Oud Links!

There are a lot of pages on the Web about ouds. Many of them are interlinked, so you can find most of them by starting at nearly any point. But here are some good places to begin:

General information

• Kaira Records' Oud Home Page
• THE CHARM OF THE 'UD(E)
• History of the Oud from the Armenian Heritage web site
• American Recording Productions, with a focus on Armenian music, and my favorite source for recordings.

Builders

• Want to build your own? There's a book on the subject by Richard Hankey. Click here to go to "Dr. Oud's" new page.
• Andy's oud links -- includes performances, pictures of 'ouds of several different styles, and useful links
• Viken Najarian
• Oudmaster, Faruk Turunz Oud Shop. This page is mostly in Turkish
• Cankaya Music, the shop of luthier Saadettin Sandi

Players

• Kane Mathis, performer and teacher in Seattle
• For the do-it-yourselfer, there's a new how-to book (with CD) by John Bilezikjian and published by Hal Leonard. I ordered my copy from American Recording Productions, above.
• Nikos Dimitriadis, with a number of useful links
• Gregor Schaefer's Ud Web / Oud Web, probably the most extensive list of links
• Brian Prunka's page, with a very thorough discussion of theory and technique
• Our friend Sarah Funk, with her performance schedule
• A bit further afield, unless of course you live in Paris or Baghdad, Fawzy Al-Aiedy and his different ensembles.

Vendors

• Silver Bush World Music
• Ouds -- Lark in the Morning's page by David Brown. I bought my first oud from their store here in Seattle.
• Pooyesh mall, an online source for things Persian.

Strings, specifically

• JustStrings.com (D'Addario and GHS singles)
• Big City Strings (La Bella)

Miscellaneous

• The Oud -- David Parfitt's page, with links to players and builders
• A Guitarist's Introduction To The Oud
• Pablo's oud page -- A slick, commercial site with pop-ups
• Cafe Arabica's The Oud: Instrument of the Ages -- with pictures of luthier Najib Shaheen