The Chraibi Slide

  Want to play like a pro? Then I’ve got just the technique for you. I call it, the Chraibi Slide. Check out the video below to learn how to do it!     The Chraibi Slide – Oud Technique   Difficulty: Advanced Prerequisites techniques: Trill, Tremolo, Slide. See the Foundation Program to learn how to play these core Oud techniques in-depth.  What? The Chraibi slide is a flourished slide…

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Pull-Offs – Oud Techniques

  As I promised, you’re going to learn how to do a pull-off on the Oud. It’s a great technique to learn and it goes hand in hand with Hammer-ons. I admit, it was very challenging to try and teach this technique. It’s so much easier to teach one on one, but when you have a larger audience and you’re not in-person, you always hope you are making sense. So…

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Accented Tremolo – Basic Right Hand Oud Technique

  I am so happy to see that you are following the Oud technique series videos and articles. This one is about a basic and fundamental Oud technique called…   Accented Tremolo This is a technique that can be used in pretty much any situation. It is used Oud styles as it is fundamental to creating music on the Oud. Accented tremolo is also very important in Persian music. I…

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Bass Note Jumping – Melody Embellishment Oud Technique

  We are following up last week’s drone technique video with a technique that will help you embellish your melody and help you sound like a pro, I call it… Bass Note Jumping. This technique is widely used by professional Oud players and in theory is very easy, it just takes some practice to get the right intonation. I was actually specifically asked by someone to discuss this technique a…

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The Drone – Right Hand Oud Taqsim Technique

  After talking with the Oud for Guitarists community we realized that people often struggle with 2 things when learning or playing the Oud: 1. Maqamat and 2. Techniques! That’s why we created the Maqam Mastery Program, and now that it has been completed, we’ve decided to start making a video series demonstrating various techniques that can be used on the Oud. They may be right hand techniques, they may be…

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Oud Maqam Learning Part 1: Maqam Learning Made Easy!

Okay, so you want to hear a melody, understand it and be able to play it authentically… But you find maqam music so hard to play, can’t recognize the maqams by ear, or remember them all…or all of the above? If so, check out this Oud Maqam Learning video series: Part 1: Maqam Learning Made Easy! (you are checking out this one) Part 2: The Ultimate Introduction to Maqam Music…

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Pianos Are Out of Tune – A Discussion on Equal Temperament and Oud Music

Did you know Pianos are intentionally tuned “out of tune”? Yes it’s true. Modern Pianos are all tuned using a system called “Equal Temperament”. In fact, you can’t use your ear to tune a Piano in equal temperament because our ears don’t hear notes in this manner. Piano tuners use a device and they need to know how much each note needs to be “out of tune” in order to…

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Words of Wisdom – from World Famous Oud Masters

  It is every Oud learner’s dream to study with world famous professional Oud players. Yet many of us only get to see these Oud masters in person at their concerts if they ever come into our town, and getting personal advice and their secrets from them seems like another dream.   To help all Oud learners out there with similar urge to listen to renowned Oud masters’ words of…

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Maqam Hijaz Medley

  As I introduced in my article, Arabic Maqam Theory – A Brief Introduction, there are many maqams that are commonly used in the Middle Eastern music, and each maqam has smaller sections. Some maqams sound very similar because they share same notes. Same but different. This may have caused some of you to think, “Do I need to learn all these maqams before I can play the Oud?”  …

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Oud Lessons Re-Release Update!

  Thank you to those of you who have shown interest and support for our learning material and Oud lessons in the last few weeks. We hope the content of our website has been useful to you. We have been brainstorming ideas for new learning material for a long time, and we are excited to finally share these with you. As you may or may not know, Oud for Guitarists…

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