Oud tuner

The courses in Hz

C F A D G C

Other tunings

At A4 = 440 Hz; the reference switch above moves them all.

How to tune an oud with this tuner

Tap Start tuning, allow the microphone and play the lowest course, the single C, with the risha or a finger. The needle shows which way it is off; turn the peg until it stands in the middle, and at five cents or closer a tick comes and the tuner asks for the next course up. For a pair, tune one string while a finger rests on its partner, then play both and bring the partner onto it until the two stop beating. With the microphone off, a tap plays the course's note; on a phone's speaker the courses below A2 sound an octave up.

Oud pegs are plain wood held by friction. Push the peg into the pegbox as you turn it, a little at a time, and come up to the note from below: a peg turned past the note and backed off is the one that slips in the middle of a taqsim. A peg that sticks or slips wants peg compound, not more force. When all six have ticked, go round once more: bringing one course up pulls the others a little flat.

Arabic oud tuning: C F A D G C or D G A D G C

Most Arabic ouds have eleven strings, five pairs and a single bass, and both tunings are standard. The upper four courses are the same, A2 D3 G3 C4, in fourths. The bass is where they differ: C2 and F2, a fourth apart, then a major third up to the A; or D2 and G2, then a whole tone up to the A. Which one is your teacher's and your repertoire's call. Most ouds take either; a set made for the D and G bass gets slack and buzzes when it's lowered to C and F, so buy strings for the tuning you play.

A third layout keeps the C bass and puts the fifth course on G: C2 G2 A2 D3 G3 C4 (65.4 · 98.0 · 110.0 · 146.8 · 196.0 · 261.6 Hz). Choose D G A D G C above and tune the single bass to C on the chromatic tuner. The single bass is the free string: players set it to suit the maqam and the piece.

Arab players name the courses by their maqam notes: kirdan (C4), nawa (G3), dukah (D3), ʿushayran (A2), and below them yakah (G2) in the D tuning or the low jaharkah (F2) in the C tuning.

Tuning an oud by ear

To tune by ear, set one course with the needle or from another instrument, the wound A or D, which holds better than the nylon G and C. Then stop the lower course where its fourth falls (on the A course, the D) and bring the next open course onto it until the beating stops. Work up the fourths; between F and A (C tuning) or G and A (D tuning), match the third or the whole tone instead.

Turkish oud tuning

The Turkish oud is a little smaller, with a string length near 58 cm against 60 to 62 cm on an Arabic oud, and it's tuned higher: the upper four courses a whole tone above the Arabic ones, B2 E3 A3 D4. The two bass courses vary with the school.

The switch above has the two Arabic tunings only. For a Turkish oud, use the chromatic tuner, which names any note, with this table. Turkish scores are written at one pitch level and played at another (the ahenk), so tune by the sounding notes here, not by the notes on the page. Iraqi-school players, after Munir Bashir, often order the courses differently again; whatever the order, each string has one note, and the chromatic tuner reads it.

No quarter tones in the open strings

The oud's quarter tones, the half-flat E of maqam rast or bayati, are stopped by the fingers; no open string carries one. The open courses are ordinary notes, and the tuner's equal-tempered targets are the right ones. With no frets, the open strings are also the only fixed points on the instrument: an A course 10 cents off moves every note you stop on it.

When an oud won't stay in tune

• New strings are nylon and wound nylon and stretch for days. After stringing, tune up, pull each string gently away from the face, tune again, and expect to retune every session for the first week.
• A pair that won't agree is usually one old string and one new, or two strings of a pair from different sets. Change pairs together.
• Pegs slip in dry air and stick in damp air; peg compound fixes both. A peg worn loose in its hole is a job for a luthier.
• The body is a thin top on a bowl of thin ribs, and it moves with the room. Carried in from the cold, give the oud a quarter of an hour before you tune.

Oud tuner app or online

Nothing to download, no APK: this tuner runs in the browser on Android, iPhone, a tablet or a laptop with Windows or a Mac, and reads the microphone in the tab. No account, nothing recorded.

Oud and guitar

The oud is not a fretless guitar. It has a bowl back, paired strings, no frets, and a tuning in fourths broken once near the bottom: by a third, F to A, in the C tuning, or a whole tone, G to A, in the D tuning. A guitar's break sits higher, the third between the G and B strings. A guitarist's fourths carry over; the break is in another place.

The notes you tuned go into Brumm as a short melody over a beat.