When you compare Jamil's Bashir's music to Persian music you are on solid ground. There is no need to speculate about his tuning or his influences
though. Even on this website alone, in the past year there has been plenty of accurate information.
Jamil Bashir's oud playing reflects that of his teacher Sharif Muhiddin Targan. The influence is clear although Jamil Bashir brought in many musical
things of his own as well as things from the various communities in Iraq. He tunes his oud not just a step higher than one of the normal Arabic
tunings (but not the tuning you have given) but also a fourth higher and also with the lowest course closest to the floor as was sometimes the case
in older times. Another way to look at it is he tuned like today's Iraqi F tuning but a step higher *and* with the bass string moved to out of
sequence toward the floor.
In normal order his tuning would be:
G d e a d g
but he did it like this
d e a d g G
The students of Targan put their bass string out of the expected low to high sequence. Salman Shakur and Munir Bashir do this. you can see it photos
and videos. But Munir tunes one step lower than his brother Jamil.
The reason one hears mostly high notes is because his oud has no strings tuned to low notes. When you hear high notes he is not playing on the two
highest strings. He's playing on the middle strings…..which are tuned high. And his very high notes are played on the first string.
![[*]](images/xmbprobrown/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
