OUD

The oud is a short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument, usually with 11 strings grouped in 6 courses, but some models have 5 or 7 courses, with 10 or 13 strings respectively. The oud is very similar to modern lutes, and also to Western lutes. Similar instruments have been used in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia for thousands of years, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Caucasus, the Levant, and Balkanic countries like Greece, Albania and Bulgaria; there may even be prehistoric antecedents of the lute. The oud, as a fundamental difference with the western lute, has no frets and a smaller neck. It is the direct successor of the Persian Barbat lute. The oldest surviving oud is thought to be in Brussels, at the Museum of Musical Instruments.