Thank you so much! I’m an improviser & teacher based in Chicago and my dad is from Damascus. I’ve been transcribing Sabah Fahkri lines for slide guitar and your explanation of Ya Shadil’ al-Han was very helpful! Excellent pedagogy
Dear Sami Shumays, I have just finish watching the video and need to say that you are an excellent teacher (and it probably fits to the idea of expectation). I am Conrado Rodrigues; a Brazilian who teaches civil engineering at a public university (maybe, the surprise part). I am an amateur musician interested on Arab music, although not being a descendant of the many thousands of Lebanese or Syrian families that forms a huge community in Brazil. My way to the Arab music interest (and now, learning), started with a traditional music made in the Northeast part of Brazil, which is closed linked to the Arab roots of the Iberian Peninsula culture. This video was a lucky surprise. I have already seen that you were posting the lessons, but I decided to start following them after reading some chapters of Inside Arab Music. As I have finished those on intonation and notation, I went to your channel to start lesson 1 on Saturday morning. Then, I found this great masterclass there. Not only due to the practical aspects that for sure will help me learning a bit of Arab music on my ud (made in Brazil by a luthier friend that fortunately accept the challenge of making it), but about your approach to music, art and culture. Thanks a lot for sharing your expertise with us. Conrado.
I love you so much Sami! I have been searching for this for so many years, your book is a masterpiece and those videos are really useful! Thank you for your pedagogy, I am going to help you on patreon as soon as I can. Keep the great work, ma3a salama
Amazing! Just find out your channel and follow from Argentina. Get interested in arabic music due to balkan music scales. My grandparents came to Argentina from the former Yugoslavia.
you teach in very easy ways sir. i am very interested to learn maqam ajam and sika for quran but i did'nt find video in english. finnal i got your video love from Pakistan.
Thank you for the wonderful content. I am finishing your book too and I had a question in case you are monitoring these comments: the way of presenting maqams in the maqam world website does not seem to be in sync with the book. For instance, I am learning maqam nahawand according to the book (which I love by the way!) and your lessons but I went to the maqam world site to see what it says and it has two main options that seem like a very limited view of the maqam. For instance in maqam Nahawand your graph has bayati as a possible route but on the site nahawand with bayati on ghammaz is given a different name. I am a little bit confused 😅
Fantastic as always Sami. Have been absorbing this one over several days. Great to have the full context, be listening to those songs in different versions, and circling around to learn more about them in depth, and put everything we've learnt so far together. I'm loving these so much, and in a way can't wait til I catch up with you making them, though of course it is taking some time to digest, which is probably a healthy way of doing it. Do you think since so many of these songs are sung in Arabic that someone like me who has pretty much no connection to the Arabic world would learn more and be more connected to these songs through the Arabic language? Is there a core of common words which pop up through a lot of the repertoire? I appreciated you teaching those few phrases, "Ya leil" - oh night (which you used to sing in so many previous videos), "Habibi" - my darling, and I remember there being one or two more from Umm Kulthum which I've since forgotten. I realise this is not at all the point of these videos but just wondered if you had any thoughts around whether little pieces of the language would help embody the music. Thanks again for taking the time to make these fantastic learning resources. Love from Aotearoa.
The playlist is on my channel - just look for playlists. This one is called "Maqam Rast, Kirdan, Suznak" and the songs I analyze are the first ones on the playlist.
You're lucky! Learning by ear is the only way to understand the music. My theory, if you can call it that, is an anti-theory: to the extent that I'm using theoretical terms and ideas, I am doing it in order to communicate with those who have already become entangled in the mess of false theory (both from the West and from the Arab World). The last 2500 years of music theory, starting with Pythagoras, are pure garbage. The most untrained, untutored musician from any rural village in the world knows more about music than any professor in any university. The most useful thing I am posting in these youtube videos is simply the call and response of melodic phrases. Everything else is fluff, for those who need an intellectual anchor in order to trust what their ears already have the capability of grasping. Which playlist is broken BTW? I just checked the playlist of songs covered in the video (the first one in the description) and it worked just fine. I'll check the others, thanks for letting me know regardless!
@Flute Fauna i'm honored I could provoke an existential crisis! And that you're open enough to question your assumptions. Best wishes for your continued studies
@@abushumays is there any place where you talk more about your anti-theory, it spoke deeply to my heart. I always get stuck in theory and couldn't grow up, but I saw musicians playing divinely without ever taking a theory class. I think these musicians let their hearts speak and trusted their ears
Because of my western music knowledge, whenever I'm thinking about what notes to choose, I always take into consideration the chord below and the beat of the music, to understand when should I use a chord tone, when to not to bring a certain effect, and in what moment, even when there is no chord below, and just the conjunct of notes in a bar is forming a broken arpeggio. This reasoning I believe is making me having difficulty to understand Maqamat music, more specifically, when to choose a note at a certain moment. Is there a more "specific" guideline? For example, in Maqam Rast, there is the third with the quarter-tone. I might be wrong, but I imagine even the arab musicians might consider this note more "special" from the more diatonic second and forth, and for western years, this note will call as much attention to itself as a tritone. Having too many equally good choices for notes kinda makes me stuck, just like having too many ice cream flavors to choose. So is there a guideline? Maybe for example, if We imagine a Maqsum playing in the background, at the moment where the "dum" is played, it would be "unusual" to play a certain note, just like you don't usually play non-chord tones in the downbeat, unless you want to use the accented dissonance for a specific effect in the music.
It's not a guideline or a rule. That is an erroneous way of thinking. It is a vocabulary that you must learn in order to be able to use, just as you would learn the vocabulary of any language. Once you have that vocabulary in your brain, you will know what to do without consulting any rule. The point of these lessons is to teach the vocabulary through repetition. It's basically language classes. If you repeat them enough times, copying the phrases, you'll start to remember them and that use of memory will be your guide. Good luck!
"A maqam has a scale, but it isn't a scale." Good starting point for explaining melodic modes in general
Absolutely
Thank you so much! I’m an improviser & teacher based in Chicago and my dad is from Damascus. I’ve been transcribing Sabah Fahkri lines for slide guitar and your explanation of Ya Shadil’ al-Han was very helpful! Excellent pedagogy
I’m trembling with joy hearing this beautiful music… thank you🎉
Thank you very much, your channel, your book and your website are treasures, I will support and share.
Dear Sami Shumays,
I have just finish watching the video and need to say that you are an excellent teacher (and it probably fits to the idea of expectation). I am Conrado Rodrigues; a Brazilian who teaches civil engineering at a public university (maybe, the surprise part). I am an amateur musician interested on Arab music, although not being a descendant of the many thousands of Lebanese or Syrian families that forms a huge community in Brazil. My way to the Arab music interest (and now, learning), started with a traditional music made in the Northeast part of Brazil, which is closed linked to the Arab roots of the Iberian Peninsula culture.
This video was a lucky surprise. I have already seen that you were posting the lessons, but I decided to start following them after reading some chapters of Inside Arab Music. As I have finished those on intonation and notation, I went to your channel to start lesson 1 on Saturday morning. Then, I found this great masterclass there. Not only due to the practical aspects that for sure will help me learning a bit of Arab music on my ud (made in Brazil by a luthier friend that fortunately accept the challenge of making it), but about your approach to music, art and culture. Thanks a lot for sharing your expertise with us.
Conrado.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience!
Fantastic Lesson! Big thank you and greetings from Berlin. Now I’ll start with video lesson one.
I love you so much Sami! I have been searching for this for so many years, your book is a masterpiece and those videos are really useful!
Thank you for your pedagogy, I am going to help you on patreon as soon as I can.
Keep the great work, ma3a salama
Thank you so much!!! Please spread the word and share this video when you have a moment!
@@abushumays Z,
Amazing! Just find out your channel and follow from Argentina.
Get interested in arabic music due to balkan music scales. My grandparents came to Argentina from the former Yugoslavia.
I have that book! Great book for a deep dive in Arabic music.
This is nectar for the soul....this is the first video i watched but for sure not the last!!! Thank you!!!!
Thank you so much Amoura!
you teach in very easy ways sir. i am very interested to learn maqam ajam and sika for quran but i did'nt find video in english. finnal i got your video love from Pakistan.
Great teacher, thank you!
once again a master class from Sami! those vídeos are so important to me! !! شكر
thank you so usefull!
Where/where did you get that tie? Signed, the wife. Lol
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thank you sir! This is really great explanation!
Thank you for the wonderful content. I am finishing your book too and I had a question in case you are monitoring these comments: the way of presenting maqams in the maqam world website does not seem to be in sync with the book. For instance, I am learning maqam nahawand according to the book (which I love by the way!) and your lessons but I went to the maqam world site to see what it says and it has two main options that seem like a very limited view of the maqam. For instance in maqam Nahawand your graph has bayati as a possible route but on the site nahawand with bayati on ghammaz is given a different name.
I am a little bit confused 😅
Fantastic as always Sami. Have been absorbing this one over several days. Great to have the full context, be listening to those songs in different versions, and circling around to learn more about them in depth, and put everything we've learnt so far together. I'm loving these so much, and in a way can't wait til I catch up with you making them, though of course it is taking some time to digest, which is probably a healthy way of doing it.
Do you think since so many of these songs are sung in Arabic that someone like me who has pretty much no connection to the Arabic world would learn more and be more connected to these songs through the Arabic language? Is there a core of common words which pop up through a lot of the repertoire? I appreciated you teaching those few phrases, "Ya leil" - oh night (which you used to sing in so many previous videos), "Habibi" - my darling, and I remember there being one or two more from Umm Kulthum which I've since forgotten. I realise this is not at all the point of these videos but just wondered if you had any thoughts around whether little pieces of the language would help embody the music.
Thanks again for taking the time to make these fantastic learning resources. Love from Aotearoa.
My copy of the book is on it's way from the UK, so should be here in a few weeks. I can't wait!
Indeed if you learn some Arabic you'll get more out of the songs. Depends on your goals!
Where to find the playlist? What is it name?
The playlist is on my channel - just look for playlists. This one is called "Maqam Rast, Kirdan, Suznak" and the songs I analyze are the first ones on the playlist.
@@abushumaysthank you so much for your efforts!
Very useful 😊
Thanks!
Arab music theory is impossible to find. I had to learn by ear. BTW the playlist link is broken
You're lucky! Learning by ear is the only way to understand the music. My theory, if you can call it that, is an anti-theory: to the extent that I'm using theoretical terms and ideas, I am doing it in order to communicate with those who have already become entangled in the mess of false theory (both from the West and from the Arab World). The last 2500 years of music theory, starting with Pythagoras, are pure garbage. The most untrained, untutored musician from any rural village in the world knows more about music than any professor in any university.
The most useful thing I am posting in these youtube videos is simply the call and response of melodic phrases. Everything else is fluff, for those who need an intellectual anchor in order to trust what their ears already have the capability of grasping.
Which playlist is broken BTW? I just checked the playlist of songs covered in the video (the first one in the description) and it worked just fine. I'll check the others, thanks for letting me know regardless!
@Flute Fauna i'm honored I could provoke an existential crisis! And that you're open enough to question your assumptions. Best wishes for your continued studies
@@abushumays is there any place where you talk more about your anti-theory, it spoke deeply to my heart.
I always get stuck in theory and couldn't grow up, but I saw musicians playing divinely without ever taking a theory class. I think these musicians let their hearts speak and trusted their ears
Because of my western music knowledge, whenever I'm thinking about what notes to choose, I always take into consideration the chord below and the beat of the music, to understand when should I use a chord tone, when to not to bring a certain effect, and in what moment, even when there is no chord below, and just the conjunct of notes in a bar is forming a broken arpeggio.
This reasoning I believe is making me having difficulty to understand Maqamat music, more specifically, when to choose a note at a certain moment. Is there a more "specific" guideline? For example, in Maqam Rast, there is the third with the quarter-tone. I might be wrong, but I imagine even the arab musicians might consider this note more "special" from the more diatonic second and forth, and for western years, this note will call as much attention to itself as a tritone. Having too many equally good choices for notes kinda makes me stuck, just like having too many ice cream flavors to choose.
So is there a guideline? Maybe for example, if We imagine a Maqsum playing in the background, at the moment where the "dum" is played, it would be "unusual" to play a certain note, just like you don't usually play non-chord tones in the downbeat, unless you want to use the accented dissonance for a specific effect in the music.
It's not a guideline or a rule. That is an erroneous way of thinking. It is a vocabulary that you must learn in order to be able to use, just as you would learn the vocabulary of any language. Once you have that vocabulary in your brain, you will know what to do without consulting any rule. The point of these lessons is to teach the vocabulary through repetition. It's basically language classes. If you repeat them enough times, copying the phrases, you'll start to remember them and that use of memory will be your guide. Good luck!
1 person can't hear the difference between rast and C major
Which person?
@@abushumays The person who disliked the video :-D
🤣🤣🤣