>Any explanations? Or am I so ignorant that I am not worth a serious answer?
Franz, you are perfectly worthy- but this worthless correspondent was at work today and did not get home until after 9:00 PM, PST. As to the question, firstly we have to know what Arab music was like at the time the Oud passed into European hands. We cannot assume that it was anything like modern Arab music (As Roman pointed out, the oud had frets way back then) and for that matter we don't even know enough about EUROPEAN music at that time. Lots of anthropology/musicology/organology cross-disciplinary matters for discussion here. By the way, the lute's ancestry has been traced to pre-Islamic Pakistan; with lutes first going East to China in the 7th Century AD (Pipa) and then Japan (Biwa)- so the Islamic transmission is but one step in a multifaceted Global migration. No one, or no culture, can claim exclusive "ownership". This is just basic groundwork, of course. Your specific musical questions will eventually be answered by the professional lutenists and academic scholars who make this list so rewarding, and worthwhile. Give them a little time, and I guarantee that it will be discussed to death and beyond- at least I hope so, and look forward to it. Dan -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
