The Arabic High ff Tuning is a great way to add range and versatility to the Oud.
I used to wonder why you would want to add range to the Oud, but after learning a few songs using this tuning, I’ve really come to like the Arabic High ff Tuning.
How to do it
You have to buy a special set of strings to try this tuning. Or you can buy single Arabic high ff strings, and add them to your Oud.
There are a few string sets that come with the high ‘ff’ strings.
Aquila Brand
La Bella Brand
D’Addario Brand
You can buy these string sets at Oudstrings.com. You can also buy a normal set of Arabic Oud strings and buy single high ‘ff’ strings.
Most Ouds have room for 6 courses tuned:
low to high strings
CC FF AA DD gg cc
With Arabic high ff tuning you need to get rid of the bass C string, and move your FF strings to where the low CC strings were, leaving space open for the highest ‘ff’ strings.
In the end, it will look like this:
F AA DD gg cc ff
Warning:
DO NOT try to tune your ‘cc’ strings up to ‘ff’. They are NOT meant to be stretched that much. You can damage your Oud or break your strings. Use only strings that are meant to be tuned to high ‘ff’.
Here’s my take on the whole thing
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Hi Navid, always enjoying your posts. I have a question related to this one. Do all ouds have room for 6 double courses (in other words, having 12 pegs) even though you end up using a single bass C string? Or only some of them have this extra space? On the oud I was using there were 12 pegs and I was always in doubt if that was meant for double bass or high ff tuning. Do you have any clues about this?
Thanks!
Best.
I’ve never seen a set of strings with two bass C strings, they are really thick, and I don’t think they are meant to be paired. I think the 12 peg Ouds are mainly for facilitating the high ff srings. But you can do just as easily with an Oud with 11 pegs. You just sacrifice one bass F/G string, which works fine.
Only some Ouds have extra space. My Oud only has room for 11 pegs. Some Ouds still only have space for 5 paired courses. I’ve seen OudProff use one of those his channel. Thanks for your comment!
Hi Navid,
I have a Godin MultiOud which is fitted with D’Addario oud strings. Godin recommends the high FF tuning which these strings are designed for, but most of the time I tune the low single string to D, as I find the tuning then works well for D-based maqamat.
Cheers,
Al
Yes, that works too!
Hi Navid,
I tune my MultiOud so that the low single string and the 4th course are tuned to concert pitch D, but then to ensure the other open strings are in tune for Just Tempered intervals, the A course is two cents sharp, the G course is two cents flat, the C course is four cents flat and the F course is 16 cents sharp. Obviously if I was to base the tuning around F rather than D, these fine tunings would change. How do you and other Oud players tune for Just Tempered intervals please and what tuner do you use?
Cheers,
Al