Self taught oud

I really, mean REALLY suffer from not having a flesh & bone tutor but the WEB in my oud path, folks!

Sure Mike's Oud and the several links available on YouTube help - i.e. looking at great and lesser players (all so vastly superior to my playing I'm someway embarassed...) looking at their reesha strokes, tremolo, absorbing some traditional melodies, etc. World would be a worst place without these links and support...

Yesterday evening I placed myself and my oud in front of my music system and began dueting with an old, great santur and percussion, disc: Djalal Akhbari - The Art of Persian Santur on Arion... something I didn't since my boyhood, when I learned guitar from Led Zeppelin or Jethro Tull's discs.

Must say that trying to improvise on the notes, better, following the skillfull hands and melodies of the master musician was almost impossible, at first.

After some minutes I sort of entered in the magic of maestro Akhbari... was able to find some patterns on my oud.

The fingering to obtain such a melodies surprised me, but I continued for the whole record side, preferring, of course, being the beginner I am, the quieter moments instead of the most intricate.

The reason I'm posting such a quite common topic and content is that, to my surprise, this morning I picked up my oud before going to work and... WOW, the melody I (badly) fingered yesterday was carved in my memory and, WOWOW... my fingers remembered it.

I guess must go to Damascus for some oud lessons... but in the meantime, will repeat the above with other Arabic music records I have in my discs shelves.