Mike's Oud Forums

Question Regarding Tuning with a Tuner App

Humam - 5-21-2017 at 08:05 PM

Hello everyone,

I'm changing the strings on my Oud, and I'm using a mobile app for tuning. However, on the app, I'm seeing different notes (A1, A2, A3) and so on for each string. I guess these numbers represent different frequencies. The question is, is there a general rule of thumb?
I have a floating bridge Shehata apprentice oud tuned as FADGCF, and I'm not sure with the best tuning.

Thank you in advance for our help.

Regards.

Humam

alim - 5-22-2017 at 08:14 AM

Hello Humam,

The A2, A3 etc.. denotes the note and octave number, so A3 would be the A note one octave above A2 etc... For each course, there is only one correct note. In anycase on my oud and tuner, I have the following:

F2 A2 D3 G3 C4 F4

Before you use this for tuning, please wait for someone else to confirm. If you are off by one octave up, you will damage your oud!

Cheers,

Ali-

Humam - 5-22-2017 at 02:26 PM

Thank you very much, Ali, let's wait and see maybe we will get a better understanding :)

Regards.

Humam

Humam - 5-23-2017 at 03:03 PM

I think I will go with this hopefully it will not mess up the Oud.

F2 A2 D3 G3 C3 F3

Regards.

Humam

Jody Stecher - 5-23-2017 at 03:13 PM

It won't hurt your oud but you won't be able to play any music on it either. You are proposing to tune your second course lower than the fourth and the first course lower than the third. How is that going to work? Are the old strings close to being in tune? If so, before you change your strings check its present tuning with the tuner and then you will understand what to do.

Humam - 5-23-2017 at 03:23 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Jody Stecher  
It won't hurt your oud but you won't be able to play any music on it either. You are proposing to tune your second course lower than the fourth and the first course lower than the third. How is that going to work? Are the old strings close to being in tune? If so, before you change your strings check its present tuning with the tuner and then you will understand what to do.


Thank you very much for your reply Jody Stecher

The problem I removed the first 3 sets before checking :D

So if I understand this correctly, ideally all the strings should be on the same octave? And if that's the case should have everything on 2 or change the first to strings to have everything on 3?

Thank you in advance.

Humam

Jody Stecher - 5-23-2017 at 03:48 PM

F tuning spans 2 full octaves

The notes of the F major scale which have no parentheses around them are your oud string notes.


F (G) A ( B C) D (E f ) g (a b) c (d e ) f*

In two octaves three are F notes in THREE different octaves. Lowest F is capital F. Middle f (for which there is no open string) is lower case f. And the highest string is the start of a third octave. I have marked that with an asterisk: f*

Humam - 5-23-2017 at 04:11 PM

I really appreciate your help Jody thank you very much. And please excuse my ignorance because I'm still not fully understanding what to do.

Does this mean if I'm tuning my oud top to bottom F A D g c f and the lower octaves are capital letters my tuning using the tuner should be something like this:

F1 A1 D1 g2 c2 f2 or F2 A2 D2 g3 c3 f3 and so on

which basically should cover all the notes from F to f across the two octaves?

Thank you in advance.

Humam

Jody Stecher - 5-23-2017 at 06:24 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Humam  
I really appreciate your help Jody thank you very much. And please excuse my ignorance because I'm still not fully understanding what to do.

Does this mean if I'm tuning my oud top to bottom F A D g c f and the lower octaves are capital letters my tuning using the tuner should be something like this:

F1 A1 D1 g2 c2 f2 or F2 A2 D2 g3 c3 f3 and so on

which basically should cover all the notes from F to f across the two octaves?

Thank you in advance.

Humam


OK, first of all, in the world of string instruments "top" means the thin high pitched strings and bottom means the thick low pitched ones. So the pitches you mention are bottom to top, not top to bottom. Bottom ordinarily means close to the earth and top means nearer to the sky. Not here!

Yes the lower octave is shown by capital letters. But as for the conventional meaning of F1, F2, etc this is a language I don't normally use so I don't know. But I *think* F1 is too low.

I think it's time for someone else to chime in.

One more thing: when you look at a string package the thinnest strings will have the lowest numbers. The 1st string is the thinnest. The 6th is the thickest. On an F tuning set typically the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are unwound. They may be nylon or some other synthetic or even gut. The three lowest courses are wound, although unwound D-s are not unheard of.

Humam - 5-23-2017 at 06:35 PM

I think I got it now, especially the part about physical top bottom vs. string instruments top bottom, which is really interesting.

Thank you very much :)

Best regards.

Humam

mohannad_h - 5-23-2017 at 08:53 PM

Hello Humam and all,

You should go ahead and tune your oud F2 A2 D3 G3 C4 F4

I just checked on my oud with a tuner app that shows octave numbers.

To rephrase what Ali and Jody said, the oud range usually starts from octave 2. In the F tuning, it starts from F2. The lowest octave is from F2 (open 6th string) to the F3 note, which is the fingered F note on the 4th string (d string). The next octave begins from F3 to F4 (1st open string). And of course you can continue a third octave using the fingered notes on the first string.

(Keep in mind that the 1st string is highest pitched string at the bottom of the fingerboard)

Hope this helps.


Humam - 5-24-2017 at 05:16 PM

Thank you very much Mohannad.

This makes a lot of sense and I think I'm good to go to Oud & Roll

Regards,

Humam