Mike's Oud Forums

Flamenco?

valdae - 11-27-2006 at 08:06 AM

Pardon my ignorance, but I had to ask this. Listening to various oudists on this site and elsewhere, I've noticed that certain phrases or "lines" sound very much like flamenco guitar. Is there a connection between these musical forms? It appears that in the history of the oud certain musical forms created with it had influence on the development of flamenco, of course, this is just a guess on my part.

will_oud - 11-27-2006 at 08:14 AM

Absolutely. In the Arab conquest of Spain, some of the oud playing techniques were adopted in to the Spanish flemenco music.

William F. Sparks

valdae - 11-27-2006 at 08:58 AM

Thanks William. I thought as much. I can't think of the player whose phrases made me think this, but it sounded totally like flamenco playing in its lines. This explains a lot.

will_oud - 11-27-2006 at 09:24 AM

Some of Munir Bashir's music is like that. From what I've heard, he studied with Andreas Segovia.

William F. Sparks

valdae - 11-27-2006 at 09:31 AM

He has a CD available at amazon.com called The Art of the Oud, that I'll be getting shortly. But first, I ordered Rahim Alhaj's Iraqi Music in a Time of War. This is a live recording, with Rahim giving commentary on the pieces before he plays them. He's been living in exile since the Gulf War, and has yet to set foot in Iraq. Very haunting music, to say the least.

SamirCanada - 11-27-2006 at 09:39 AM

I recomend listening to Husein Sabsaby's recordings with his flamenco guitar parter. The whole Cd is great and every track is pretty much a duo between oud and guitar.

http://www.oudsabsaby.com/

listen to his cd called haneen...
there are a few sound clips available on his site.

oudplayer - 11-27-2006 at 11:55 AM

hey guys

this cd is great i heard it many times i love the mixture of both alwasy kid it goes smooth another thing i like otgeather is oud and bazuk another 2 that go well and upright bass sounds sick with oud.
thx sammy

billkilpatrick - 11-27-2006 at 02:07 PM

i think it would be safe to say that the oud is an andalusian instrument - taken east ... or west ... or simply across the straights of gibralta.

jshead - 11-27-2006 at 04:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by billkilpatrick
i think it would be safe to say that the oud is an andalusian instrument - taken east ... or west ... or simply across the straights of gibralta.

Do you mean to say that you think oud originated in Andulsia?

billkilpatrick - 11-27-2006 at 10:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by jshead

Do you mean to say that you think oud originated in Andulsia?


no, of course not. i meant in the way that a violin is a celtic instrument; a mandolin a bluegrass instrument, etc.. - the medieval, spanish, early music repertoire (cantigas de santa maria, etc.) when played on oud, just sounds right.

zalzal - 11-28-2006 at 12:10 AM

Some infos, comments and questions

- It was Zyriab, who added the 5th string, imported techniques of playing and established moods and styles on oud playing, on IX or Xth century.

- The "arab" conquest of Spain was in fact a berber conquest in the VIIth century, the minority rulers and commanders were arabs but the majority soldiers and people were north african berbers. You can imagine that the mixed all togethers with locals and that 8 centuries laters the people living in Al Andalus were andalousians (muslims, jews or christians).

- The "reconquista" was a civil war between ignorants brutals sauvages fm the north against highly developped cultural fine people on the south.

- Gypsies arrived spain on around XVth. This is a capital very agitated century (Grenade, Constantinople, Inquisition, migrations, expulsions etc etc).
How gypsies established, adopted local music custyoms, and played this mixture??

- I know nothing on flamenco music, but seems that origins are still not clear.
I think first recordings or rememberings or registers reaches XVIIIth century.

- I have heard fm music teacher that old flamenco singer used to play the quarter ton.....

- The kurdi maqam sounds very flamenco.
May be gypsies are fm Kurdistan ?? May be there are several origins for the gypsies not only the Rajasthan where gypsies are supposed to come from only. And if music proves a kurdish origin then who says Kurdistan says Iraq, Syria, Iran...

- Me for ex when i listen to Adib Dayekh, the syrian singer (allah yarahmou)...
i am like listening flamenco "duende"; DUENDE IS LIKE TARAB.
When i listen to Salim Ferghani singing and playing constantinian oud is like flamenco.

- Paco de Lucia has played also some oud small parts in for ex: cd Ziriab, and even others. I would like to know more on this

- On flamenco you have lot of music patterns called "palos", Are there studies of their harmonic structure and ryhthms ?? May be we will discover surprises.
I think there is one called "zambra" which is no doubt fm real arab music origin, but i do not know more on this.

- I have not seen much flamenco oud players. It is not the same thing. For me there has not been yet a true mixture between oud played in a maqam style and flamenco guitar solo. I mean, can a flamenco guitar play solo guitar flamenco sounding like maqam? Very difficult as there is no quarter ton in guitar, unless he uses kurdi maqam or the like.
Or on thje other way round, has there been an oud player playing oud like a guitar flamenco player???.
It is not because you play Asturias, on oud that you are playing flamenco.
It is not because Mounir Bashir calls his socd flamenco that he plays flamenco on oud.
Flamenco is different fm maqam.

- I hope to see the day an oudist playing for a real flamenco public will succeed to create duende with them and make people cry "Allah" and the day a guitarrist flamenco will succeed to make tarab with his maqam public crying "Oleee". And the day when both will play and dialogue together with mixed public and you will not distinguish tarab fm duende....

jazzchiss - 11-28-2006 at 01:47 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by zalzal
- The "reconquista" was a civil war between ignorants brutals sauvages fm the north against highly developped cultural fine people on the south.


Ha, ha! This is not what they taught us in the school!

There is a mutual charm among the flamenco and the arab musicians, but the origin of flamenco does not have much to do with arab-andalusian music. They were the gypsies, coming from India, which created the flamenco at the end of the 18th century.

The melismatic singing is common in flamenco, arabic and indian music, but unlike what happens in maqams and ragas, the flamenco guitarists cannot use microtones: the function of the guitar is mainly harmonic and rhythmic.

Miles Davis in disc Sketches of Spain ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketches_of_Spain ) imitates the voice of a flamenco singer with the trumpet, for what he has to detune enough, but one thing is to move away from the notes to give them expressiveness (what is common in jazz or popular music) and other one is to use microtones instead of the tempered scale.

zou - 11-28-2006 at 05:34 AM

hi jazzchiss,

it's for this reason we don't find microtones in arabo-andalusian music played in the magreb.
ziad

zou - 11-29-2006 at 04:52 AM

if you hear abed azriƩ cd "suerte" you will see the similarities between samai and "solea por boleria"
ziad

zalzal - 11-29-2006 at 05:19 AM

Thank you Estornudo Jazzchis, yes, franco school did not teach this but the national catolicism which is more or less the same thing as national socialism.
But the facts are the facts and if you remember Sancho el Craso, the medieval north sauvage king, he was suffering big obessity, Craso means fat, and he was healed by Cordouan doctors. Even a cataract operations was carried on around the 11th century in malaga i think.

Thankyou zou, the palo is called solea por bulerias, (not boleria). I am sure that flamenco is a mixture of gypsies music with moorish music. Moorish are forced converted christians, under christian rule, specially during XV and XVIth century, keeping much of muslim costums and andalusian language in clandestinity or isolated only moorish places. The last big moorish expulsion took place in 1616 with Felipe II.
We can say Islam lasted in Spain till XVII century, not so far back.