Mike's Oud Forums

Rahim Al Haj

arsene - 4-18-2008 at 02:15 AM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6R7JZbydqVk

Hi guys,

does anyone know what kind of oud this is? Who the maker is? is it an iraqi style oud?

thanks!

DaveH - 4-18-2008 at 04:22 AM

You can see the oud better in this video, which is a very good one. Floating bridge. Don't know who the maker is though. Any idea Ronny? Incidentally, I notice often when he plays his strings are different colours. Is this harking back to the old tradition of associating different strings with the different humours (blood, bile, lymph, phlegm), represented by different colours?

DaveH - 4-18-2008 at 05:03 AM

Sorry, forgot the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ggyCUoeYKI

SamirCanada - 4-18-2008 at 06:41 AM

the strings are the copper Aquila set.
their is a thread somewhere where he told a forum member what strings he used.
anyways they are copper and nylgut. (red and white)

DaveH - 4-18-2008 at 07:09 AM

Hi Samir

i didn't mean the video in Aresene's link. I have a feeling I've other seen photos of Rahim AlHaj with different colours (red, yellow, white, black, I think - which are the colours used for to represent the humours).

SamirCanada - 4-18-2008 at 08:19 AM

that was in Zyriab's time.
Basically in the middle ages when oud players used guts from different animals. Zyriab is also known to have added a string to the oud and he had it made out of a young lion's gut.
I haven't heard of anyone doing this today.

I am not sure it was ever about actually having the colour to the string but rather a figurative way of speaking about the tone each string gave.
could you share with us the documentation where you have found the info?
thanks

DaveH - 4-18-2008 at 08:43 AM

Hey Samir

Hmm. I thought I saw it on his CD booklet but that's in a box in storage at the moment (i still listen to it on MP3 - it's a great recording). Can't see any support for this notion on his website either. Maybe I just saw the red and white of the copper set, mistook the inlay lines on one of his fingerboards for strings and took the rest from my overly romantic imagination along the lines of the Ziryab story. :D Nice idea though.

Looking at the pics, he has some lovely ouds though. Only one appears to have a standard fawzy design but the sound of all of them seems very simialr to fawzy. I like the sound he goes for very much. Delicate and flexible.

Rahim Al Haj

eviloud - 4-18-2008 at 09:35 PM

I asked this same question a few weeks ago and Rahim was kind enough to reply: " my Oud maker his name is Farhan Hassan he is great oud maker from Baghdad and he is still living there now."
Hope this helps...

arsene - 4-19-2008 at 03:17 AM

Rahim's on this forum? That's nice!

DaveH - 4-20-2008 at 03:15 AM

Thanks for bringing up the subject of AlHaj, Arsene. I've been looking at some of the stuff on the web about him. I always really admired his music but he has some very sound and well thought through opinions about music and the world too.

There's a nice interview with him at http://www.rootsworld.com/interview/rahim.shtml

'Rahim objects to the common use of the term "world music", declaring, "There is nothing that is really Western or Eastern music--we made that all up. What is so-called "world music"? That completely depends on your perspective, where you are located yourself. What is exotic in one place is commonplace or traditional in another. There is only the world, and there is only music."'

I couldn't agree more.

Christian1095 - 5-3-2008 at 09:41 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by DaveH
You can see the oud better in this video, which is a very good one. Floating bridge. Don't know who the maker is though. Any idea Ronny? Incidentally, I notice often when he plays his strings are different colours. Is this harking back to the old tradition of associating different strings with the different humours (blood, bile, lymph, phlegm), represented by different colours?


Someone was asking for a reference to this...

From "The Music of the Arabs" by Habib Hassan Touma
ISBN 1-57467-081-6

Pg 111

"Up until the fifteenth century, the Arabs differentiated between the ud qadim, the old ud, that was strung with four strings tuned in fourths, and the ud kamil, the 'complete ud' which had five strings. The four strings of the ud qadim were identified with the four body humors and the four tempraments of man known to the medicine of classical antiquity. Ziryab colored the hightest string yellow (zir) which symbolized bile: The second highest was red (mathna) for blood, the third white (mathlath) for phlem, and the lowest string black (bam) for black bile. The additional fith string, inserted by Zirzab between mathna and mathlath, symbolized the soul, since the four body humors, as he maintiained, could not exist without the soul.... Furthermore, instead of plucking the strings of the ud with the wooden plectrum customary up until then, Ziryab began to use the quill of an egal feather"

I don't know how good Mr Touma's research is and there were no footnotes, but there it is....

Chris