Hays Travelogue

21 - Practice Room in Beit al Oud
Originally uploaded by tamra hays

One of the reasons we came to Cairo was because Mike wanted to study oud in an Arabic country. He first saw one of these ancient instruments about 15 years ago in John Truitt’s office at Albuquerque Academy. It was old and had no strings, but it was love at first site. He eventually bought it from John, but then came the problem of how to play it. There were no oud players in Albuquerque then, so he found a guy in New York who agreed to give lessons by telephone. Needless to say, that didn’t work too well. Luckily, Rahim al Haj moved to Albuquerque, and he agreed to give Mike lessons. In Cairo, Mike has been able to take lessons at Beit al Oud as well as private lessons with Ghassan al Youssef.

Here are some oud links for those of you who want more information.

For the history of the instrument and an extensive list of musicians and luthiers, see Wikipedia’s article on the oud.

For a sampling of music, here are two musicians we like: Naseer Shama and Rahim al Haj. Both are Iraqi, and both studied at the Baghdad Conservatory with Munir Bashir. Naseer Shama lives in Cairo, and Rahim lives in Albuquerque. Rahim’s album, When The Soul Is Settled was nominated for a Grammy award.

To buy an oud, check out Maurice Shehata Ouds. Mike bought a beautiful ebony and spruce oud from him. The workshop is a tiny place near Demerdesh Metro Station in Cairo.