Mike's Oud Forums

Best way to practice playing notes in tune?

alchemy - 3-10-2015 at 08:30 AM

Hey folks, I was wondering if you have any advice on how to practice playing the notes in tune.
The first thing that comes to mind is playing by looking at the tuner (which responds very quick and displays quarter tones since it looks like a wheel), but it would be undesirable to sound disgustingly tempered?
Another option would be play some traditional recordings and try to play some of the notes, but that would be very annoying in terms of practicality, since would need to play and pause, and then go back, repeat some times, and you don't place the cursor exactly in the same place in the same note (without saying that I won't be able to catch all notes).
Is there any other technique (in form of repeatable exercise) available besides "listen a lot of music, try to sound like that and time will do"?

As a side note, in sitar there's an exercise for training pulling the wire in tune in which you play two or more fretted notes as a reference and then pull and copy those notes in tune. But have no reference on the oud! :)

Thanks.

franck leriche - 3-10-2015 at 09:21 AM

Practicing with a drone can help a lot.
I used to practice with Itabla's tampura, you can find some others on line.

Jody Stecher - 3-10-2015 at 09:35 AM

This is a very good, practical question I think. There are two things you can do. The main thing is to listen to good players and singers. Listen for hours over a period of years. After a while the exact pitches they sing and play will register in your brain and your fingers will automatically go to the right places more often. And they will self-correct almost automatically. This is the main technique because whatever goes in comes out. I know I said "years" and that might be discouraging, but years is for perfection. In a period of days, weeks, and months you will get a lot better though.

The second technique is to use slow down software. You can set a loop and the same phrase will play over and over, at whatever speed (and pitch) you chose. I use Amazing Slowdowner. There are other good ones as well. This technique is a supplement to the first one.

flamencito - 3-10-2015 at 12:01 PM

I wouldn't recommend looking at the tuner because you train yourself to rely on your eyes and not the ears, which is definetly the wrong approach when it comes to music.
Good intonation in my opinion is on the first hand a matter of hearing the notes and their pitch in your inner ear.
And the best and most natural way to train your inner ear is by singing.
Besides playing oud I'm an upright player for 20 years.
So intonation has been always a big issue.
When I do practising sessions I love to do the first 15-20 minutes just singing notes at the piano.
When I do this regularly I feel how my intonation gets better within days.
Also when I'm transcribing stuff I also would sing a phrase first before playing it. This way I make shure that I really have it in my ear. Otherwise "searching" for the right notes takes way longer.

juju - 3-11-2015 at 12:28 AM

Everything depends on your musical bakground.
If everything you 've learnt in the past come from non-traditional music, the first step on the oud should be to play equal tempered melodies.
The second step is to escape from that scheme. The only one way to learn traditional music is to transcribe very short melodies. In that process your hear will get used to"quarter-tone" music. The key is the melody (as it is written in Maqamlessons.com).
The simpliest approach is to focus on degrees that are "mobile" and to consider others as equal to equal tempered. For example in C-rast, E half flat is a "mobile" degree ... its value in cents will change from one player to another, from one region to another, etc. (cf. Amine Beyhom). When you transcribe a melody in C-Rast, you have to focus on that degree first, and try to understand how it's played.
Best,
Juju.

mercm525i - 3-11-2015 at 07:41 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Jody Stecher  
This is a very good, practical question I think. There are two things you can do. The main thing is to listen to good players and singers. Listen for hours over a period of years. After a while the exact pitches they sing and play will register in your brain and your fingers will automatically go to the right places more often. And they will self-correct almost automatically. This is the main technique because whatever goes in comes out. I know I said "years" and that might be discouraging, but years is for perfection. In a period of days, weeks, and months you will get a lot better though.


I have done this for several years and it is true. Eventually while you're playing one day your hand goes to the correct place or you play a few notes and you ask yourself where did that just come from? I have had this happen to me several times. Eventually if you have a phrase in mind you want to play you automatically know where to go with your fingers eventually. There have been times where I listen to a specific part of a song or taqsim which may have a technique I am trying to learn and one day I find myself doing it, as it eventually becomes second nature.