Oud Method for Persian Music

by Negar Bouban

The book you are about to begin presents 12 lessons on Oud techniques for Persian music; techniques and details of ornaments and embellishments necessary to play if one wants to sound as authentic as possible in Persian Music, as is with most of the music in the middle east. These lessons would work best with students who have passed the elementary stages in playing the Oud and know the basics, like picking down and up correctly, moving with ease through strings of the Oud, different fingerings, and tetrachords/scales on the instrument. With these 12 lessons, Oud learners can develop both their skills and appreciation for Persian music, through techniques in both hands for ornaments, along with how to apply them to some of the well-known Persian Classical pieces. Eventually, it would lead to a better understanding and therefore a better performance of the music. In fact, without these details, what you play would never sound Persian enough. This book of 12 lessons can also serve as a practical guide to those learning Oud as a second instrument or in a different style or genre of music; in case they have an interest in the Persian version and would like to learn how embellishments work in Persian melodies, to give it the so-called Persian accent, and how we usually transcribe them in Persian sheet music. Lessons in this book are separated by each technique. The performance of each technique is presented after an introduction and the notation in each lesson.