Al Maamoun, who loves oriental melodies, sees the oud as an escape from life and the pressures of her studies. “I feel in harmony while striking the strings of the oud”, says Hoda Al Maamoun, a veterinary student whose passion for the oud led her to enrol in the Mustafa Zayer Centre for Music. The school is entitled to qualify the student to be a solo player”. The committee then meets to decide the degree and grades to award the student. “The course of study at Arabic Oud House lasts two years with 12 lessons per month,” he explains, “after the student completes the period of study, he presents eight of his works before a committee of four people. Speaking to Independent Arabia, Naseer Shamma discusses his experience in establishing the Arabic Oud House in Cairo and other Arab cities. Learning to play the oud is no easy feat and requires a lot of effort, study and training. These methods differ in terms of employing the fingers and the plectrum and the student learns the school curricula and special methods for playing the musical notes or tunes ( maqamat). He went on to add that the “Arabic Oud House uses a curriculum inspired by Iraqi, Turkish and Egyptian schools”, as well as the playing methods adopted by Jamil Bashir, Salem Abdul Karim and Naseer Shamma. Mohamad Al Attar, artistic director of the Arabic Oud House in Baghdad explains that, “our purpose in teaching the oud is to preserve the tradition of Iraqi oud schools which started with Al-Sharif Mohieddin Haidar, Jamil Bashir, Munir Bashir and Naseer Shamma”. It is expected to open a branch in Riyadh soon. The first school was established in Cairo in 1998 and the institution has since been established in several other Arab cities including Alexandria and Khartoum in addition to Baghdad. It is one of many such schools founded by the Iraqi musician Naseer Shamma. The Arabic Oud House, a music school dedicated to teaching the oud, opened its doors in Baghdad in 2018. Even the case of the oud is handmade and the bridge or the umbrella which accentuates the sound is also sculpted by hand. The oud strings are usually imported and are added to the handmade instrument. During his apprenticeship, he has crafted 60 vocal boxes.
#MIDDLE EASTERN STRINGED INSTRUMENTS TRIAL#
As for the plectrum or the quill, some musicians prefer it to be soft while others prefer a strong sharp quill, which gives the sound an additional depth.Įnjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign upĪfter two years of learning, Hussein Layth has become skilled in making the vocal box known as the hollow body or the belly of the oud, which is made up of 18 ribs. It is hard to work with a large instrument while practising for long hours. The measurements adopted by the Arabic Oud House, a music school founded by instrumentalist Naseer Shamma, are centred on the idea that the oud should be comfortable for students who practise more than six hours a day. In the second type, the neck length is 19.5 cm and these are the measurements used by the famous musician Munir Bashir”. In the first type, the neck length is 19 cm according to measurements used by Naseer Shamma who is known as the ‘master of oud’. There is also a kind called ‘the pulling oud’ and it comes in two types as well. The oriental oud comes in two types, “The length of the ulna or the neck is 20 cm in the first type and it is known as natural oriental, while the second type is characterised by a neck length of 19.5 cm. Speaking about the oud market, Fouad says that the instrument comes in different sizes. However, despite the passage of time it has not lost its fascination and allure, and today this eleven-stringed instrument is centre-stage in Arab orchestras and is a part of the Arabic music repertory. The instrument that found its root in ancient civilisation has gone through changes in its shape and strings before it took the form that we see today. The oud was favoured by philosophers and poets, reaching the peak of its glory in the Umayyad and Abbasid periods, and has been passed down through the generations. The enchanting wooden box from which melodies resound was known by the Arabs of yore as an instrument, “the strings of which once moved, creates a melody that at times lulls one to sleep, and others causes one to weep”. It went on to become a popular musical instrument during the old Babylonian era (1950-1530 BC). The oud, a stringed instrument, is believed to date back to around 2350 BC to the Akkadian civilisation located in present-day Iraq.
This article first appeared in our partner site, Independent Arabia
0 kommentar(er)
