Time
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Music sheets.
Most of the music sheets for Arabic songs sold today have a huge amount of mistakes which really makes perfectionist stay away from it (this is from
different pro musicians).
What do you think of that?
I was wondering if any one likes to share some of what they think is accurate.
I play oud and violin for two years now. I have notated few songs and I am planning to notate some more as time allows. I am still learning the
method and my production is very slow. I use finale so you can print them crisp black.
Regards.
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Jason
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I think a lot of it has to do with the amount of embellishment used in Arabic music. A lot of sheets show the bare bones melody but noone would
actually play it that way. I think it's important to listen to as much music as you can so you will understand what is appropriate when playing the
songs.
If anything, I think a lot of the inaccuracies come from the fact that there aren't many people notating Arabic music right now which is a shame. I
can't imagine how wonderful it would be if someone like Shamma or Shaheen published a book of songs for us to learn. There is the Khalife book...
that's about the only one I can think of. I'm sure there are others?
Finale is a great program. Some people may like Sibelius better but all of my composition instructors have used Finale so that's what I use now.
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Django
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(from Stefan Andalus )I guess I have it really easy notating Bach and Vivaldi for oud. The copyist for this music uses the latest generation of
Sibelius, and he has been doing this professionally (for Hollywood, the Seattle Symphony, etc.) for many years.
Baroque classical works, like Middle Eastern music, are supposed to be embellished by musicians who are immersed in the style...or who listen to a
lot of the music and "get" the style. I hope my book of Baroque transcriptions for oud is very clearly notated for all of you. P.S. I'm still
Stefan Andalus, but I had the most frustrating time logging in when my computer changed from table top to lap-top. Cheers to all!
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jshead
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I don't think I am familiar with the Khalife book. Is there a place I can buy it?
thanks
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Time
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oh, you know what is the real problem is? --us--
I don't know why we should depened on other peopel. all the books where written by musicians who played in bands for many years. but perfection was
not thier gool.
embellishment is a reason but we can notate if we care to listen and spend the time to do it right.
my teacher notates a whole song while he is drinking coffee accuratly  .
we can do it.
regards
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Jason
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The Khalife book should be available on http://www.maqam.com
It's interesting the similarites between Baroque, Arabic, Jazz, and Bluegrass music. Many of the ideas used in jazz translate well to taqsim and the
way things are embellished remind me so much of the way bluegrass pickers embellish melodies.
I have no doubt that if one were to arrange an Arabic song book they would have no trouble getting it published. I also think a detailed oud method
book would be easily published, especially in English.
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al-Halabi
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The use of notation for Arab music is relatively recent and has proven to be rather problematic for music that has traditionally been spontaneous,
creative, and ornamented in its performance practice. It is very common to find the same Arab song or instrumental piece notated with significant
variations even by authorities on the music. None of the versions is necessarily inaccurate or faulty, and often one would be hard pressed to identify
any single version as the "original" or "correct" one. There is a detailed book (about 400 pages) that examines the many problems associated with the
notation of Arab music. The title is "Arab Music and Musical Notation," by Issam El-Mallah (published in 1997 in Germany). It gives numerous
illustrations of the challenges and costs. It includes two accompanying CDs with 37 Arab songs and instrumental pieces that are transcribed in the
text.
Notations are certainly useful even if they have their limitations. They give us skeletons of the melodies that can serve as a reference and
educational tool, although we shouldn't approach them as a precise and restrictive dictate of what we must play. The room for personal creativity is
part of what makes this music so beautiful.
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Time
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| Quote: | Originally posted by al-Halabi
Notations are certainly useful even if they have their limitations. They give us skeletons of the melodies that can serve as a reference and
educational tool, although we shouldn't approach them as a precise and restrictive dictate of what we must play. The room for personal creativity is
part of what makes this music so beautiful. |
In my opinion the final piece of music that is presented to the public should serve as the skeleton and that what should be notated. if more than one
version is presented by the originator then all should be treated equally.
The Personal touch which is added to the piece must have a limit. If ones creativity zone should change the unique character of the piece then they
should go compose their own.
On the other hand this era is definitely a turning point of the Arabic music. (Music notation is limited and personal creativity is wide open!?).
Good Luck arabic music.
There is nothing personal here I am talking in general. I hope this is taken as a constructive discussion.
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SamirCanada
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I dont see how you feel Arabic music is threatned. The use of notation in arabic music is somewhat of a new phenomenon, I think up untill now Its been
thriving without notations. Where is the crisis? maybe you can be more precise as for what you think poses a threat to arabic music? (Not trying to
agress you by the way... ( I just dont understand what poses the threat))
Also with the digitalisation of more and more masterpeices of Arabic music, wouldnt It keep them available to listen to more and more generations
without much loss in the quality of the recordings?
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Time
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Hi samir.
I am definitely emphasising in my response that the arabic music could be threatened, but I couldn't say it out loud so I only said "it is a turning
point". on the other hand the history we repeat today if it wasn't documented it would have been lost. for example how much of the arabic music before
year 1252 was recovered? and why?
Digital media could be the way to save the arabic music instead of notation for future generations! excellent thought!
regards
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al-Halabi
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Samir makes a good point – Arab music flourished for centuries without the use of notation. Notation is not a prerequisite for the existence or
creativity of a music culture, but it is also true that without notation pieces tend to get forgotten and lost over time. That happened on a large
scale in the Middle East. In past centuries Arab and Turkish musicians kept personal anthologies in which they listed hundreds of songs that were
being performed during their time. These collections, some of which have survived in manuscript in various libraries, recorded the texts of each song
along with its maqam, its rhythm, its composer when known, and its place in a larger suite, but they did not notate the melody for any of the pieces.
The musicians knew the melodies, so these handbooks served for reference. Because of this lack of notation we have no way of knowing what these songs
from sixteenth-century Damascus or seventeenth-century Cairo actually sounded like. Most of this old repertoire was lost as new pieces became popular
over time and people stopped performing some of the earlier stuff. During the entire period before the nineteenth century only two known collections
of notated music were made in the region, both in Istanbul. Two musicians, both of European origin, notated several hundred Ottoman pieces during the
late seventeenth century. Many of these are performed and recorded today, and would have been lost were it not for these two unusual collections.
Besides preserving old music, notation has the added advantage of giving us an independent means to learn pieces on our own. In the past, when music
was transmitted orally, students of the music were dependent on a master to teach them. It’s obviously much tougher to learn just by listening to a
teacher play without having the notation or a recording to work with on one’s own. But the teachers tended to stress personal creativity, inspiring
students to take the basic melody of a piece and interpret it with their own ornamentation and individual touches rather than just imitate what the
teacher played. In the traditional Arab takht ensembles up to the early twentieth century musicians played without sheet music. Each instrumentalist
routinely embellished and ornamented his own rendition of the melody even when the group played together, and the same piece could vary from
performance to performance based on the inspiration of the musicians and feedback from the audience. Once notation was adopted as a tool of formal
training by conservatories and teachers, students have been expected to follow what was on the page. Many studies have now pointed out how this new
practice of attachment to the version on a page has worked to diminish personal creativity and improvisation.
Time, you mentioned that notations have many mistakes and that it would be good to have correct versions. Perhaps you can give examples of the faulty
notations you are referring to. In case you are referring to pieces from the older repertoire, finding versions of them that vary in detail is common.
In recent decades there have been efforts in various Arab countries to notate the traditional music so as to preserve it (for example, the
“Turathuna al-musiqi” four-volume series of notations published in Egypt). What happened was that the compilers ended up selecting one version of
a folk song or muwashshah from a number of known versions for inclusion in their anthologies. This selected version became the orthodox, “correct”
version of the piece in what was often an arbitrary selection process that was not ideal for preserving the full richness of the music.
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Jason
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Are any of the anthologies you speak of available in America? In jazz we use fakebooks... which has a melody notated with common chord progressions
for hundreds of songs. I wish something like that were available for Arabic songs. I would enjoy just being able to read through melodies and
explore them.
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al-Halabi
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The collections of notations published in Arab countries are not usually sold in the U.S. Some of them are now out of print, and would be hard to find
even in their countries of publication. The larger university libraries here have copies of them, so if you are affiliated with a university you might
borrow them through interlibrary loan.
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Time
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I am really enjoying the wealth of information you are shooting at us. It just tells me how much you care and work on preserving the Mideastern music
culture.
My concerns are based on my knowledge. As I mentioned in my first post that I am only 2 years in the process of learning music before that I was only
an ordinary listener. The books that I have seen were for Oum-Kalthoum and Abdul-haleem. If you like to see exact examples then you would have to wait
a week so I can get my hands on one of the books.
The second reason for this thread is to get some music notations shared which was notated or at least believed to be correct by the users of the form.
It might be a good idea to have a section in the form of its own. To All: what do you think?
Regards
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Jason
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The main page does have a section for sheets. There does not seem to be a wealth of songs but there are quite a few. Having visited several Arabic
music forums I can say there are a lot of sheets out there, however it can sometimes be difficult finding them when you only read English.
I have considered arranging all of the sheets I can find into one pdf file, which would be easily printed and kept away from the computer. I have
also considered re-doing the sheets in Finale, as many of them are scans.
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Time
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Thanks jason
I have checked the main page it seems to have a couple scores that I would use right now. I wish if you could direct me to where I can find these
forums. I read arabic and english. I am mainly looking for songs.
I have a scans of sama'eyat book. I can make it into a pdf file.
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Jason
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I've had some luck here but I can't read most of the thread titles so I'm sure I'm missing a lot of things
http://www.4allofus.net/zeryab/forumdisplay.php?f=21
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