Ancient Egyptian Arabic Improvisation on Fretless Guitar
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- Available on Spotify:
open.spotify.c...
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I have defretted my old classical guitar and i think its new sound resembles the sound of north african and mid eastern stringed instruments, so i decided to record an improvisation trying to create an "ancient" Egyptian or Nubian atmosphere. I also include the word "arabic" in the title because this might be interesting for someone looking for old style arabic music.
This was recorded as a "one take only" and is just what came out, nothing planned.. (i didn´t notice that is almost 7 minutes long!).
For this i´m mostly influenced by the music i´ve heard of the great Hamza El Din.
Hope you like it.
© Copyright 2008
This Track is available on SPOTIFY! Search for "Ancient Fretless Improvisation" or follow this link: open.spotify.com/track/36SPyi2QF86tmmpM6sVPfQ?si=6C20_MGSSnSZjrVi2iPKwA
Thanks to everyone for your interest and nice comments.
Hey man, could you put in on Tidal? This is awesome, i don't have spotify though... ://
@@chudyjoza hi, thanks! it should be on Tidal under the name of “Ancient Fretless Improvisation”. Let me know if you find it.
Yeah, I found it. Thanks
now, i feel like i'm in Egypt.
haha same, like in movie
Ramses status
you got it...ive lived in egypt almost my whole life and ancient styles are still used over there, even in modern music at times. the constant plucking of the top E string is what makes it sound so real because there is always that constant wavering solid note in the backdrop of egyptian music
Drone
Dude, you don't know how long I've search for this kind of music!....keep making these, more power to you bro!
Thanks! I´m glad you like it. Now you can find it on Spotify: open.spotify.com/track/36SPyi2QF86tmmpM6sVPfQ?si=6C20_MGSSnSZjrVi2iPKwA
i'll be happy to share with you my play on a similar instrument that is a fretless guitar here is the link : ruclips.net/video/PmozE1iDi1U/видео.html
@@hichammanseur8179 good job.
Be proud, I made this my phone's ringtone for a very long time. :)
+Far From Perfect Thanks, that´s a great compliment.
What part of it? :)
from 6 seconds to 36 seconds. :)
Thanks to everyone for your comments and interest. I feel really happy knowing some of you enjoyed this improvisation, i never thought it was going to get so many views and comments.
After i graduated and got an "office" job i haven´t been playing as much as i´d like, but I hope to take the guitar again soon. Those were great times and it was really fun to record videos.
I had to change my old user "654321654321" to reactivate my account and be able to write comments (it really annoyed me, but well... ).
Greetings, Roberto.
Сказочная музыка у вас, погружает в мир странствий, тайн и загадок.
Roberto M R i think you should bring your guitar into the office job...play this and quit! lol
King Jungle большое спасибо.
Daniel DeMayo haha.. i might do it someday.
skunkFU25 thanks. i´m glad you like it.
I am studying Ancient Egypt at school and this is perfect for background music. Thank you! I wish it was longer!
i didn't even know they had cameras back then....240p isn't bad for that long ago
Daniel DeMayo thou sarcasm hath gone unnoticed
Pan Rodriguez sarcasmeth*
Pan Rodriguez thy*
+Pan Rodriguez Epic faileth thou hast done.
This sounds like a metallica song is about to start at any moment. They must use this musical scale a lot.
I'm a music student but I've always just felt that "yes!" thing, that "that's for me! That's what I like!" feeling for middle eastern sounding music more so. It just speaks to me more deeply. I have so many books from school about western music analysis. Where can I begin education on Arabic style music? I'm looking for deep theoretical knowledge.
Laura Gilbert the arabic scales called makamat مقامات you can copy and past it and listen to them u have to learn it first
Same here....along with any modal, non-standard music not just based on "major-minor" western scales.
I think you will have to learn arabic or turkish first because resources in english on maqam music are very scarce.
There's a Book called "inside arabic music" by Johnny farraj
You'll find it useful
thats just roman 'classical'
i've gone into bach mozart beethoven
anything harmonic minor is middle eastern for me
thats the thing though, its like the bible and the europeans
they bleach everything associated with the the middle east for nationalist reasons
but its there
it might not be ethnically authentic but its there
Beautiful!
Very beautiful, I spent much time in Andalucia Spain and simply love the Flamenco atmosphere, you're introducing this same language here,more on a pedal bass note,beautiful the vibrato technique you're using, suddenly the high E functions as a pedal note while you play melody underneath,great Ideas,great playing,Vic.
hi! i´m glad you like it.
I´m not arabian, i´m from Chile.
I like arabic music
:)
indescribably mesmerizing,, i had know idea you could play that on a fretless guitar!! its so beautiful
i do love the sound of this impro, very nice performance in the research of sounds ; compliments, patrick
Sounds like something ancient and dark...
mysterious and adventurous
approaching and erotic
dude wtf lol
Joe Bartholomeus You mean exotic?
It's basically classical Arabic music.
thanks!!
i´m glad that you think this music sounds evocative of ancient ruins.
(the tuning is DAFCGD)
effortless microtonal flibbidy bibbidy, i'm in love
This literally transports me to another place in my head I don't know how to describe it.
This has a great sound. So otherworldly.
amazing how you get the harmonic sound even without the frets. well done.
Damn that was beautiful. If you could do tutorials or something along does lines would be great, in addition I would love to purchase an album of your music if that is something foreseeable in the near future. Thank you, I appreciate what you do.
Hi Bo88y, thanks for your nice comment. I´m taking guitar/youtube back again and created Facebook/Instagram pages (look up for Rotmor Music), so I might upload a tutorial there in the future. I have released new music in the channel, it´s in a different setup but the same spirit I think. It is also available in bandcamp and soundcloud.
Thanks again.
being a fretless bass player whose involved with many aspects of many different music and especially improvisation this is truly truly appreciated
Thanks a lot
Would love to hear this infused with death metal. Nile don't use enough of these "clean" passages in their music.
+2StrokeHeretic Yes, that would be nice.
I may be one of the few people here who knows what you're talking about haha. Nile is dope, but you're right this would make for a great interlude between the heaviness.
Obscura's "Melos" has a fretless guitar part, but yeah Nile should focus more on the atmospheric aspect of their music
There is some very impressive picking this song. I really like the different plucking and picking styles you worked, a huge understanding of the style and feel you were going for must have been behind this for such a great improv.
it sounds like Oud.
this is exactly what i'm thinking too
The oud is also fret less
And also most likely this has been tuned to sound more Arabic
Deep in the rabbit hole that's the guitar side of youtube, and got on a fretless guitar kinda path. This is incredibly interesting music, and very captivating as well! I'm just starting out with guitar, and I hope I manage to be able to play as well as you just did. Props, dude!
+Glacier Nester Welcome to this side of youtube. I´m glad you liked this recording... and thanks for the compliment!
Hello Robert. Beautiful Egyptian style improvisation . You could do a tutorial on acoustic guitar to touch please? Pleasse :D :)
thank you very much, i´m glad you like it.
i love flamenco too, the feeling that flamenco "transmits" is amazing!
greets,
R.
Makes me want to invest some time intro defretting my acoustic.
+DarkestofTimes It's worth the effort! I did this to an old Hondo acoustic, yanked the frets, sanded, re-sanded, then used the fiberglass resin from an auto kit (minus any "tiger hair" or fabric- just the clear resin. A bit of blue painter's tape, some Playtex gloves and some patience (Lots of fine sanding between 6 coats) produced a very fun, playable result.
Wow, thanks for the information. Very helpful.
+John Jenkins Hi, what about the volume, is it high enough to hear the guitar from lets say 2 or 3 meters ? Thanks in advance :)
Guitar was Every bit as loud as before I De fretted it
+John Jenkins Thanks :)
i've downloaded the video and convert it as my favorite song. i listen to this frecuently and inspires me so much on my artworks and stuff
instead of just droning the E string you should maybe drone the A or D occasionally and follow with soloing over those notes to break it up.this started great but needs a little more variety.
does sound hypnotizing though,good work.
The caption/ title says it's an improvisation, so not a completely worked-out composition. That could come further on down the road, I think.
For the most part, modulation from the root key to other keys (going from E to A and then to B7, for example) didn't begin until maybe 800 years ago, if even then. It's still unusual in, say, raga music played on a sitar
- at least on any I've heard...
Chris Green
This is drift, but on "Full Circle" Ravi and Anoushka Shankar play a raga that modulates - she holds the changing drones - and she is now exploring playing lead sitar over changes - "Breathing Underwater", "Traces of You" - amazing stuff.
stubhead
I have an old 'student/tourist' grade sitar here, but don't play it: I found the 'fret spacings' too large, and the drone strings are all tuned to A, which reminds me of bagpipes/ sackpipa in that it limits modulation as a soloist. Maybe if I had started trying to learn the instrument when I was younger, say 9-10 years old....I might be able to play something on it.
AND....
Just to let things drift a little further away and farther back in time....to Ancient Sumeria and Babylon:
www.newsweek.com/what-did-ancient-mesopotamian-hits-sound-something-291543
Check Newsweek's Soundcloud samples from The Lyre Ensemble's cd, The Flood, at:
soundcloud.com/newsweek-tech-science/the-flood-1
And a video here:
www.stefconner.com/the-lyre-ensemble/
The ~playable~recreation of the Lyre of Ur used in this project is tuned to C
This newly released cd sold out its' first pressing in under 2 days because of the Newsweek article published Dec. 12th, and sharing. It's not music that will appeal to every one, but an impressive number of people have listened to it and really liked it. Click 'heart' if you do like it, and feel free to share it if you want.
You can order a cd, which includes a 16-page booklet, or download it from iTunes if that's your preference. (I don't know if the iTunes includes the booklet to download....I don't have an account there at this time.)
See also:
www.lyre-of-ur.com
Thanks in advance for listening. :-)
you would be right but in oriental music they rarely make changes to IV or V. Instead they try to archive that deep playing on the same ground note
God! This just sounds so beautiful! Thank you :) I'm Egyptian btw :)
Too much Cooool to control *_*
Can you do a tutorial of this ?
OMG!!! This is flawless!!! Perfect!!! I don´t have any words left!
heyy can you tell me which scale is that???really love it.
Probably some variant of the Harmonic Minor or Phrygian Dominant.
*****
sounded closer to phyrigian dominant
Agoraphobic I agree with most people who commented on this. But one more thing: It is a fretless guitar, so he can obtain some tones called microtones. You can't obtain these on a normal-fretted guitar, no matter how exoticy-phyrigiany-harmonicy-thingy the scale you use is.
Edit: Actually, you can do that using microbends, but it's hard to get the pitch right.. I think
who could ever dislike this? this is great! i love playing over these arabic scales
It sounds like it could be a Metallica song
the thing that should not jump in the fire from whom the bell seek and destroy all nightmare long... thats the official name of this song
me? i could try...hey apple! hey apple! hey apple! :D
Wherever i may roam
Is that a Nile reference?
Gypsy scale the scale used in the video, it is also used in metal music. I love it, in its original sound, not the "metal one"
Mysterious and spellbinding, absolutely fantastic.
N I L E ! ! !
Brilliant, thanks for this wonderful musical journey!
oeeeh what is this tuning?
seems to be DADGAD But i am not sure.
sounds more like DGCFAD
I have this in my mobile and i always listen to this to make myself relax....
Sounds like oud!
+Demetrios Arcolakis I heard this one too. But what strings and tuning used?
I guess it is only the playing style
I try to play, and even I play this style, but ,my string on my classic don't sounds like that... probaly is the guitar
+Melinte Simon
I'm fairly certain this is a nylon string guitar. They often have this sound while steel string acoustics will obviously have a more metallic sound.
I know
thanks for your nice comment and for the recommendation. i have been listening some of Khorshid´s music and i like it.
... love the Jackson electric 'unassumingly' lurking in the background. =)
Really nice piece.
Beautiful rendition :) Don't know why, but when I listen to this, involuntarily, images of ancient people sitting on camels walking in Sahara desert in the backdrop of pyramids fills my imagination.
Outstanding. I saw camels two by two and then my destination Timbuktu. It had been a long journey, began in the Nubian River Valley,from Karmah to Nepata, and then further south to Khartoum. We re-supplied for the journey west, and began in 3 days time. West, ever westward. The Empire of Kanem-Bornou had ended a decade ago. It was a strange land, burning hot by day; the ornery camels stopped when they wished. Only the bars at the Oasis offered the comforts of home, a Margarita, and the dervish twirling of Rosita. The sheep was duly rendered for meat and guitar strings. The Martins and D'Adarrios proving pale in comparison to the Oud-gut sound we were looking for. Weeks went by, Denny and I wrote. From Timbuktu, where we polished up some airs and a few pop songs, we turned south, through the lands of many tribes. Some worshiped John you know. the Trinkets we had stocked were nearly depleted by the time we reached Lagos. Then we recorded Band on the Run, at the new BBC studio. We jacked with a fella named Fela, who preferred his with a bit of gunpowder added., got him going it did. I gave him some 'shrooms I'd been saving, from Gabriel's personal stash. Thankfully he didn't invent another religion though, I told him; "all you need is love, man". "A Harem is a big consideration ,too", he replied. I nodded, - yeah right-o it is ! Linda took some pics, it was lovely.
Very nice work sir. Some of the most incredible music is discovered while just freestyle jamming and improvising.
Guy, I recently defretted an old guitar because i really wanted to be able to improvise and play things sounding like this. I hope someday i'm able to play as good as you man.
THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!! THANK YOU SO MUCH SIR !! AND HAPPY NEW YEARS (Y)
I love it! I have been drawn to the sound as long as I remember! :)
i was specifically looking for this egyptian style sound, thanks!
wundervoll gespielt.....tut einfach nur gut zu hören...DANKE !!
very beautiful...one of the most valuable moments ever spent on youtube to me....thanks for amuses me master!
nice jamming,man. good that you shared it with us, I don't usually see musicians plasying fretless guitars. great .
Love the ambiance. The thing about Arabic and Egyptian music (in a general sense) is microtonal. Good job!
thanks a lot.
Now i´m writting a "suite" for my fretless guitar. Maybe this will be a chapter of that suite.
Man you rocked the world with that song it was awesome
Beautiful ! And very nice sound. And the improvisation...sublime !
although I'm a new school heavy metal fanatic, these kind of music actually originate from the classic (such as phrygian/arabic scales...), which has a lot of application on the modern music, like it forever!!!!
The slides are so satifying without the frets!! Also what a wonderful play
Thanks a lot
I have a mind to defret my own guitar now! lovely timbre, and a good improv too xD
SimplyBaroque Hehe, I thought of the same thing! I have a shitty old guitar, so I might try that. Wish me luck.
don't worry about the length at all mate, it was awesome and i definitely liked it
Thank you for such beautiful music!! Love it!!
love the whole feeling of the piece!
Very beautiful. I resonate with this music. It moves me. Thank you. I'm learning the Phrygian Dom. Scale right now. Very nice playing
cool, but really hard to do bends on a coursed ( 2 strings in unison) and arch bridge instrument like the mandolin, not that it can't be done.....
Yes it would be tough on a mandolin Tim !
Timothy Sweeney pretty tough, the strings are so short and stiff. good exercise, though.
Nice finding of another way how to utilize time for human creative efforts :j
It does recalls associations with egypt/arabic instruments.
Nice feel on this. Just what I was looking for. Inspiring.
Bravo, i like these kinds of impovisations.It is pure emotion
There is no Doubt your THE MASTER ,This is Great ,Awesome I love it KEEP posting broo PLZ
I love it, those slides that you do around the beggning and then towards the end omg, I love it, I've always heard of vocalizations using those notes in movies or whatever but on a guitar it sounds so goood. Im trying attune myself into the arabic/flamenco/spanish style but...I guess I havent't been playing for that long, Youre very good!!! :)
wow 😱 that's flawless play. I was a guitarist but now I become a foreign language teacher.
Your music really sets a mood. Definitely ancient! Makes me feel like I'm in Morocco or Egypt staring out into the desert. You could add this music to a video showing desert scenes and I think it would be great!
I like the use of the pedal E on the bottom, almost drone like but suites very well. Great stuff.
As a person who is studying Arabic music in-depth I agree with you Leandro....it's a free improvisation on Phrygian mode and it has more of the Flamenco of Spain than of Egyptian or Arabic...and also the adjective "Ancient" in the title is, in my opinion, a misnomer. The music of Ancient Egypt was radically different from that of even Medieval or modern Egypt....although I must say that the impro is excellent and the player is inventive. I enjoyed it thouroghly but I agree with you on the title
that was seriously amazing, complete improv one take and its flawless, amazing work man
Sounds wonderful. I love it...I did the same thing with my songs; after I was done recording, I was thinking, "Whoa, this is 10 minutes?"
this is simply amazing.reminds me of the Oud/Lute sound.
Kudos... I dig the fretless slides over a droned open string
Sorry to post so many comments on your page but I noticed you have a Zheng in the background. I have one myself and love it with all my heart. Keep on keepin' on my friend.
thanks!
i´m glad you like it!
One of the best videos demonstrating these incredible scales on RUclips.
Beautiful playing and great sound. Seems like the recording picked up some echo in the room, which is great. I've been really soaking up Eastern influences for my guitar playing - I'm going to see Tinariwen later this month, and your playing brings some of their songs to mind. Anyway, check "Rosetta West - Yallah," if you can. Thanks very much for posting this.
holy crap! i am just utterly flabbergasted. this seriously is awesome
excellent, amazing for it being improvised, sounds quite polished
Really love it. This is my ultimate goal. Well done
veru beautifull. I try egyptian scales because of the great metal band Nile and you are great, playing egyptian music on acoustic guitar (without fret! :O) . very good playing! realy enyoyed this :D
hey! thanks a lot! i´m glad you like it.
now i don´t have excuses, i have to learn to play using 1/4 tone notes, hehe..
i hope to learn that soon
:)
It's so cool when he slides!
Your guitar sounds like an oud. Really great my friend, always looked for a sound like this. Keep on playing... farewell
Noticed the 7/4 time around a minute in, very nice and natural.
this is so COOL! I love the vibe
Hi, I'm from Argentina, was "diving" on You Tube looking for music of Hamza El Din and I came across your "improvisation". I'm no expert, I do not know music, like many I like to sing and especially good music from all over the world. I liked what you did. It is very beautiful, congratulations!
Great job! I really like this guitar and I love the way you make it sound. I have de-fretted a number of western instruments; several guitars and basses. As an aspiring luthier (for a while. it's an expensive craft) and musician, I used to fix instruments for my musician friends. A quality wood-filler is good to have in place of the frets and is very easy to apply. Anyways, great playing!
I really enjoyed your piece. Also, after reading your description, I had to look up Hamza El Din. Thanks for that as well.
I love the sound of those Neapolitanesque scales.
such a listening pleasure. great job man really
Beautiful. ❤
That's something to be proud of my friend good work