Jeff as you know  from our initial discussions i'm using the Turkish/Armenian Tim ref's EABead.  If Torn plays standard on guitar I would bet he uses this or possibly is torquing this one to near guitar as it's not far away.  I think however using these intervals gives some really wonderful textures.  With my guitars I largely work in DADGAD and had  givenn some thought to using DADFAD which I had found in my research however I've been a fan of EABead in my time iwth the oud and continue to be.  At the recent 
NYC Fretless Guitar Fest which I performed on both guitar and oud, another musician/fretless player there 
Edward Powell who is also an oudist in addition to being a luthier, had suggested dropping the low E string down to B which I haven't tried as yet so tuing BABead.  I'm not sure with the nylon string how well the E to B would tone but it might become more usful percussively from it's looseness.  Hope you are digging it...
 
J
On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 8:57 AM, Tim Nelson 
<psychle62@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi Jeff,
Can't remember where/when (and this could be wrong), but I seem to recall DT saying in an interview that (as he does on guitar) he uses several different tunings.
You might start with these and tweak with impunity:
Standard Egyptian/Arab: D G A D G C
Old Turkish Classical: A D E A D G
New Turkish Classical: F# B E A D G
Turkish/Armenian: E A B E A D
Turkish/Armenian Variant: C# F# B E A D
Standard Cumbus: D E A D G C
This page is useful too: <http://www.oudcafe.com/stringing_and_tuning.htm>
-t-
http://www.myspace.com/nimbletunes
http://cdbaby.com/all/timnelson
http://www.youtube.com/speleman62
--- On Fri, 10/3/08, Jeff Duke <jeff_d@embarqmail.com> wrote:
> From: Jeff Duke <jeff_d@embarqmail.com>
> Subject: Oud tunings
> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Date: Friday, October 3, 2008, 9:26 PM
> Just want to throw this out here, you can mail me back
> offlist to save bandwidth.
> Does anyone know what tuning David Torn uses? I have search
> for awhile with no luck and its hard for me as a very new
> oudist to tell from his recordings.
>
> thanx,
>
> Jeff
>
>
> Out here in the Great Beyond, everything is strange.
> The sooner you get used to that, the better off you'll
> be.
> Allen Steele
> Galaxy Blues
 
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