Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
I would love to get my hands on one someday before I go (though I doubt I will), but the first time I heard a Jeffery Armen CD (think it was on CDbaby.com years ago), I bought the CD right then-I was entranced by the music and sound of it! Still am! PS This is the whole album on Youtube.
If you start here, it will play the whole album.
Another question-edited to add:
Do I detect a Flamenco influence in this track, entitled Thoughts of You-a bit later on in the piece?
RE: Anyone love Oud too? (in reply to bluespiderweb)
Can't read the video over here in Spain. I like the three Joubran brothers quite a bit:
In the realm of jazz, you could give Dhafer Youssef a listen And of course there's El Amir who, aside from being a top-notch flamenco guitarist, does a good job on the ud. His playing is featured pretty heavily in the radio tarifa albums
that's really just the contemporary "westernized" ud music. But be warned, traditional ud music is a rabbit hole, pretty much as deep as flamenco.
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Sorry Piwin, that you can't see the video, what a shame-maybe you can do a search and find something else by him, though he didn't make many albums from what I see. I was able to watch your videos though, thank you for them, nice stuff.
Rabbit holes, ha! I can see that, but I'm a surface kind of guy, never going much below ground! Probably thanks to my ADD.
And thanks Ramzi, I did go to that maker's site-lots of nice instruments but very much above my range. But I like listening anyway, and doubt I could sound much like a real player who has knowledge of the music, where I have none, but love the vibes.
Posts: 292
Joined: May 3 2017
From: Iraq, living in Germany
RE: Anyone love Oud too? (in reply to bluespiderweb)
I LOVE the oud. I grew up with its sound and I'd love to learn to play it. Maqam music is very complex and the oud is such a sad and melancholic instrument. it's magic.
If you really like oud, I'd suggest listening to the classics. Farid Al Atrash for example was a prodigious oud player apart from being a great composer and an extremely talented singer. The oud he plays on is one made in Iraq.
Olé! That guy's clearly not messing around. I saw El Amir once playing on an electric oud. I'll be honest, I lost a little bit of respect for him that day
Thank you for the suggestion and video, Jalal. I have listened to him on Youtube before, as I listen to all there and see what I like. There is much diversity in oud playing, no doubt.
Personally I like the clarity of the modern recordings, but for serious students, the classics are always a good place to start in learning. Mainly I just listen to please my ears. I doubt I will ever play the oud, but the music and sound of the oud is just so great though.
I hope others will take up the oud. Especially those like you who grew up with the sound of it and love it and the music. Start soon if that is your wish, no doubt it will be rewarding!
RE: Anyone love Oud too? (in reply to Erik van Goch)
Erik, the videos are still there for me, hope others can see them too. I know Piwin said he couldn't view them from Spain, maybe you too in the Netherlands?
Farid is pretty f*ckin serious I believe though there are a lot of arabic oud players that play the electric oud. I personally don't like its sound though, I don't like piezo pickups without a sound box supporting the air resonance.
thank you for your encouraging words barry, I really hope to start learning oud very soon ! if I do and if I get good results, I might post a video or something
RE: Anyone love Oud too? (in reply to bluespiderweb)
quote:
ORIGINAL: bluespiderweb
Erik, the videos are still there for me, hope others can see them too. I know Piwin said he couldn't view them from Spain, maybe you too in the Netherlands?
Apparently, all i get is the message "video not available"
_____________________________
The smaller the object of your focus the bigger the result.
Posts: 3472
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Anyone love Oud too? (in reply to bluespiderweb)
Back in the Sixties the Nubian Hamza El Din was popular among the counter-culture.
Besides being a great musician he protested against the displacement of people by the lake formed by the Aswan High Dam on the Nile, a project with financing and technical assistance from the Soviet Union.
I went to a few concerts by him, have a couple of records, felt great respect and derived great pleasure from his music.
RE: Anyone love Oud too? (in reply to bluespiderweb)
I knew Hamza, he lived very close to me in Oakland. He lived in a nice building on Lake Merritt. On afternoons he took walks and I gave him a wave and a hello. He was a real gentleman.
I had dinner with him once, one of his students is a good friend of mine. Hamza, his Japanese wife, and my friend Tom and his wife all went to the movies together to see a documentary on Um Kultoum, called 'The Voice of Egypt'. After the show we retired to a table in a restaurant in Berkeley that had Egyptian food...whatever, and a belly dancer who performed to music blasting out of a boom box. Hamza's wife registered displeasure, but Tom leaned in to me and said Hamza finds this amusing.
He showed us how to do palmas from his area in Sudan, I compared them to flamenco palmas and showed him an alta. His wife disapproved. Dumb gaijin. But the best part was he told stories about seeing Um Koultum back in Egypt.
There was a good article in an old Horizon Magazine about the Aswan Dam covering up the old monuments in that valley they flooded. I have a copy of it that I brought to Japan. Hamza was also a pretty good painter. I went to the reception of his last show at his gallery in Berkeley. I think that was the last time I saw him before he died. I wish I would have known him as well as Tom, I remember Hamza fondly. Hamza taught Tom to play a great deal of his music. Tom can play Water Wheel, Hamza's long hypnotic piece about the villages he knew that are now under the water held by the Aswan Dam
Great stories, Richard and Stephen. And thank you for cluing me into that piece and Hamza, The Water Wheel-great stuff! I found it on youtube and I am enjoying listening to it now as I write this: