Hello Everyone!

Marhaba everyone.
I finally took the initiative to take my old oud that has been laying around and string it.
I am starting to play it and I can get some basic arabic riffs down but I was wondering if someone can give me some excersizes which would improve my playing.
I have been listening to Farid and Munir, and I think it is safe to say that Farid is equivilent to the great Yngwie Malmsteen here in america.

I was also wondering what are chords like on the oud, are they like those of the guitar?
I have my oud tuned to a C F A d g c.
My low C and F have one string, all the rest have two strings.

Also, one last major question, my uncle brought some strings from the Mid East when he last came, I was wondering where I could buy some strings here in America (via internet is fine)

Anyways I like to think of myself as good at guitar, here is a recording of my band and I playing Purple Haze (If you listen closely you will hear arab influence). Also, when playing oud I was wondering if you use music such as guitar tab or music such as regular music notation.
http://www.purevolume.com/thecrosstones

Shukrun--Thank you very much.

marhaba, pharoah-

dude, chords are a lot of fun with the oud, you just have to poke around and get your feel for the different hand positions they come in... try looking for the C minor chord- with your 3rd finger, hit the first C on your A string, then with your 1st finger hit the D# on the D string- play around with it, strum every string while carefully muting your F and you'll get the idea. you'll find a ton of chordal systems if you keep on messing around (I know some traditional players are gonna laugh at this...) Marcel khalifeh and munir bashir are really good ear training for chordal playing. it takes a while to get the intonation down, but you'll get it.

one love, habibi

Tarik