Jins hijaz is built from four semitone offsets from its root: 0, 1, 4, 5. Read as intervals between neighbouring tones, that is a minor second, then an augmented second (three semitones — a stretch a Western scale never asks a single step to make), then a minor second again. That middle stretch is the whole reason a phrase built from this jins sounds instantly foreign to ears trained only on major and minor scales, and it is also the tetrachord behind maqam hijaz, maqam hijazkar, and several of their close relatives.
Unlike most of the wider maqam family, jins hijaz uses no neutral intervals at all — every one of its four tones lands exactly on a twelve-tone equal-tempered pitch class. That is precisely why it earns a place on this page and rast, bayati, sikah, and saba do not: this jins is not an approximation of anything, it is the real interval set, chartable position for position on a fretless neck with nothing rounded off.
Positions on every course, rooted on C
The table below is derived, not typed by hand: for the root C, every one of the jins's four pitch classes is checked against each of the oud's six courses, and its POSITION on that course — semitones above that course's own open string, within the twelve-position board this fretless neck is approximated with — is recorded. Course 1 is the highest-pitched course, course 6 the lowest, the same numbering the chord and scale pages use.
| Course | Open note | Positions (semitones above the open course) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | C (4th octave) | 0, 1, 4, 5 |
| 2 | G (3rd octave) | 5, 6, 9, 10 |
| 3 | D (3rd octave) | 2, 3, 10, 11 |
| 4 | A (2nd octave) | 3, 4, 7, 8 |
| 5 | F (2nd octave) | 0, 7, 8, 11 |
| 6 | C (2nd octave) | 0, 1, 4, 5 |
Notice courses 1 and 6 carry identical position sets — both courses are tuned to C, two octaves apart, so any jins rooted on C lands on the same twelve positions on both of them. That symmetry is a fact about this instrument's tuning, not about the jins; every jins this site charts will show the same pairing on these two courses.
Getting the stretch to sit
The interval most players misjudge first is the augmented second in the middle — between the jins's second and third tones. It is easy to land a plain whole step there out of habit, which quietly turns jins hijaz into something closer to jins nahawand and erases the exact colour that makes hijaz recognizable. Practice the middle two tones alone, back and forth, slowly enough to hear the stretch as a distinct interval rather than a slightly-off whole step, before adding the outer two tones back in.
Once the four tones sit cleanly in one position, move the whole shape down a course and repeat it: because this jins is fully 12-TET representable, the same four semitone offsets recur, unchanged, from any root you choose — only the actual pitches move, never the shape between them.
Where it sits
Compare this tetrachord's four tones against a triad you already know on C major on the oud — the contrast between a four-note melodic cell spanning a fourth and a three-note tertian chord spanning a fifth is exactly the difference this whole site exists to keep visible. Then run the daily drills to keep the left hand honest while the ear does the real work of learning this stretch.