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The Definition of The Oud Instrument
The Oud instrument is considered as the first stringed instrument in music history. Started with only two strings, then developed to three, then five strings that live till now since the days of Lamech, sixth-generations after ADEM!!
According to El-Farabee, the Oud dates back to the days of Lamech; a sixth-generation descendant of Adam. Lamech was known as the “Father of the Oud players”. The first appearance of the Oud was 3000 BC. The desecrated skeleton suggested the form of the Oud. Oud is known as the first stringed instrument in history.
The oldest pictorial record of an Oud dates back to the Uruk period in Southern Mesopotamia (Iraq), over 5000 years ago on a cylinder seal acquired by Dr. Dominique Collon and the seal is currently housed at the British Museum.
Ramy Adly is a young master of the oud, the versatile lute-like instrument that shaped Arab classical music. Grounded in the main Arab classical styles thanks to rigorous training in his native Egypt, Adly has branched out repeatedly, incorporating jazz idioms and embracing conversations with other musicians around the world.
Adly has performed around the Middle East, Europe, and North America. He has composed music for theater and film, and gathered a large number of students around the world, via an innovative online curriculum for The School of Oud Online. His sensitive, robust playing has been heard from the Library at Alexandria to American cathedrals and schools.
Now based in Washington, DC, Adly continues to expand the possibilities of his instrument. “I want to bring the oud to the same level as the guitar culturally, the instrument that’s everywhere and can do everything,” he exclaims.
For Adly, the oud has always been like a member of the family. Nearly everyone in his family played the oud when he was growing up in Cairo, including uncles, siblings, and his beloved grandfather, who gave him his first introduction to the complex, evocative instrument. “I grew up listening to the oud,” he recalls.
Listening is one thing, and mastering the instrument another. Adly plunged into his study of this age-old instrument at the Arab Oud House, with Iraqi oud virtuoso Naseer Shamma. Adly found himself practicing for a dozen hours a day, and loving it. “It was a lot like the system Paganini established for his students,” Adly explains. “You have to go through the fire to be trained as a performer and composer. I graduated as both composer and soloist.”
Under Shamma’s direction, Adly played at major Cairo venues as part of small chamber groups and large orchestral ensembles. He performed at international oud conferences, book conventions, film festivals, and, notably, at the Library in Alexandria, where he became an Artist in Residence and gave numerous talks on the history of music (including one as part of a TEDx event at the Library).
The diverse venues and audiences speak to Adly’s ability to welcome listeners into his instrument’s complex world and reveal fresh sides of ancient music. His foundation: the varied musical approaches to the oud that sprang from different regions in the Middle East. “To really know the oud, you need to know its different styles. The Egyptian style is much slower, more dedicated to improvisation, to freer rhythms and more contemplative feelings,” Adly notes. “There specific maqams and microtones that are only used in Egypt. The Iraqi style is more dynamic, faster paced. There’s a lot more showmanship. It has a completely different feeling to it.”
Adly has full command of both, a broad vocabulary that has aided him in his exploration of the oud’s many facets. Adly has built a reputation as a skillful composer who can merge Arab and Western sensibilities seamlessly. He composed part of the score for David Cunningham’s upcoming feature film, Day of War. He created commissioned works for a Cairo production of a Llorca play, “Blood Wedding,” supported by the Spanish Embassy, and for a Florida congregation, collaborating with a large choir and pipe organist.
Whether arranging jazz pieces for an oud lead, or writing original music with global influences–a project he debuted at DC’s Kennedy Center, Adly remains devoted to his instrument and the music it makes. “Music is my destiny,” muses Adly. “it’s something that brings me my dreams.”
Visit the official website of Ramy Adly to follow his concerts: www.ramyadly.com
This interview describes some of Ramy’s concerts and successful works along with his vision of the Oud. He also talks about how it was published in the United States. Ramy also talks about his School of Oud Online.
Following his early oud lessons, Adly relates, he studied intensively at the Arabic Oud House, a music school in Cairo, while pursuing a business degree at Assiut University, in his home town. He later worked as a music lecturer.
Also on Adly’s résumé: a busy teaching regimen via Skype. His School of Oud Online has reached fledgling players in at least 27 countries, including Norway, he says. Now that he is living in the Washington area, he dreams of founding a brick-and-mortar oud school.
“I’d love to add this instrument to American history,” he says.
On Aug. 28, noted oud player Ramy Adly appeared on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage in Washington, DC. The purpose of his performance was “to introduce the West to the oud” and to the beautiful sounds of this 4,000-year-old instrument. To showcase the oud for an American audience, Adly even performed a rendition of “Amazing Grace,” which while beautiful, felt slightly forced. He excelled most in musical styles for which the oud is most known, but the range of styles he was able to showcase can be viewed as an invitation to incorporate the oud into genres that may overlook the versatility of this ancient stringed instrument.
This interview talks about Ramy Adly’s concert at the Kennedy Center. Radio Sawa interviewed Adly on his project, as one of the best musical projects of the Oud instrument in the world and talks about his band and his compositions. Ramy Adly released his album, “Mirage” at the concert.
This year’s event was attended by 600 guests, represented officials from the World Bank, Congress, U.S. Department of State, diplomats and Arab-American communities and organizations. While enjoying Egyptian oud player and composer Ramy Adly and international Syrian Opera singer Lubana Al Quntar mesmerized the crowd with music and song.
Ramy Adly starts his interview of talking about his childhood and his beloved Oud that he found at his family’s house in Assuit, Egypt. He headed to Cairo to learn more about the Oud instrument at the Arab Oud House, taught by Naseer Shamma. After Ramy’s successful graduation concert, he started his career of teaching the Oud at the world famous Alexandria Library. He has traveled studying the performing arts in Hawaii, USA and finally established his School of Oud Online based in Washington, D.C.