Other than Oud what do you play?

I mostly play the hammered dulcimer and Arabic tablah. I love my oud, but I am not good at it yet (some would just call me an "oud owner" )

Prior to discovering the beautiful world of the oud, I used to play the Arabic tabla (a.k.a dumbak)..
Started playing during in-between-class breaks drumming on the table with my fingers while classmates dance and add their grooves drumming on their tables too..
The first tabla I got was a red-snake-leather type from Syria (very common in Syria and Egypt)..
You can get them from eBay or any middle eastern ethnic shops worldwide.. not so hard to find

I am first and foremost a guitarist.

I got into ethnic instruments when I discovered the Romanian cobza (Romanian small version of the oud but strung with bouzouki strings, see http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=2235#pid470... )

so now I play:

guitar(s)
cobza
oud
bouzouki
saz (ozun sap)

I also play egyptian tabla.

I own a kaval but cannot say I really play it well

I would really like to get my hands on a lebanese or syrian buzuk...

The qanun! And I just got one, but it damaged in shipping The bridge cracked on the bass side and now I am working out the details with the seller. It is a Sukar qanun and it is not bad for the money, but not up to the quality of Sukar's ouds (I think that is more of the price of the qanun than the maker).

YES!!

Some days it feels like having a lot of attention-demanding wives, and you start thinking you would have probably been better off sticking to monogamy, but then you play a couple of them and you realise why you got 'em in the first place...


Ok, that probably sounded a little weird.

I started on viola in 7-9th grade, but gave it up when I went to high school. I keep thinking I'd like to get back to the viola or violin (I actually have one with a missing string in the closet) but have been putting it off due to the initial awful-sounding period I'd have to go through, as well as the sore neck!

I also started guitar shortly after the viola and have kept that up, although the oud has been getting most of my attention for the past couple of years.

Similar to Chris, when my wife got interested in belly dancing, I got interested in the music and we both eventually took up Arabic percussion. After a couple of years of studying rhythms I switched to oud.

Here's the full list, or as much as I can think of at the moment:
acoustic & electric guitars, electric bass, mandolin, joura (small-bodied bouzouki), oud, balalaika, drumset, arabic percussion, one-handed keyboards

I took a semester of flute in college many years ago, but kept running out of breath. I'd love to play nay, but I suspect I'd have the same problem...

I've also dabbled in electronic music and computer/synth noise-stuff.

My wife has given up dancing and now sings in Arabic and is studying qanun, so I mess around with that a bit, but I can't stand wearing picks on my fingers.

Nathan
http://www.alazifoon.com
http://www.easternstrings.com

have a look

The guitars are both beautiful and it took me a long time to find the "style" of classical guitar that I really liked - gentler sound, lighter action than the really loud, bassy ones that are the norm these days. But they've been criminally neglected of recent years owing to a growing obsession with things round-backed. I like the way the sound is much more subtle and multi-dimensional than the guitar.

I got into the renaissance lute first as I loved the sound and, like the oud, because it was THE instrument at the time, there's a huge amount of really beautiful music for it - not just of the "men in tights" variety. Then I branched out to baroque lute which is a totally different beast. To be honest I've made limited progress on this - all those strings and a quite different right hand technique have seen to that, plus spending a lot of time in countries with very unforgiving climates - 100% humidity and air contitioning is not the environment to take a delicate instrument like a lute - believe me, I found out the hard way. But I still play a few pieces and it sounds fantastic, even with me at the helm - soft, but really deep and strong.

So I've lost my guitar technique (and my nails) because I got into lutes, but with too many roundbacks to concentrate on I've never really mastered any of them (oud included). If there was a royal society for the prevention of cruelty to musical instruments, they'd confiscate my gorgeous guitars and probably force me to concentrate on one of the lutes only. But I couldn't give any of them up because, even with limited skill, they make such lovely noises when I do pick them up. What are you going to do?

Once I had a plan to collect a whole bunch of plucked string instruments, but I underestimated the effort in learning an instrument well and it's really sad just to have them on a wall or locked up in a case unused. So i'm pretty much resigned to sticking to these for life now. But if I had to choose a new one I think I'd go for the setar. Or maybe a corsican cetera, which is a kind of cittern with 8 strings. Or a portuguese guitar for some homely fado...

I play guitar most often. I can manage on bass, mandolin and citera (hungarian zither) as well.

What I find most refreshing in playing the oud and guitar is that each instrument has its limitations and the other instrument excels in the same area. I mean the oud is mainly a melodic instrument with no frets, so there is a lot of freedom in playing it, but the scales are limited mostly because of the 'droning' lower strings. The guitar gives you a lot of freedom in playing scales in different keys. I play mostly chords with occasional solos - so not much focus on the melody side.

Convoluted theory, I know.