Oud, an ancient string instrument can be called the representative sound of the music of the Arabs. It is played widely and enjoys great deal of popularity. Despite oud being mentioned often in the Urdu and Persian poetry written in the subcontinent, the musical instrument is not fully known to the musicians let alone the people at large. Even the experts are unaware of its capacity to create music and the subtle variations of the microtones that rule classical muqaam music. Our music has deep connections with the music of the Arabs and Persians but the linkages have somehow been snapped -- not in the playing of our own musical instruments but in its historical connections and theoretical understanding.
Iraqi musician, Naseer Shamma Ali can be classified as one of the greats among the oud players in contemporary times. He was born in Kut, Iraq in 1963 and took his initial oud lessons from his teacher, Saheb Hussein Al Namoos. In 1987 -- his graduation year at the Institute of Musical Studies where he was an undergraduate student studying tonalities -- oud became his specialty and helped him win the "Best Melody of an Emotional Song in Iraq" award.
He received another award for the soundtrack of the play "The Country asked the People" by Abdul Latif Akl and directed by Al Monasef El Souissi in 1988.
At the moment, Naseer Shamma Ali, finds the work of oud player Ali Al Imam very inspiring and considers him to be his spiritual mentor. Ali connects traditional oud playing with the current wave of experimentation.
Ali has played at a large number of concerts both in and outside the Arab world. Beginning from his first concert at the Arabic Music Forum in France where he performed alongside the top artists of his country, he went on to perform in places like Germany and Switzerland. His first solo concert was in the Armenian Theatre in Paris in 1985; and in Iraq, in the hall of "Orfali" in Baghdad the same year. He has also performed with Munir Bashir -- arguably one of the finest oud players and a great influence on Naseer Shamma Ali -- in six concerts in West Germany.
The virtuoso who visited Pakistan last week is also well versed in contemporary music and has brought about many innovations in the instrument and its playing. Back in 1986, he presented his oud to professionals in Iraq at a grand ceremony which was modelled on Farabi’s ancient design of the instrument.
Ali was imprisoned for many months in Iraq before a plea was made by Princess Noor, Queen of Jordan because his music was in violation of the strict censorship laws during Saddam Hussein’s regime. After his release, he moved to Jordan and stayed there for a year.
He has taught at the Higher Institute of Music, University of Tunisia where he was a professor of oud in 1993. In addition to organising and heading Egypt’s first oud forum in the Cairo Opera House in 2010, he also founded the "Arab Oud House" in Egypt in 1999.
While Egypt has been his country of residence since 1999, he has been travelling and performing all over the world besides managing his own oud institutions in Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Alexandria, Tunis and Berlin.
Legend has it that the oud was created during the early Pharanoic era. According to Farabi, however, it was invented by Lamech, the father of Noah. The origin of the name ‘oud’, however, is not clear.
The Arabic word, Al-Ud literally refers to a thin straw-like piece of wood. The word could also be a reference to the wooden plectrum used for strumming the oud, the thin strips of wood used for the back of the instrument, or the wooden soundboard that makes it look markedly different from similar instruments with skin-faced bodies.
Researcher Eckhard Neubauer has suggested that oud may be an Arabic borrowing from the Persian word rod or rud meaning string, stringed instrument, or lute. Researcher/ musicologist Richard J. Dumbrill has come to the conclusion that the word rud comes from the Sanskrit word rudri which means stringed instrument.
Ouds today fall into two categories -- Arabic and Turkish. Interestingly enough, in today’s time, Turkish ouds can be found in Greece and the Mediterranean too whereas Arabic ouds (normally referring to Iraqi, Egyptian and Syrian ouds) can be found in various other places as well. The latter are usually bigger in size and produce a deeper sound as compared to the shrill sound of the former; they are also more lightly constructed with an unfinished soundboard, lower string action and with string courses closer together. The scale length of Arabic ouds is between 61cm and 62cm and that of Turkish ouds is 58.5cm.
The organ, hardly ever been played as a solo instrument in the subcontinent, is a traditional string instrument also threatened by the onslaught of electronic-generated sounds and computerised music making. There should be more visits by Arab and Iranian artistes/ musicians; there have been none for many decades now. Even when our artists visit Dubai, which they do very frequently, they hardly mix with musicians from that region.