Regardless of their background, Khan sahib took his students seriously and required that they take themselves, music, and the labor of music (practicing, what else) seriously.

During my short time at the Ali Akbar College years ago, I also got to experience the genius of Khan sahib. His instrumental classes consisted much of the time of him composing on the spot, singing the composition to the students in Sargam or playing it on the Sarod, and explaining the theoretical issues that the piece touched on. The students would play back the compositions to him. In the singing classes I have seen him repeatedly pickup an old poetry book, choose a poem, and by the end of the class he will have composed a masterpiece which we will have all learned.

I have also seen the devotion of his students to the music and their great love and respect for Khansahib.

I am deeply grateful for the honor of having attended his classes, if only briefly, and deeply saddened for Khansahib’s passing.

It has never been interesting for me to make the blog a personal thing. It was always and will continue to be about the work. I will make its work more manageable by writing in parts and publishing about once or twice a week rather than daily.

I have a few things in mind I want to work on, but I also welcome your suggestions or question about things to discuss in the near future.

Saed.

In this essay, I am going to touch on the different aspects of the form that are of interest both to the performer and to the musicologist.

Those aspects include:

• Compositional details of the form
• Performance practices, their regional characteristics and evolution over time.
• A list of Samais that every performer should know

The Samai form

Naming convention: In Arabic, a typical name of a Samai consists of the word Samai followed by the name of the maqam which the samai explores. Example: “Samai Rast”. Since there could be more than one Samai in a given maqam, the name of the composer is added to the name of the Samai. Example: “Samai Nahawand Masood Jamil”. In some rare cases, a composer would give their Samai a unique name instead of following the naming convention. One example is “Sihr Al-Sharq” instead of “Samai Nahawand Al-Hariri”.
Exercise: Which maqam is “Samai Bayyati Al-Aryan” in and what’s the name of the composer?
Note: In Turkish music, the name of the Maqam comes first and the Turkish name of the form “Saz Samai” follows.

Traditional Uses: Traditionally a Samai appears early in an instrumental or song set. It is part of a series of instrumental pieces that open the set, which may include instrumental pieces in other forms such as Bashraf, Dulab, and Taqaasim. Those instrumental pieces were used to establish the Maqam tonality and relationship with other maqams in the ears of the listeners and singers, and warm the listeners up to the set to come. The singer would typically begin singing soon after the Samai is played.

The Samai Thaqil rhythm: a 10 beat pattern with a 3 2 2 3 subdivision and Dums on beats 1, 6 and 7, and Teks on beats 4 and 8.

The Samai form: A piece in four short movements (each called Khana), each followed by a refrain (called Taslim). The first three movements and the refrain are in the Samai Thaqil rhythm. The fourth is in a contrasting rhythm (most commonly 3 and 6, occasionally 7 and in rare cases other rhythms).

Tonal parameters of the form: Traditionally the first Khana is entirely in the Maqam of the piece, as is the Taslim. I say traditionally because contemporary composers frequently use chromaticism and modulation even in the first Khana. (see the section on modern trends).

The second and third Khanas involve modulation exploring other Maqams. The second Khana stays in the center register, and sometimes explores the bass region. The third Khana ventures into the upper registers. The fourth Khana typically stays in the original Maqam of the Samai. It is often in a lively tempo, sometimes technically demanding, and the energy climax of the entire piece is often achieved in this Khana.

Arabic and Turkish performance practice In the modern period: a comparison

The differences in performance of Samais between Arab and Turkish musicians reflect, for the most part, the audible difference in style between Arab and Turkish art music ensembles. Some differences are unique to Samais, however, namely tempo. Here are the differences that I have observed:

Tempo: Arab musicians typically perform all the 10/8 Khanas in Samais slower than their Turkish counterparts. (In the fourth Khana the speeds are comparable, with Arab performance in the recent period often tending to be a little faster). I compared recordings of 20 Samais performed by Arab musicians, with 20 (different Samais) by Turkish musicians. The tempo range was (eighth note =)90-110 in performance by Arab artists compared to 124-156 in performance by Turkish artists.

Use of percussion: The general tendency is for the Arab percussionist to make extensive use of ornaments and embellishments, and to vary that in a way that interacts with the melodic line, sometimes outlining the form (for example by playing different in the Taslim than in the Khanas).

The general tendency for Turkish percussionists is to play the skeleton, the most basic shape, of the Samai Thaqil pattern, regardless of the melodic line or place in the form.

This is a difference between art-music percussionists in the two styles that does not stop at Samais.

Turkish percussionists also stop when the melody has a rest. This is especially clear at the characteristic phrase endings which occur on the 8th beat in Samais. Arab percussionists tend to continue playing during those.

Melodic ornaments: This is another difference that is not unique to the interpretation of Samais but is rather a general difference in style that is especially prevalent in smaller ensembles. Turkish musicians use fast, fully articulated, usually diatonic, ornaments. Arab musicians use those less frequently, and incorporate other, expression driven ornaments such as: slides, vibratos, grace notes, left hand pizzicato, and, in the case of the Oud, tremolo (Rash) which is virtually non-existent in Turkish Oud style.

Fillers, silences and early birds: Most Turkish interpretations tend to take the rests literally. In a typical Arab ensemble, a musician, two, and sometimes the entire ensemble plays a filler, especially if there is a leap after the silence. Especially common are filling octave and fifth leaps. Early birds fillers that are played at the end of the rest, ahead of the new phrase.

Modern Samai compositions: Contemporary Turkish Samais still adhere fairly strictly to the composition rules as outlined above. Contemporary Arab Samais, however, are a different story. While there are still Samais that are entirely traditional, there are others that push the envelope, typically in terms of tonality. Two examples to illustrate the point.
In “Samai Kurd Dagher” Abdo Dagher added an intro that is not in Kurd (in fact, it is borderline atonal, in the Arabic sense). The Taslim is tonal but it is not in Maqam it is mostly in Bayyati. The other example is “Samai Kurd Shaheen” which features frequent modulations from the start.

A list of Samais every performer of Arabic music should know

• Samai Bayyati, El-Aryan. Featured in many recordings.
• Samai Farah Fazah, Tanburi Jamil. Featured in many recordings, including by Tanburi Jamil
• Samai Kurd, Dagher. Available on “King of Taqasim” recording, in which Dagher plays many of his compositions
• Samai Nahawand, Masood Jamil. Recorded by many, recommended recording: “Turath” by Simon Shaheen which also includes Samai Farahafazah and Samai Kurd Shaheen
• Samai Nawa Athar, Jamil Uweis. Featured in “Remembrances” by Jazayer Ensemble
• Samai HijazKar Kurd, Tatius. Appears in many recordings, including Kudsi Urgener’s Ensemble recording of the works of Tatius
• Samai Mohayyar, Tanburi Jamil. Best recording of the Samai is on the “Yasemin” CD by Necati Celik. The CD is out of print and might not be easy to obtain.

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.

I visited a few dozen sites, looked at their music course offerings, and have a few recommendations to make. Other than being free and open to the general public, my main criteria for recommending courses and platforms were quality of courses, and ease of navigation. I am confident you will explore these web sites and find many jewels that will be of interest to you. Enjoy and feel free to report back or recommend other free courses and lectures.

1- Berklee School Of Music

One of the top conservatories in the US makes many courses available for free on the web. Not bad, huh. Thank you Berklee. Many courses are available in video, audio or PDF formats. Especially suited for already-trained musicians wishing to explore new things, such as the arranging, improvisation, and education.

Start at the Berklee Shares home page and have a good time

2- iTunes U

A few dozen universities and colleges offer audio and video podcasts of hundreds of courses on iTunes University. This is fairly addictive if you have wide interests as you will find excellent quality podcasts on nearly everything.

Open Itunes, click “iTunes store”, click “iTunes U”. Click “Universities and Colleges”. Choose a school and have fun.

3- Gresham College

Offers transcripts, streaming audio, and streaming video of lectures and talks on many subjects. Here are a few that you might find interesting.

• Music or the vocabulary of music (audio, video, and transcript available)
• Jiuta – an explanation of traditional Japanese music (audio, video and transcript available)
• Chamber music fights back (transcript only)
• Debussy – Quartet in G minor, Op 10 (transcript, and lecture and performance audio and video)

4- Open University (UK)

Lecture notes and course outlines are available. You can also enroll in “units” for free, which allows you to participate in the discussions.

Here is a list of the music courses I found

5- UC San Diego

Makes many current semester courses available via podcasts. The music course selection is not exactly great. In fact, there’s just one: Introduction to Western Music. But the course quality is good. So why not get introduced.

6- MIT Open Courseware.

One of the first that I have come across some time ago. Lecture notes of all courses are available. Student assignments and projects, exams and study guides, and listening and reading lists are also available. Videos are said to be available but I didn’t find any for music courses. Here is the music OCW page.

My point is that it is our job to keep inspired. Sometimes it takes external stimulation to do that. Musicians being a largely autodidact group of individuals (having to learn and practice primarily on our own), and also a group that keeps a problematic schedule (3AM is the best time to do dishes, right?) these courses are a pretty good way to keep inspired. The fact that they are free courses surely doesn’t hurt at all.

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.

Here are my thoughts:

1- Use rechargeable batteries for battery operated equipment. NiMH batteries recharge hundreds of times (I’ve been using the same AA, AAA and 9V batteries for over five years and they still recharge and hold their charge). Please remember that batteries (rechargeable and otherwise) are toxic. Don’t throw them in the trash. Rather, take them to your local hardware store or other local business that accepts used batteries and discards of them safely.

2- Buy downloadable music rather than physical CDs where possible. And don’t back it up on CDs. Just back it up on your hard-drives. I am sure you back up your computer hard drive on an external one. So you will have two backup copies of your music database. That’s even safer than having a CD.

3- If you must buy CDs, buy used ones. Sell used CDs that you no longer need.

4- Minimize use of paper, and use recycled paper for intermediate copies of music. Paper has two printable sides. There is no reason why a it should make it to the recycling bin with only one side printed.

5- Repair rather than replace where possible. Many times you can repare rather than replace music stands, microphone stands, foot rests. With a soldering iron you can replace microphone and speaker cables as well.  You can also reshave oud pegs and ream their holes and bingo, your oud tunes smoothly, and somewhere in a forest far away a tree is grateful to you. This step needs some experience but there is plenty of information on the web on how to do it. You can check out Lute, violin, cello, or viola web pages and find several ways to do this.

6- Use virtual rather than physical equipment where possible. There are hundreds of metronomes that you can download for free. There are also many tuners (I am working on an interactive oud tuning page. Later on in the horizon, an interactive qanun tuning page). Even on stage you can use a laptop as a mixing board, multi-track digital recorder etc..

7- If you must use a physical piece of equipment be aware that:

• You can buy used high quality microphones, amplifiers, cables, recorders and even reusable media (dat tapes for example) for a fraction of the price of new ones.
• Digital recorders that record on a memory stick offer extremely high quality recording without using digital tapes, CDs, DVDs or whatever.

8- Minimize use of printed publicity media in favor of email, and web publicity. In additional to building an email database of your audience, you can ask the venue you’re performing at to email your announcement, and you can get on mailing lists and forums of people interested in your idiom. You will not only be able to publicise your concert, but you will learn a lot and connect with other lost souls with musical inclinations (aka networking).

9- Choose a rehearsal location wisely. If your group consists of people who will be coming from different places, choose a rehearsal location that will minimize the total amount of miles traveled, and/or accessible by public transportation.

Got other tips? Do let us know.

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.

In my view, one of the most significant differences between Arab and western avantgarde phenomena is the fact that in Arab societies these pioneering works made their way into the mainstream almost instantaneously. Poetry changed from its classic rhymed, metered, measured, symmetry, to prose poetry. The subject matter changed dramatically and became more personal and more immediate (song lyrics being an exception in that they still obsessed with love, almost exclusively). “Modern Poetry” as it became known, had, by the mid twentieth century, constituted the majority of new poetry works.

Musical theater was introduced (almost single handedly by Sayyid Darwish), and other forms of staged musical performance and musical films became very successful within a short period of time. These were influenced, to an extent, by western musical theater. But they also had unique characteristics reflecting the originality of their makers, and the uniqueness of the conditions in which they appeared.

Musical content changed, incorporating instruments, orchestration techniques, and sounds from other cultures, mainly western European tonal 19^th century music.

Experimental, surrealist cinema followed suit. Youssef Shahine, Egyptian filmmaker, produced a large body of works of experimental, surrealist, and unconventional in narrative. The civil war in Lebanon dealt a heavy blow to similar currents in Lebanese cinema.

Returning for a moment to music, it is worth mentioning here two other distinctions from western avantgarde music, which may help explain why the Arab mainstream culture adopted avantgarde music fairly rapidly. The first was that the greatest composers and performers of the twentieth century were involved in it, listened and studied other traditions in depth, and wanted to do something new. More reflective of the spirit of the times, and the social and political changes all around.

The other distinction is that the introduction of new elements was gradual. None of these great composers produced exclusively avantgarde work. None divorced themselves from the tradition. In fact they were all deeply rooted and schooled in it. None of the avantgarde works were exclusive of traditional elements. In fact, the genius of many of these works lied in the perfect blend and seamless transitions between those elements.

The “tradition” of avantgarde in music still continues today, by the way, although other factors limit its success. Factors like the market demand for spectacle in musical performance (mainly one of sexual overtones)- aka the video clip, and attention span depletion and the need for short sentences and short ideas accessible to the general public on first hearing. Interestingly enough, the movement against the stupification of art is not lead exclusively by an educated elite, but also by ordinary people who see the modern video clip oriented music as a symptom of cultural degeneration and see the artistic revolution that took place in the twentieth century as a symptom of the opposite, the spiritual and cultural awakening of the masses.

]]> http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/84/feed 2 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/83 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/83#comments Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:34:26 +0000 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/?p=83 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.

The question of the work
What are the characteristics of a work of art that would be considered, beyond doubt, as avantgarde?

Answering the question with regards to the work of art is similar in some ways but fundamentally different in others from the discussion about the artist. When discussing the artist, we relied on the context in which the artist works as the standard against which we judge whether or not she can be considered as one whose work and vision are avantgarde. When we discuss individual works, we are acknowledging that a given artist can produce both traditional and experimental works. Do we measure the works to other works by the same artist, or only to The Tradition? The answer may seem obvious: Of course we compare them to The Tradition, and not to other works by the same artist. However, let us examine what may be not-so-obvious aspects of this sound logic.

The case for comparing a new work by an artist to The Tradition, is that while an artist may depart from her earlier interpretation of the tradition to a new one, if the new interpretation is still traditional, it should be considered as a natural growth process of the artist and not as pioneering, or breaking new territory. What is not-so-obvious about this way of thinking is that we are, in effect, discarding the fact that not all artists have a vast breadth of education in the tradition, especially contemporary and avantgarde. In other words, an artist who hasn’t been exposed to prose poetry, but has otherwise a great talent and craftsmanship may invent prose poetry on her own, one hundred years after it had been originally invented. In the modern world, where reproduction technology of visual, audible, intellectual, and literary works is readily accessible to so many, missing any recent developments in any idiom is but a slight possibility. A half a century ago, not as slight. A century ago, quite likely. However, we cannot apply this thinking blindly. It is much more likely to find an American composer who has not been exposed to the sound and tuning of the Kulingtang, than it is to find a Manila born composer who hasn’t. Furthermore, many, if not most, conservatories and music departments across the world teach John Cage, or, at least, mention in passing twentieth century atonal western classical music. Few music departments in the west teach Abdo Dagher or any other music in depth. Musicology programs can be considered an exception, but it is questionable whether those have much direct influence on most artists. Largely, what happens in the musicology world stays in the musicology world.

The question of the observer
A listener who is hearing contemporary pop music for the first time, having only heard Arabic art music, and never been exposed to sixties and seventies European and American pop, cannot be blamed for not recognizing that modern Arab pop music should be heard in two contexts at the same time: Arabic music in general, and western pop. The observer’s reflections on the music she is hearing will depend very much on whether or not she recognizes this multiplicity of contexts. In other words, not being aware of one or more steps in the evolution of a musical tradition, may make the work of a certain artist seem more revolutionary that it actually is. Since we have concluded in part 2 that there is a large quantitative component to the tags attached to artists, the missing steps could be significant enough to change a tag from creative to visionary, revolutionary, or avantgarde.

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.

The first set of questions have to do with the adjective “avantgarde”. Let us first observe that “avantgarde music” is a western term, used to discuss phenomena in western music, involving western trained musicians, living in western countries, in a time where other things were happening in literature, the visual arts, dance, and music. In other words, context charged the term “avantgarde music” with social, political, and cultural content well outside the realm of music. Furthermore, in the western context the term avantgarde music was used to discuss such diverse phenomena as minimalism, electro-acoustic music, free jazz, musique concrete, the work of John Cage, new age music, and free improvisation, to name a few. I mention all this to say, we should, at least in the beginning, dissociate the term “avantgarde” as a social phenomenon reflected in pioneering cultural works that push the boundaries of, challenge, defy, or even negate tradition, from what invoking that term might be suggestive of for someone who has studied western avantgarde cultural activities.

Divorcing the discussion of Arab avantgarde is necessary at this point, but it is not necessarily anything beyond artificial. A discussion of recent (20th century) and contemporary social events in the Arab world tends to have many points of contact with western social events simply because this is a time period when the west had many points of contact with Arab societies on all levels: political, economic, and social.

Returning to the term avantgarde. What do we consider an avantgarde work as opposed to a practice that is part of the natural evolution of the artistic endeavor over time? It is to be expected that, similar to many such discussions, the gray margins are pretty wide. A few mental exercises can help us sharpen the definition. Each exercise will be presented as a hypothetical question.

The question of the artist
In this exercise we examine two extreme cases: What are the characteristics of an artist who would, beyond any doubt, be considered an avantgarde artist by all educated observers? And,  what are the characteristics of an artist who would, beyond any doubt, be considered as not an avantgarde artist?

In my view, the “extremely” avantgarde artist, within an existing art-form, is one whose works depart from tradition in form, aesthetic, vocabulary, and process.

The “extremely” not avantgarde artist, within an existing art-form, is one whose works adhere to traditionally existing form(s), aesthetic, vocabulary and process.

I cannot think of any “important” Arab artists that always, in all their work, fall in either category.

What of the cases in between? For example, what of a poet who departs from the symmetrical, metered, rhymed, and topically pre-formulated practice of classical Arabic poetry by inventing a new rhyme scheme, say all the odd lines rhyme, and all the even lines rhyme but using different rhyme syllables, while adhering to the other traditional traits of aesthetic, form, vocabulary, and process? This artist may be considered innovative by some, and tasteless by others. But, few observers will consider her to be an avantgarde poet. As she continues to push the envelope shedding more and more traditional considerations of form, process, aesthetic, and artistic (not necessarily linguistic) vocabulary, there will be a point when most educated observers will consider her to be avantgarde.

This first exercise demonstrated that the question of who is an avantgarde artist is largely a quantitative question of: in how many respects and how many of the works of an artist depart from the traditions of the art form?

There remain three mental exercises that will be discussed in the next part of the series.

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.

To begin with, how do we distinguish between avantgarde and innovation that is a natural product of evolution over time of any cultural activity?

When does the avantgarde status of something expire?

And then what happens to it?

Why do we still use the term avantgarde to describe music that was so in the fifties, but can now be learned in universities? Doesn’t the possibility of getting a degree in an art form from a respectable accredited university mean that that art form can no longer be considered avantgarde?

In retrospect, can impressionism in painting considered to have been avantgarde? How about photography, when first introduced into the world of visual arts, was it considered avantgarde then? Should it have been? If not, when is a new art form considered avantgarde and not just simply, a new art form? When should a new way to practice an existing art be considered avantgarde?

Now more specifically to the subject at hand. Arab avantgarde is not the same as Arabic avantgarde music. Which discussion should we have? Arab avantgarde music discusses avantgarde music made by people of Arab ethnicity. Arabic avantgarde music, means, I suppose, avantgarde music made by practitioners of Arabic music, as departure from more traditional Arabic music. So in that respect, Arab avantgarde musicians have to be of Arab ethnicity but they don’t have to know anything about Arabic music nor be able to play any Arabic musical instruments. On the other hand, Arabic avantgarde music practitioners don’t have to be Arab but have to be trained in Arabic music.

We haven’t even begun to discuss geography.

In this new post series I will try to answer some of the questions above and, with some luck, find a way to discuss Arab and Arabic avantgarde music.

]]> http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/76/feed 1 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/73 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/73#comments Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:49:31 +0000 http://saedmuhssin.com/blog/archives/73 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.