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🎨 The arts 🎵 Music and dance

The oud

The oud

📖 In short

The oud is one of the oldest and best-loved Arab musical instruments, called “the sultan of instruments”. It has a big round wooden body like half a pear, a short neck, and strings the player plucks with a small pick.

🤩 Did you know?

  • An oud usually has five or six pairs of strings.
  • The oud is played with a pick that used to be made from an eagle feather.
  • Famous Arab oud players include Farid al-Atrash and Munir Bashir.
  • Making a good oud takes a skilled craftsman and special wood.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 A special shape

The oud's back is rounded and made of thin strips of wood glued side by side, and its flat front has beautiful decorated sound holes. Its head is bent backward.

🔍 No frets

The oud's neck is smooth with no frets like a guitar, so the player can play all the subtle notes of Arabic music, but needs a good musical ear.

💡 Ziryab and the fifth string

It's said that the musician Ziryab added a fifth string to the oud and brought the art of the oud to al-Andalus more than a thousand years ago.

🎯 From oud to guitar

The oud passed from al-Andalus to Europe, where people made a similar instrument called the “lute”, whose name comes from the Arabic word “al-oud”.

📸 More pictures

The oud
The oud
The oud

🧩 Test yourself

1 What is the oud's nickname?

2 Which European instrument got its name from the oud?

3 Which picture shows “The oud”?

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📷 Picture sources: Wikimedia Commons