Naseer Shamma.. is it the Iraqi Style?

We often hear Iraqi oud as being the type of music played by Naseer Shamma but is it really Iraqi oud? Of course he is Iraqi and his compositions go along the way of the ones pioneered by Munir Bashir.

I would like to know what people think of his style... is it really Iraqi? when I listen to Iraqi oud. I love Jameel Bashir he is really moving in his taqasim. Salman Shukur, Jameel Ghanim and the whole list coming from the school of Sherif Muheddine Targan is really impressive and mostly they have a sweet sound to there ouds. I dont know if it was always the case for all of them but It does not seem like most of them used the floating brige model. when has the floating brige model been accepted as the Iraqi oud and replaced the standard brige oud. Is it only after Munir Bashir?
what do people think on this subject?

Naseer Shamma today has become a pioneer in his own way. the compositions he put forward are tastefull to the western ear and the sound of his oud resembles that of a flamenco guitar. this is imo the reason he has had great succes with gaining in popularity in the west and the middle east. He has in many ways carried on the legacy of Munir Bashir in terms of making the music more attractive to the western listener. He is the modern face of the oud and enjoys this positions in the arab world too. Even in Egypt country where he has set up his school he is a popular teacher of his style of playing. even though it is a style of playing that is originaly alien to the egyptians and even though his remarks towards the school of egyptian playing were harsh.
read this
http://www.your.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=6090&a...

I find this is a huge accomplishement to be able to install himself in this country and impose his style of playing as the standard.
I am not looking to start world war 3.
I am rather interested in what people have to say about this though.

Brian: from pictures I see most Iraqi oud players before munir bashir used the standard brige oud. Probably turkish ouds? what do you think happened to the use of that type of oud? because I cant think of it being a problem to use the high ff on that oud concidering turkish ouds can take the higher tuning...

I feel the same way too. No tarab with Naseer...
But like Brian said its not the only way to judge music.
exepted... I really like the idea of creating Tarab so obviously Iam biased because this is what I enjoy of the oud. Or is it more that to me the image of the oud is synonymus of Tarab? Kind of like what separates the old and the new.

Jay: while your a nice guy and all. I dont agree with you but Iam sure we could still be friends hehehe
to me the oud is not ethnic... its a middle eastern instrument and I see it in a way that it has a well beloved and respected place within middle eastern music. I am not ready to see blink 182 start using one
just kidding... I know what you mean is a tastefull application like simon shaheen's blue flame or something in that sence. your right it can be beautifull.

i found this that may shed more light on this fascinating topic.

Tarab in the Mystic Sufi Chant of Egypt

Michael Frishkopf
Department of Music
University of Alberta

[Published in Colors of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of the Middle East, edited by Sherifa Zuhur. American University in Cairo Press, 2001]

I. Introduction to Music, Emotion, and Sufism

The aesthetic concept of tarab finds no ready translation from the Arabic. Narrowly defined, it refers to musical emotion and the traditional musical-poetic resources for producing it, especially expressive solo singing of evocative poetry, in an improvisatory style, employing the traditional system of maqam (melodic mode). Traditionally, the singer is accompanied by a small, flexible, heterogeneous instrumental ensemble (the takht). Affective texts, precise intonation and enunciation, proper elaboration of the maqam, idiomatic improvisation, tasteful modulation, and correct execution of the qafla (melodic cadence) are all factors critical to the development of tarab in performance.
Tarab also depends on consonant performer-listener interactions, in which experienced listeners (sammica) react to the music by expressing emotion through vocal exclamations and gestures, especially during the pause which follows the qafla; the singer in turn is moved and directed by such "feedback". Through this dynamic relationship, emotion is shared, exchanged, and amplified among participants. The harmonious relation between the singer and the words he or she sings is also critical to tarab, since the singer must sing with sidq (sincerity), expressing true feeling in order to communicate emotion to listeners.
More abstractly, Egyptians describe tarab as a relation of harmony (insijam) or equilibrium (mucadala) between performer and listener, or the exchange of feeling (tabadul al-shucur) between them, to the point of wahdat al-shucur (unity of feeling), or the affective melting (dhawb) of the two into one; or the harmonious coexistence (mucaysha) of performer and listener, or poem and performer; or the connection (irtibat) between a person and anything of beauty, for all beauty has an emotional aspect.
Technically, only the singer of tarab ought to be called a mutrib, but the latter term has come to mean simply mughanni (singer). Mutribin are plentiful in Cairo, but most Egyptians say that after the passing of the great secular tarab singers, such as Umm Kulthum, tarab has become rare in secular music. However, many describe Sufi inshad, the mystical music which is the subject of this chapter, as being rich with tarab. Indeed, in its musical features and performative dynamics, it is reminiscent of the older pre-1930 tarab tradition, and in its emotional impact it is far more powerful than other forms of contemporary Egyptian music.
Why should this Sufi music be so laden with tarab, while contemporary secular music is bereft? In part the answer is historical: religious music, inherently conservative, has preserved features of the tarab tradition which generally prevailed in Arab music before the 1930s, but which have gradually disappeared from secular music as a result of aesthetic transformations wrought by rapid political, social, and economic change. But historical factors cannot explain why Sufi music has also changed dramatically in recent years, but not in such a way as to displace tarab. The explanation is better to be sought in the Sufi system of belief, practice, affect, and aesthetics which facilitates the relationships of insijam and tabadul al-shucur among poet, singer, and listeners upon which tarab depends.
Moreover, the performance contexts of Sufi inshad outside the purview of the Sufi orders demand a high level of emotional communication, for this music has a key role to play in constructing solidarity within the fluid and ephemeral social groups of so-called “popular” (what I will call “informal” Sufism. Thus tarab is not only expedited by Sufism, it is required. These factors are absent in secular Arab music, which has consequently undergone a variety of transformations resulting from political change, commercial interests, Western influences, demographic shifts, the impact of technology, changes in lifestyle, and so forth.
Here, I focus upon the role of the Sufi poet, the affective power of his poetry, and his relation to the munshid (Sufi singer) and listener, in creating tarab in performance. I argue that it is the shared domain of Sufi thought, feeling, and practice which enables a Sufi poet to communicate intensive mystical emotion, through the medium of language, to a munshid, who perceives the poet’s words so strongly as to experience the affective state which engendered them. This emotional conformity is precisely insijam and wahdat al-shucur, and so the munshid yatrab min al-shacir (gets tarab from the poet). It is again this shared Sufi domain which allows for the development of emotional conformity between singer and listener, so that the listener yatrab min al-munshid (gets tarab from the singer), and hence transitively from the poet as well. In secular music, emotional level is lower, and emotional connections weaker, because the common ground furnished by Sufism is absent.


this is part of a larger article. i can post the full link if anyone is interested.

ron

Lorca - The Duende

I've quickly browsed thorugh the above posts, and the correct answer is in all of them, in other words there is no specific right or wrong, but simply interpretations, or opinions. However been of Arabic background, I think the idea of Tarab could be defined as "pleasure in sadness", through music of course. Arabic song/music often revolves around the notion of the loss of a loved one, or been distant from a loved one, etc. I can understand if some people could never understand the meaning of Tarab. Its a bit like how Arab women mourn the death of someone, very extreme, and there are instances where people never get over the death of a loved one. This is very different from the notion of "celebrating the life of someone" upon their death...my parents for example, can never understand the notion of celebrating the life of a deceased person - oh so and so died, let's throw a gathering and have a few drinks! . This is not ignorance, its purely cultural - at the extrems, as with Tarab I suppose.....

arsene - duende and tarab may very well be the same thing - flamenco has its deep routes in arabic music, the moors, andalusia etc

Hi every one; this is my first post in this forum.
I've been a "silent reader" for months, and having sometimes liked to say my opinion on some subjects and threads I decided to join the discussion.

I Find the question highly relevant and interesting, because it reflects to which extent we try to "understand" this music we listen to or paly.

The question brings us back to the fact how to classify the oud players! A big question and the answer is certaily as complxe as the question. Many of u have given some part of it. In fact I think that the Oud players could be differenciated in some well recognised schools:

1/ the egyptian school caracterised by the "tarabism" and the live audience pleasure
2/ the shami school which has its own style of popular music background
3/ the turkish-kurdish oud music reflecting an instant joyfull and dance-adapted musical mood
4/ the iranian musical school with all its rich structural balance and forms
5/ the classical iraqui school reflecting a sad pop music besides a traditional tarab music (the iraqui maquam stands)
6/ the mediterranean turkish-like music of greece for example
7/ the andalousi oud playing which is (behalf the one played by those who have been in direct contact with the east, like Lotfi Boushnak) totally different in mood, technique and playing
8/ and at last the new-age (if I could call it like that) oud music played by the young musicians like Shamma, based on and brought forward for the 1st time by the great Bashir. This last one is a blend of Soufi-Iraqui traditional-Kurd music trying to use some world-wide well-known maquams (I'm not saying that it has no specificity or that its players don't use some difficult maquams to the western ear). This Universality made it more easily spreading music than all the others (U can see it with Bashir: how many Duo's he has performed with foreign music players!).

This is my personal opinion, it is neither an academic analysis nor a scientific piece of information. But I wanted to share it with you anyway

Tarab

MatthewW - I see your point. In fact, the cobzã (Romanian oud) is built that way: it has it's bridge glued to the face and it has a saddle, just like a mandolin, that comes before the bridge. It would be very interesting to try that with an oud as well. In fact, I AM going to try that with an oud! I'll let you know.

A little something on tarab:
About tarab being a sad experience: we must first ask ourselves what we define by sad. There are many instances where one can be "happy" (or at least comforted) in one's sadness. I think this is the case with tarab as well: you can be sad/depressed, whatever, but the music(al experience) can lift you up, in a way.
You don't even have to be sad yourself: you experience the sadness (the suffering) of the performer.
So both amtaha and aldokhi are right, in this sense.

I'd like to very carefully put all this together in one word:

"Passion".

Although it may sound like a cliche, we might want to consider the original meaning of the word passion.
So please join me on a little historical journey of language!

When we say Passion, we almost immediately start to think about a number of positive things - (Romantic) love mainly, but we also say we have a passion for music (we mean we love music and probably play one or more instruments or compose, etc etc).
But what is passion?

Passion comes from Latin "passio", which means... Suffering! (actually, the verb is Patire. In the Romanian language, the meaning of "patzire" or "a patzi" is still "being acted upon", "suffering", and "something bad that happnes to you").

How come we see passion as something positive, when it in fact means "suffering", or even "being acted upon"? How come we say, "that music has no passion in it" when we mean it's a bad peice of music? How come lovers complain there's no passion in their relationship? You would think nobody likes to suffer!

Still, it seems to be a vital ingredient of our lives - of every element in our lives: love, music, even work... Can the beauty of life be found in suffering, perhaps?

This may sound weird, but personally, I think people are the most humane when they experience feelings of passion. To really feel alive, you have to actually FEEL.

This is, as someone already said, not a subject that can easily be discussed in book, let alone in a forum where space and words are limited. So excuse me if this didn't make much sense...

Quote:

Originally posted by arsene MatthewW - I see your point. In fact, the cobzã (Romanian oud) is built that way: it has it's bridge glued to the face and it has a saddle, just like a mandolin, that comes before the bridge. It would be very interesting to try that with an oud as well. In fact, I AM going to try that with an oud! I'll let you know. Hey good luck arsene with building that oud with a saddle, I wonder if you'll be the first to try this? I think it might catch on! It would be interesting to hear from some of the other professional oud makers on this. keep us posted on the progress.

I'm not going to build an oud from scratch, I'm just going to add a saddle to a normal-bridged oud...

I'll post pics & sound clips (with & without saddle). I'll let you know.

Maybe we should start a new thread about tarab by the way?

Wow what a thread - literally gets to the heart of things. Well here's my little contribution.

I am not arabic or a scholar so cannot intellectually understand or explain tarab ... but I am sure I feel it. From a very early age I was profoundly 'moved' by music and that feeling is not easily expressed by conventional words such as happiness and sadness - sure I sometimes feel happy and sad when listening to music but for me it is the loosening of one's conditioned response to moods (or suffering in its broadest spiritual sense) that creates this feeling of rapture or (for the Buddhist minded) even bliss. It creates a space for feelings to be fully felt and expressed and is ultimately an 'energetic' experience. To feel really alive and to really 'feel' openly without jugement is intesely moving, liberating and one of the most tangible yet linguistically elusive qualities of musical experience (and life).

Maybe tarab is one of those words that attempt to fulfill this gap and why it is so hard to define its meaning.

Phew got there in the end

Cheers

Leon

OK! so Al-Haj floats as well... Well, so do I, I must admit I'm only playing on my floating bridge oud now.

But, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbUq8A0ihhM

Kadhim al Saher who plays on a normal bridge oud. I never thought of him as an oudist, but apparently he can play

Tarab extereme on RAST by Naseer