manofarag
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fearing a string breaking
When I am tuning my Egyptian oud (5strings + bass), I always seem to have trouble tuning the 2nd pair gg to the correct octave, it always feels like
I'm going to break the string, can i just tune everything else down a octave? i am sorry I am new to this and fear loosing more strings 
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Jody Stecher
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Do you really mean "an octave"? That much difference in tension would produce no musical sound at all. The strings would be loose. Have you got the
right strings on there? I ask this because the usual problem with the gg course is that it is too loose, not too tight. Anyway you can tune your oud
down a whole step and it will sound good. Many players do that just because it sounds good, not because of a tension problem.
one more thought: is there any chance you are counting in reverse order? the first pair of strings is the thinnest.
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manofarag
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I really have no musical experience so I'll just outline in more detail my problem Jody!
1.) Im tuning my Oud E A D G C (C being the closest to the ground/thinnest string)
2.) My confusion is when I'm tuning how do I know to kinda of which 'E' for instance do I tune the E string too? My electric tuner shows many
different E's at different Hz
3.) To summerize I don't know at which tension I should stop twisting the pegs really
4.) I think I mean tuning it down a whole step rather than an octave
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Jody Stecher
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You want gg to be 196 hz. maybe someone else can give the other pitches. but that's all you need. In an earlier post you had mentioned your affection
for Lamma Bada. the pitch difference between any two adjacent strings in the EAdgc tuning you are using should sound like the first 2 notes in that
song.
The first word has two syllables. Lam-ma. So for instance if gg is Lam then cc will be ma. dd is Lam then gg is ma. and so on.
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manofarag
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Thank you so much, if possible could you give me a small amount of information about strings? For instance for gg is there a specific width of string
that I need? What characteristics are needed for each string? I actually have some classical guitar strings, would I be able to use those on my oud in
the future or no?
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Brian Prunka
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Mood: Stringish
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On a typical Egyptian oud, the second course string tuned to g should typically be between .028in (.72mm) and .032in (.82mm) if using nylon, depending
on the scale length of the oud and the desired tension.
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