Mike's Oud Forums

What tunes should every oud player know?

devinrevin - 9-22-2024 at 03:15 PM

I'm curious what everyone here thinks are the most classic oud songs.

kampanas - 9-23-2024 at 05:17 AM

It heavily depends the background of the musicians you're playing with (classical, folk, Arab, Turkish, Armenian, Greek, etc.)

From a more popular-tunes-perspective, I would say:

Cecen Kizi
Misirlou
Se kainouria varka mpika
Sa'alouni ennas
Lama bada yatathana
Georgitsa
(and many more)

I wonder if there's a collective oud standard repertoire floating around our collective conscious.

Brian Prunka - 9-23-2024 at 08:50 PM

I agree with kampanas that it depends onn what tradition you're talking about.

Overall, there are not really "oud songs" to my way of thinking. There are songs (that are sung), and may feature oud since it's the most popular accompaniment instrument in Arabic music. There are instrumentals that feature the oud (or not) but in Arabic music at least these are a distant second place compared to the song repertoire (Ottoman music has much more emphasis on instrumental repertoire).

As for Arabic music, some of the instrumental tunes played on oud the most are those composed by Mohamed Abdel Wahab and Farid el Atrash.
Here's a list of ones it seems get called a lot in the circles I've encountered (which I'm sure varies)

Abdel Wahab:
Aziza
Bint el Balad
Balad el Mahboub
Layali Lubnan
Ibn il Balad
il Henna
Zeina
Hubbi

Farid:
Touta
Raqsat al Jamal
(Raqsat) Kahramana

Qasabgi:
Zikrayati

Sounbati:
Longa Riad

Jamil Bashir:
Shuruq

As well as:
Sama'i Bayati 'Qadim' (aka Arap Saz Semaisi)
Sama'i Bayati Ibrahim al-Aryan
Sama'i Nawa Athar Jamil Owais
Sama'i Hijazkar Kurd Tatyos
Sama'i Shadd Araban Cemil Bey
Sema'i Nahawand Mesut Cemil
Sama'i Nahawand al-Hariri (Sihr al Sharq)
Sama'i Rast Tatyos
Sama'i Rast George Michel

"Modern" tunes that have become somewhat popular seem to be Parfum de Gitane by Anouar Brahem and Olive Harvest by Simon Shaheen.

But most of the most popular music is not "oud" music per se, but songs. The repertoire of Sabah Fakhri, Fairuz, and Oum Kulthoum represent the basis of the most popular branches of that tree, but of course there are further branches in Yemen, Saudi, Morocco, Tunisia etc. with their own popular repertoire.

This is an interesting previous thread that you may find interesting in relation to this subject.
https://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=18138#pid11...