Four brilliant Australian performers in full flight. The brothers Slava and Leonard Grigorian are guitarists (Slava probably counted as one of Australia's leading classical guitarists). They joined with the brothers Joseph and James Tawadros to create "The Band of Brothers". Joseph plays the Arabic ud, the instrument from which the Lute developed. James plays the Req, an Arabic percussion instrument. This video cuts between several songs or song sections. The material starts slowly but that is part of the design... it is rythmically strong and melodically appealing when it gets going. The ud, unlike the lute, has no frets... and see if you can catch a glimpse of the long pencil like pick that emerges from the back of Josephs hand in a few shots. This originally would have been a quill made from an eagle's feather... and perhaps still is! By the way, the "ud" is also spelled 'ud and oud. In Arabic "the ud" would be "al ud" and if you say this you can hear where the word "lute" came from.
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