Mike's Oud Forums

Translation of Arabic "ferdash" = tremolo?

yozhik - 2-22-2020 at 07:25 AM

Some of my Arabic-speaking teachers have used the word "ferdash" (not sure exact spelling) to describe a risha technique which as far as I can tell is either a general word for tremolo or a specific kind of tremolo.

Can anybody clarify the meaning of this word? Also, is it an Arabic word originally? If so, what is the original meaning?

John Erlich - 2-26-2020 at 07:34 AM

I am not familiar with "ferdash," which sounds to my ears more like Farsi than Arabic (though of course Arabic, Farsi, and Turkish passed many, many words among them!). The word my teacher, Naser Musa, used for tremolo was "rashi," which literally means "sprinkling." Here is a bit about the Arabic root, رش : https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the/arabic-word-for-6a91206deefe23...

alim - 2-26-2020 at 11:28 AM

I think the term "ferdash' is used in Tunisia (but not in Morocco AFAIK). It could be an old Andalusian or Turkish term.

Cheers,

Ali-

Microber - 2-27-2020 at 08:25 AM

The fisrt time I heard the word was a few years ago at an oud workshop with Tarek Abdallah who is Egyptian. If I remember well, he used the word to talk about all the movements of the risha.
For example :
Question : For that specific sentence of a piece, which ferdash do you use ?
Answer : Down-Up-Down-Down-Up-tremolo-Down-Up.
So I understand it as the instructions for the right hand to play a musical phrase correctly, with fluidity.
I hope my explanation is clear :-)

yozhik - 2-27-2020 at 08:33 AM

The term was used by my Arabic-speaking teachers from Yemen and Egypt. It indeed sounds like a loan word to my ears, either from Persian or some European language.

It is used, for example, in this Egyptian Arabic-language oud instruction video:

https://youtu.be/VaZbZwI7keA

Searching for رش (have heard it pronounced "resh" or "rush") I see many video results mentioning رش "resh" and فرداش "ferdash" in the same title, so they seem to be synonyms.

John Erlich - 2-28-2020 at 04:23 PM

Quote: Originally posted by yozhik  
The term was used by my Arabic-speaking teachers from Yemen and Egypt. It indeed sounds like a loan word to my ears, either from Persian or some European language.

It is used, for example, in this Egyptian Arabic-language oud instruction video:

https://youtu.be/VaZbZwI7keA

Searching for رش (have heard it pronounced "resh" or "rush") I see many video results mentioning رش "resh" and فرداش "ferdash" in the same title, so they seem to be synonyms.


I don't understand every word in this video, but the title seems to support your surmise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHktaoW2uQQ

John Erlich - 2-29-2020 at 05:41 PM

More here, under "Rash" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E0eZdbQZgg