Some Fairooz Songs Played on the OUD

amazing contribution to the forum

dear oud.proff- these three recent postings together contain 22 beautiful classic songs! Amazing! you must have the memory of an an elephant my friend! but you play like an angel. I'm lost for words!

O.P.= you touch upon an interesting point here when you say you grew up listening to those lovely songs ( Fairouz, Om Kalthoum. Abdel Wahad, etc) over and over. This definitely reflects in your playing and understanding of Arabic music in general. I also see this aspect in all the oud playing friends I have made through this forum who grew up more or less with and/or within this musical genre. For me, and perhaps other 'westerners' in this forum, we come to this music a bit later in life, and are discovering all these musical gems and the Arabic musical style through our love of the oud, an instrument that is widely heard and played everywhere in your part of the world . For me, I grew up listening to mostly western pop/rock stuff like Beatles, Bob Dylan, jazz, blues, motown, classical music, and so on! Though I was aware of other musical styles including Arabic music and had heard Om Kalthoum ( who hasn't?) on various records, it is only since I started playing oud that I am now going back and listening to what she was doing, as well as to the other great exponents of this music. I guess while you were grooving on Farido, I was probably listening to BB King, and so on. This forum has been a fantastic place for me to learn more and more about Arabic music in general, to both share and learn from guys like you!

another thing I'd like to ask- unless I'm seeing things, it seems that you like to use only 5 courses of strings on a lot of the ouds you use in these videos, the top string being removed?

Hey Matthew,

I totally agree with you. Growing up listening to that particular music genre makes it a lot easier for the ear to "grasp" the essence of that type.

What I really admire and is quite impressive to me is to see "Westerners" tackling the Arabic music. As it is very hard for a non-Westerner to play Jazz or Blues....I believe it is just as hard or even harder for you guys to play the Arabic music. In fact I always believed that is it much harder for others to play the oud (with its unfretted neck and the 1/4 tone and even 1/8 th sometimes !!) as compared to me for example to play a fretted guitar, although I realize that there are very advanced techniques and abilities involved in professional guitar playing.

So YES, difinately this great forum is a great diversified spot for sharing those multicultural experiences in the language of music, and more specifically via the oud. Specialization is an amazing plus !

To answer your question about the 5 course oud... I learned the oud under the wing of a teacher who comes from the Egyptian school of music. So naturally he and most others at that time were basically influenced by the late oudists/musicians (e.g., Sunbati, Farido, Abdil Wahab, Moujy, Qasabji....etc....) who all played 5 course ouds (not 6 or 7......or even 8 !). See for songs and "Tarab" playing, the 5 course is more than enough actually. But for technical and solo playing of the oud the 6th string widens the octaves and the musical range. So for example, if you notice the Bashir's (Jamil, Munir, and Omar), or Sherbil Rohana....or Naseer Shamma....or others....they all play 6 (and sometimes 7) course ouds. Now, the addition of that 6th string is actually not the top string but rather the bottom one ! (depending of course on the type of tuning). For example, Bashirs place a Bass string at the very bottom !, so it depends on the school. Most others just add a thin trebble string pair at the bottom.
I sometimes like to tackle a bit from here and there, but really far more into classic songs and "Tarab"

Thanks again Matthew for raising these interesting points of discussion.

Regards,
O.P.

Dear Oud proff
I wanted to hear the Fairuz song:Atini nay played by you but it is no longer in the list.
Can you please do something please?
Thanks
Bruno

Dear Bruno,

We've covered that in our email

I simply wasn't quite content with that recording (plus some others), so every once and a while I perform some house-keeping on the channel.

Thanks.

Quote:

Originally posted by amarock Dear Oud proff I wanted to hear the Fairuz song:Atini nay played by you but it is no longer in the list. Can you please do something please? Thanks Bruno

Dear Bruno,
Here is a new audio recording for the intro of Atini Naya. Will post a video soon playing that whole song
Hope you like it.