Fretless, pear-bodied — a warm, full low-mid voice, ornamented with fast tremolo strokes.
The ud is a plucked lute with a deep, pear-shaped bowl body, a short fretless neck, and a bent-back pegbox. A Turkish ud typically carries 11 to 12 strings: five paired courses plus one single bass string. With no frets, correct pitch depends entirely on finger placement — demanding the same precise ear a tanbur player needs.
A Turkish oud is generally built with a shorter string length than an Arabic oud and tuned higher. The standard six-course Turkish tuning, low to high, is C♯–F♯–B–E–A–D.
The strings are plucked with a flexible plectrum called a mızrap or risha, traditionally horn or plastic. Fast, back-and-forth tremolo strokes under a sustained melodic line are the oud's signature ornamental technique.
Its warm, resonant tone makes it central both to solo taksim and to accompanying the şarkı repertoire's vocal fasıl. It is widely considered an ancestor instrument behind the European lute.
Performance: Yurdal Tokcan — "Hisleniş" (Yenikapı Müzik). Shown via YouTube's own player under its embed licence. Watch on YouTube →
Instruments from the same family, sharing a similar way of making sound:
The ud is a plucked lute with a deep, pear-shaped bowl body, a short fretless neck, and a bent-back pegbox. A Turkish ud typically carries 11 to 12 strings: five paired courses plus one single bass string. With no frets, correct pitch depends entirely on finger placement — demanding the same precise ear a tanbur player needs.
The strings are plucked with a flexible plectrum called a mızrap or risha, traditionally horn or plastic. Fast, back-and-forth tremolo strokes under a sustained melodic line are the oud's signature ornamental technique.
Its warm, resonant tone makes it central both to solo taksim and to accompanying the şarkı repertoire's vocal fasıl. It is widely considered an ancestor instrument behind the European lute.
Listen for a warm, woody, full low-mid tone, and a fast tremolo sustained on a single note — the easiest way to tell an oud is playing.
This page is written from more than one source; where sources disagreed or a technical detail (an exact string count, an exact tuning) had only a single unconfirmed figure behind it, we left it out or described it in general terms rather than publish a number we could not confirm.
Back to the Turkish Instruments tool for all instruments; for the melodic side of Turkish music see the Makam tool, and for rhythm the Usul tool.