BlueRidgeOudPlayer - 2-10-2010 at 06:01 PM
Hello fellow Oud players! I am origionally a guitar player. I have been playing the oud for a few weeks now, Ive picked it up quite easily exept for
staying on tone. the oud being a fretless instrument. this is diffiucult. does anyone have any advice for staying on tone other than raw practice?
Franck - 2-10-2010 at 08:55 PM
Being a guitar player myself I've had the same problem as you when I began playing the oud. When I'm playing guitar, I see the scales as patterns and,
since I have a good photographic memory, I transpose these patterns on the oud. Of course I have to adapt these patterns to micro-tonal playing.
Basically, I see ghost frets on my fingerboard and surf on them, with practice it becomes natural.
Hope it helps.
fernandraynaud - 2-10-2010 at 11:20 PM
By "staying on tone" you do mean playing with good intonation (and not issues of slipping tuning etc)?
Some say it's unhealthy, but others use markers while they are learning. My preferred technique is marking the strings after they stop stretching,
rather than putting marks on the neck. I've detailed the method in this forum, do a search for "temporary neck markers".
The important thing is that Arabian maqams are not at all equal-tempered scales, so markers at most are to give you some orientation, and if you play
on equal-tempered notes you are completely missing the point. This is very important and a huge and complex topic. For Westerners the oud offers a
rare and golden opportunity to learn a very different approach to music. If you don't have a teacher, the Maqamworld web site at
http://www.maqamworld.com/
has some very good starter information. For the price of a single lesson from an instructor, Oudprof's Maqam DVD is an excellent way to add practice
pieces and explanations for all the fundamental Maqamat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijZmTxkYsoE
oudtab - 2-12-2010 at 04:17 AM
Bonjour BlueRidgeOudPlayer,
You can try that : http://sites.google.com/site/oudguitare/theneck