وهذا حوار اجرته معه امازون دوت كوم:
The Desert Oud of Hamza El Din
Hamza El Din is considered by many to be the greatest living oud player
today. Born in Nubia in the country of Sudan, El Din held a promising
career as an engineer in Egypt before taking up the oud in the early
1960s. He began collecting folk songs regionally before studying music
formally in Italy. In 1964 he made his American debut at the Newport
Folk Festival and later lived for several years in San
Francisco--creating beautiful desert music with his oud and finding
friends in such artists as the Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart, Kronos
Quartet cellist Joan Jeanrenaud, and pianist W.A. Mathieu. El Din's
latest album, A Wish, offers lovely collaborations inspired by his home
village of Troshka and the region of Nubia.
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Amazon.com: With A
Wish you've said you wanted to preserve the culture of your homeland
through song. Do you feel you've fulfilled your wish with this album?
Hamza
El Din: I began my musical career wishing to preserve the Nubian
culture. The experience of living in many different countries has, over
time, broadened and changed my direction. As an artist I use music to
express myself and compose songs not only for Nubia but also for my
belief and all that I love and value. Of course, I think of my home
like other people living away from their homeland, and so this new CD,
A Wish, is dedicated to my old village. But I don't think that any one
person's effort can preserve an entire culture.
Amazon.com: At
an earlier time in your life you traveled throughout Egypt on a donkey
collecting Nubian songs. What was that experience like?
El
Din: It was a most interesting and educational time in my life. I was a
kind of ethnomusicologist without knowing it. I began with the
observation that a lullaby among us, sung by two women, mothers,
possibly even sisters, sounds different even though the lyrics were the
same. That observation opened the door for me to travel extensively all
over Nubia in Egypt and Sudan to meet people and observe our culture in
a kind of personal fieldwork. What I found was overwhelmingly
informative with regard to our musical heritage, and what I gained was
the indescribable joy of discovering a hidden treasure.
Amazon.com:
You've said that at a certain point you felt your oud had finally
attained the Nubian accent. What is the Nubian accent of the oud?
El
Din: The oud music from the Middle East, Iran, Asia Minor, and the
Balkans is all built on a system of tetrachords, groups of four
consecutive notes common to different but related maqams, or musical
scales. The music moves from one scale to another in the same
composition, transitioning by means of shared tetrachords. However, the
tonality of the oud music from different areas varies, and in my mind,
my oud sounds like what I would call the "desert oud." It is like a
piece of Bach's music, performed by German, French, Korean, and
Egyptian cellists, each educated only in his own country, each with his
own uniquely different accent.
Amazon.com: You've lived in America for much of your adult life. Has any sort of Western music influenced your songwriting?
El
Din: I can't say that I have been influenced by Western music as a
whole because of the difference of its tonality, structure, and
philosophy from what I grew up with and learned with the oud, even
though I studied Western music in Italy. However, some influences are
no doubt present, like making harmony when I play with other musicians.
And I enjoy listening to classical, jazz, and other music very much.
Amazon.com:
You played the Newport Folk Festival in 1964. What was that experience
like for a young Nubian musician from Africa?
El Din: Wow! I
never saw such a large number of #########, counted by the tens of
thousands, from the stage. Ordinarily, when I perform I close my eyes.
In the middle of that performance, I felt that the audience must have
either left or fallen asleep, they were so quiet, and so different from
a Middle Eastern audience. But when I finished playing, applause
erupted and I felt the warm appreciation for my art. I left the stage
thanking God for my success and for showing me a new audience and how
they listen to music. I saw many people working backstage, so many
different types, reminding me that this is America, the country of
diversity of people and culture. I felt America had such an
extraordinary capacity to accept and appreciate other cultures, more
than any other country.
Amazon.com: How did your friendship with the Grateful Dead come about?
El
Din: Mickey Hart was the producer of my album, Eclipse, recorded in
1976, and through him I met the Grateful Dead family, the whole band,
crew, and management. I found in them a quality of friendliness that
made me encourage them to visit Egypt. We played in front of the Great
Pyramid at Giza at the foot of the Sphinx in 1979 at the same time that
Sadat and Begin were signing a peace agreement at Camp David. I have
kept their friendship until now and they are all very warm whenever we
meet. I still share the stage with Mickey on occasion.
Amazon.com: Your song "Gala 2000" apologizes to the earth for mistreating it. How do you think we have mistreated the earth?
El
Din: For centuries we had been so engaged in technological development
that we had forgotten to think about the earth we were exploiting.
Maybe it is too late to get back the old beautiful earth despite our
efforts. The song was written as an apology to the earth for this
reason. I believe that the earth is not ours, we are just lent this
earth from our ancestors for our future generations.
