drone? For some
maqams the lowest course could maybe even be tuned to B 1/2b.
But that's apparently why the 5th and 6th course are all over the map: to drone or not to drone, and on what tonic.
FWIW, after trying a number of ways, on a 6 course oud I've settled on leaving the 5th course E course on E and being able to finger it predictably as
part of the melody group, while raising the 6th course B string to C as a drone for C-based maqams, thumbing it up to D as needed for D-based maqams.
The guitar has that one strange exception, and I can't see any reason to go there. 
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jkndrkn
Oud Addict
Posts: 37
Registered: 9-6-2009
Location: Gainesville, FL, USA
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Hi Michelle,
I personally use one of the traditional Arabic tunings (CFADGC), mainly because I do enjoy playing around with new tunings and also because I am
working my way through Marina Toshich's "Oud".
If you are using EADGC and have an Oud that could support a sixth string, I would recommend that you add a high F string (EADGCF) to give you an
extended upper range. I'm considering maybe eventually tuning my Oud EADGCF or even EADGBE (guitar-standard) if I ever start performing in an ensemble
with a bass-range instrument and guitars.
Incidentally, I use EADGC on my main electric bass. It's a very fun tuning that lets me play lots of chordal/melodic stuff with droning A, D, or G
open notes and upper-register arpeggios and melodies.
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Michelle Webb
Oud Lover
Posts: 22
Registered: 3-19-2009
Location: Washington DC
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Mood: Happy
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Thank you fernandraynaud !
That was extremely informative......and where did you score a copy of Al Farabi's treatise on music ? I found a copy on Amazon....but they want $200
bucks for it....did you pay that much ??
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fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
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Mood: m'Oudy
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It's in Volume 1 of d'Erlanger. Do you read French? I don't think there's an English version of all the treatises, and furthermore the work that
d'Erlanger's assistants put into correlating the information goes far beyond the job description of any "translator". Tell me more about the version
you found. I only saw some measly "summaries" in English and German.
The complete 6 volume d'Erlanger La Musique Arabe was reprinted in 2001 or so. Some volumes are out of print (again). The publisher is
seemingly not very interested in reprinting it. There are a few complete sets floating around selling for mercenary prices.
The first 4 volumes of d'Erlanger are old treatises, a gold mine that has barely been tapped. It's a puzzle within a riddle. For instance there's a
notation system using letters for pitch that d"Erlanger's assistants started to decode, but perhaps it could yield more transcriptions of medieval
Arabic music? The first systematic tabulation of maqamat, including seyir info, is in the 13th century As Sarafiyyah. Give me an oud and this
book, and I could happily live on Elba. OK, OK, an internet connection and a laptop too. What a bond I feel with Al Farabi, a towering intellect whose
closest friends included Christians, Muslims and Jews, who references Aristotle, Pythagoras and Zeno, as he lovingly describes the oud -- only 11
centuries ago.
It's tragic that the scans of the 1st 3 volumes
http://ylaarouchi.free.fr/Musique_Arabe/
(get them now, better than nothing!) are inadequate for serious study e.g. of diagrams, as you can see below in what would otherwise be a fascinating
and detailed illustration of Rast from the 13th century (of course the Western notes were added by the "translator").
[file]11917[/file]
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