zalzal - 10-14-2007 at 01:50 PM
I got intrigued by what this youtube video presents:
Sound installation in Barcelona, Spain. Six independent sound tracks play rhythms transcribed for the oud by a 9th Century Moorish scholar. It is an
Al Farabi transcription played by 6 ouds simultaneously.
Well you see no ouds, is just an artistic installation with lights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MUWlvhV8gc
I stay curious to know whether it is possible to play on oud today a transcription of music written by al Farabi in 10th centuriy. Is it possible??
So i googled Al Farabi musical transcriptions and i found this booklet on Abassid Music edited by Maison des Cultures du Monde.
For non french readers pls scroll down and after the photos you will find the text in english. It is heavily theoretically interesting for those who
can cope intelectually with it.
I am too lazy to read it fully and try to understand. May be tomorrow. i do not think the reply to my question is there
http://mcm.bois.free.fr/booklet260123.pdf
Just fo info. I went to MCM site and they have organised a Congrès des musiques dans le monde de l'islam (Congress of Music in the worl of Islam)
this year in Assilah Morocco.
They will soon put all the lectures of many experst and professors in their site (in english also i think).
And it seems that this material is going to be very interesting.
http://www.mcm.asso.fr/site02/music-w-islam/congresfr.htm
By the way while you navigate in MCM's site you can listen at full tracks of their editions and is very good.
MatthewW - 10-15-2007 at 01:28 PM
[ouote by Zalzal]
....I stay curious to know whether it is possible to play on oud today a transcription of music written by al Farabi in 10th centuriy. Is it
possible??.....
Hi Zalzal-
Musical scholars have established and documented forms of music notation used by the ancient Greeks as far back as 6th-4th century BC ( even earlier
in ancient Sumeria), and then later in Europe in monataries in about 8th-10th century AD, as in Gregorian Chant. If some of these oldies but goodies
have been transcribed and can be played more or less today, then I would think that if Al Farabi wrote down his melodies in a somewhat legible manner,
then an oud player today should be able to play something close to what Al Farabi had in mind. I'm no musical history scholar; perhaps others can
share ther thoughts on this?
Thanks for the interesting posting and some food for musical thought!
adamgood - 10-15-2007 at 03:02 PM
For what it's worth, here's an exchange from another message board regarding a CD of some Ulvi Erguner recordings. To download the music you'll have
to register as a user but it's worth it, i'm getting stuff all the time there. really really good stuff.
The last piece on the cd claims to be a composition by Farabi:
http://www.zamanalwasl.net/forums/showthread.php?t=527
adam
journeyman - 10-15-2007 at 03:20 PM
The problem with playing all antiquated music is that we cannot know how it was interpreted by the musicians during performance. What did it actually
sound like? We don't really know how Bach sounded, or even the trumpet player Buddy Bolden for that matter. That is not to say that we shouldn't play
it or attempt interpretations, only that we keep in mind that it is to some extent, guesswork.