It’s been about two weeks since I’ve returned from the Arabic Music Retreat. Man… I have a lot to share with you, so I’ll probably be creating a few blog posts about different things over the next few weeks.
It was a great experience I’ll never forget. The faculty are all heavy-weights of Arabic Music, so you can imagine how nice it was to be in their company for seven days, to learn from them, and pick their brain about everything music related.
The first character I met when I arrived there was Najib Shaheen. Simon Shaheen’s older brother. I like to call him Sultan-a-Soundboard… Because it seemed like every other Oud player at the retreat was playing an Oud that had a Najib soundboard. And believe me, he’s King of Soundboards. I’ll have to make a completely separate post to explain what I’m talking about.
Najib will take an Oud with any old bowl, and he’ll replace the soundboard with his own. He focuses on one thing, and does it extremely well. He doesn’t care about how the Oud looks, if it has a scratch here and there, or it’s unfinished there. He cares about the sound.
Simon’s Oud Nahat is not completely Nahat. Najib took a Nahat bowl and refitted it with his own soundboard.
If you have an old Oud sitting around and $2500 USD to burn, I highly recommend you consider Najib for your next Oud investment. More on that in the coming weeks…
Meeting fantastic people
I’ve never been in the same room with so many Oud players, or so many Arabic musicians for that matter. There were so many talented, young musicians there, it was awesome and inspiring to meet them.
In fact, I want to mention two in particular:
Aliya Cycon and Megumi Saruhashi
Aliya studied Oud with Simon Shaheen at Berklee and she plays the Oud. She only released her debut album last year, and it really hits the spot. Modern, jazzy, soulful and rooted in tradition. I highly recommend checking out her website to see when her upcoming shows are and to buy her album. (She plays a Najib Oud too, and it sounds wicked!)
Megumi Saruhashi is a Japanese violinist living in New York City and playing Arabic Music. She’s putting out a new album soon and she’s put out a campaign on gofundme to help fund it.
Check them out, if it inspires you, support them!
I was happy to meet a customer of Oud for Guitarists, and a Skype student of mine in person for the first time. I also met a couple Oud for Guitarists subscribers!
I met Brooke who used the Maqam Mastery Program and he said it helped him with the advanced theory classes at the retreat during the previous year. He’s a singer and was telling me all about his recent trip to Iran, and he even shared some copies of some good music books he bought from Iran. Thanks Brooke.
I met some good Oud players based in different US cities. So if you are looking for a one-on-one private instructor in your city or town, shoot me an email. I might know someone in your area I can refer you to.
Learning
I was so happy to learn from some of my heroes. Each faculty member directs a small chamber ensemble. I was placed in Simon Shaheen’s Chamber Ensemble, and was placed with Charbel Rouhana for private Oud lessons.
Simon really kicked my ass, but that’s exactly what I was looking for. Getting real, frank, no bullshit feedback about my playing and what I can do to improve. I was really nervous playing Oud for him for the first half of the week and really fumbled about during the solo I offered to play in one of our pieces. By mid-week though, I decided to stop taking the retreat so seriously and I started to relax around him. I think he started to warm up to everyone too.
Here’s a video of our performance
My focus with Charbel was to hear and see up close some of the subtle ornaments he uses in his playing which you can adapt and put into your own taqasim. I also asked him specific questions about how to teach taqasim. I know how I would personally teach taqasim, but I wanted to know about how it’s done in the Arabic tradition. I got some good ideas.
My favourite part of the retreat was the ear training and theory sessions facilitated by Simon every morning. This is what I really wanted to see because I’ve developed my own learning tools and wanted to see how I can improve them. I’ll be developing content around this and sharing more of what I learned in the coming weeks and months.
What questions do you have about the Arabic Music Retreat?
If you have any questions about the retreat, feel free to email me at support@oudforguitarists.com or visit www.simonshaheen.com.
