musifying

Why would a oud buzz?

There are many possible reasons. In this post I will list the reasons that I have encountered in the past, and try to give enough information to help you identify why your oud is buzzing.

Fixing the problem is a different story. Some repairs are fairly easy and require no special tools or experience. Others, especially the ones related to the fingerboard, require expertise and/or special tools and, therefore, might require the attention of an instrument repair person. I will try to give enough information for you to make an informed decision about whether you should attempt to do the repair or whether you should hire a repair person to do it. Read the rest…

What would you say if I told you that you can take complete music courses for free at excellent music schools. Well, first a cautionary note: this is not for everyone. No the schools woun’t turn you down, but it’s a question of whether or not you are an autodidact or not.

However, if you do have the drive, discipline, and interest to do it on your own, you should check out some of the music coursework available online for free. Read the rest…

Making music is not necesserily the most earth damaging social phenomenon. But we can, and should, do what we can to to minimize our impact on the planet.

Are there things that a musician can do to reduce the damage that their music making causes? Well, I can think of a few, and invite you to participate in this discussion and share your advice. Read the rest…

Last month, as I was preparing to put the final touches on the Nahhat: adding a fingerboard extension, making sure all the braces are tightly glued, gluing a few small cracks in the face (the oud’s face, that is), and gluing the rosette back on, a new member of the AOSF, nay player Hector Bezanis, mentioned in passing that he is an expert on wood. He offered to help. And boy did he help..

Hector, a master wood carver, had all the expertise, tools, and even wood, that I could have dreamt of. Quickly I did some calculations and took some measurements, and gave him the exact specifications of the fingerboard that allows for maximum playability and beauty. He took it from there, he cut the perfect ebony fingerboard, and carved the bottom of it so that it will fit snugly over the imperfections of the warping face. I went home and glued it without a problem, and within twenty four hours I had the fingerboard. The action was exactly as I had invisioned it: under an eighth of an inch at the fifth.

Hector also introduced me to another master craftsman, Giorgio di Costanzo, an expert on antique restoration and wood finishing. I was looking for an approach to do the final cleanup of the face, using materials that would clean the face and then evaporate leaving no trace. Giorgio, immediately identified the different materials that are needed to clean the oils, epoxy, and dirt that had become embedded in the wood.

The result?

Judge for your self:

In the first three parts of this series, I addressed the problematic aspects of talking about Arab avantgarde cultural activity. The reason a problem exists are ambiguities related to the term avantgarde, and the fact that the term, by now, has connotations resulting from its usage in the context of western avantgarde music and cultural activity.

I would like to close this series by touching on some of the unique characteristics of Arab avantgarde cultural activity in the twentieth century with a focus on music.

Read the rest…

In part 2 we started a series of mental exercises the goal of which was to establish the rules for how to have a discussion about avantgarde music in the Arab context. In this post we will contemplate two more mental exercises and draw conclusions from them that will bring us closer to that discussion.

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The first part of this series offered a few questions that require answers in order to be able to have a discussion about Arab avantgarde music. The questions have to do with the term avantgarde in general, with the terms Arab and Arabic, and with possible conversations that could be had based on the answers we choose to the questions raised.

I emphasized choose because there is a measure of arbitrariness and/or subjective judgment in answering these questions. This post begins the process of answering these questions.

Read the rest…

Having received a call for submissions for essays on Arab avantgarde, I thought this one was just down my alley..

Thinking about the subject, the questions that seem the most urgent to answer are not about the Arab avantgarde music movement itself just yet, but rather questions about how to have a discussion about Arab avantgarde music. In fact, the questions touch on some of the vague aspects of the term not necessarily in relation to Arab avantgarde.

Read the rest…

Can the sound of the passing time, thousands of years of culture, history, and stories of people and places, journeys, dreams, loves, conflicts, can all those be told in music? Can they be told in one piece of music? Can they be told in one piece of music that lasts a few minutes (seven minutes and six seconds to be precise)?

In the third track (maqam bayyati) of Shaheen and Racy’s “Taqasim”, this is accomplished.

I got this CD almost 15 years ago. Since then, I have listened to it more than any other. We are blessed that we live in a time when recording is possible. When we read accounts of the beauty of someone’s music, we can try to imagine. But how can one imagine music that is unimaginably powerful.

In Taqasim, especially in the third, 7 minutes (and 5000 years) long track, a lot is packed. Simon’s, melodies, tone, and technique, even after 15 years of listening (and knowing the thing by heart), continue to be exciting. New details emerging with each listening. As if the performers secretly rerecord it anew every week or so.

So what makes it work so well? I have repeatedly dwelt on that. Over the years the answers change.

At first, I thought it was technique (isn’t that all we think about when we’re young?). Then it was the melodies. Then it was the recording quality and clarity combined with melodies and technique.

As, despite our best efforts to the contrary, we mature, our ears do too.

It is now clear to me, that he who wants to master the sounds, must also master the silences between them. The music of “Taqasim” stays alive and relevant, because the performers breathed their life into it. The variations in dynamics, pulse, pick technique are at times subtle and at others startling, but they are always natural. The melodies are at times lyrical and at others anxious, and pained. But they are always immediate.

Instrumental music is music where the listener gets to fill in the lyrics, silently, and then revise and re-revise. Millennia can thus be distilled into minutes, and countless stories find home in a jewel case.

This question is not only a one that a new comer to Arabic music would ask. It is also valid when asked by an Arabic music theorist. There are three main reasons for that:

1. Simplification of the definition of maqam therefore not recognizing some of the characteristics that distinguish different maqams sharing the same scale. As a result, many maqams that share the a scale are now considered one maqam.
2. Maqams that are no longer in use are omitted from theory books.
3. Not recognizing intonation details rendering several different maqams as identical.

Read the rest…