Imagine...
Would you like to hear your friends and family say, “Your Oud playing is so beautiful!”... ?
Would you like to see your friends and family dance to your Oud playing?
Would you like to appreciate more fully the aesthetic beauty of your Oud playing when you play for yourself?
Do you want to create that “Ohh yeahh…!” feeling every time you play the Oud for yourself?
Are you getting bored with your Oud playing?
Have you felt like your Oud playing is too simple, maybe even boring?
Have you felt like your Oud playing hasn’t improved much over the last few months?
A lot of people come to me for Oud lessons wanting to take their Oud playing to the next level.
Some people play too elementarily.
Others play too intensely without taste, like they’re fighting the Oud.
They feel stuck, like they are not progressing. They are not sure how to proceed, or what they should change about their playing.
I’ve often heard my students say...
“I really want feel like I’m playing something nice”
“I want to know how the pros do it”
“I get bored after playing for a while”
“I’m having trouble with tremolo”
“My right hand is slow”
Feeling like this can really prevent you from enjoying your Oud, and having fun.
It might make you shy to perform for friends and family.
It can cause lack of motivation and you’ll put away the Oud for some time.
I remember when I switched over from being a Santour player to being an Oud player.
At times, I felt very naked.
The Santour fills up the space with sound, and you can do so much with a little bit of tremolo.
But the Oud isn’t like that.
It’s gentle and soft. Adding too much tremolo for the sake of trying to play more robustly can take away from the finesse and caress that makes people fall in love with the sound of the Oud.
I realized I had to take a different approach.
I had to change the way I thought about ornamentation and embellishment and creating sound that is appropriate for the instrument.
It’s kind of like adding seasoning to food. Adding no seasoning or too much seasoning can ruin the dish. You need to know which seasoning to use and how much to add in order to make a great dish.
Fast-forward 8 years
When I play the Oud…
My mom sings along with my music…
My friends start to snap & clap to the music…
I appreciate the aesthetic beauty of my own playing…
I don’t get bored after playing and practicing… (I can practice all day long)
Now I feel like a confident Oud player, and I’m excited to learn more and keep playing.
So what happened in the last 8 years? What changed?
The Secrets I discovered
Two things happened:
- I started performing regularly and received more feedback about my playing…
- I started listening to Arabic Oud players…
I realized you have to play the Oud in a way which showcases the strengths of the instrument.
What do I mean?
There are many ways to play the Oud, BUT there are certain techniques and tricks that sound GREAT when played on Oud.
The most commonly used techniques that showcase the beauty of the Oud are what I call…
The 5 Golden Ornaments
That means, of all the techniques you can play on the Oud, there are 5 that create the majority of the outstanding character of Oud playing, and applying these techniques is going to make you AND your friends and family enjoy your Oud playing.
Can you guess what these 5 techniques are?
- Tremolo
- Doubling Up
- Bass Note Jumping
- Trills
- Hammer-on Pull-off Combinations
These are the techniques that create dynamics in the music and make it sound authentic and full even if you are playing the Oud by yourself.
Okay, but how do you play them, and how do you apply them to a piece of music?
How to play the techniques is relatively easy to show, but it took me a while to figure out how to apply them. It took a lot of listening, researching, and trial and error.
After doing many tutorials and teaching students, I’ve finally consolidated them into one easy-to-follow program.
YOU don’t have to waste time trying and figuring out how to tastefully add these techniques and embellish a tune.
