by Insia Malik 

A Brooklyn-based Iraqi vocalist, Zahra AlZubaidi performs a variety of Arabic music styles with a focus on Iraqi maqamat and atwaar. She has appeared with several ensembles in NYC, such as Safaafir & Hamid Al Saadi (Iraqi maqam), Takht al-Nagham (Syrian Music Preservation Initiative), The Brooklyn Nomads, among others. Most recently, she headlined a performance at the Brooklyn Maqam Hang. She has performed in venues including Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum, Roulette Intermedium, Rutgers University, and BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center. 

How did music figure into your childhood? 

My mother sings beautiful songs, and she is pretty much the reason I love singing. But I think my earliest awareness of music came from witnessing my siblings react to music through their different life stages, watching them fall in love and grow out of love through songs. I’m the youngest of 12 siblings, and my next youngest sibling is six years older than me. Their struggles, ambitions, traumas, and joys were all translated to me through songs. For heartbreaks, there would be Umm Kulthum nights. For a girls’ night out, there would be Haytham Yusuf. Dakhil Hassan [YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orliU0yAIXg], the singer from the city Nasiriyah, was always on for my mother when she had the need to cry or feel joy. His voice reminded her of her father, who was a qari’ (reciter) in the mosque. Dakhil was best known for his unique deep voice and long phrases in performing the southern Iraqi atwaar (pl.; sing.: tawr). He's one of the most influential vocalists of Iraqi rural music from the south. 

I got to absorb music through older family members because I was subjected to it all the time. Growing up in Iraq and then later in Jordan as a teenager in a pre-internet era, we didn’t have much access to music. We either had what played on television, or someone at home who had the ability to get a cassette or to record music. We always had music physically available at the house, mostly cassettes. CDs were also popular later in the early Internet era, but you either needed to have a car or computer to play them; growing up as a refugee in Jordan, I had neither until my late teenage years. Therefore, I think the less resources there were, the more the need for music there was. You cherish what you have, and you listen to a cassette over and over again. 

What is an example of one of these cassettes that you listened to over and over? 

When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, I had siblings who had lived there since the 1970s. During the years of the Gulf War and sanctions on Iraq, we could no longer connect with them or see them. They would send us cassettes and videotapes with messages from them as well as recorded songs. They would send recordings of Qahtan al-Attar [YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ohvqSNZ33A], who by means of Kuwait, fled Iraq and has now ended up in Denmark, like many artists who fled the Ba’athist Party at the time. It was one of the cassettes I cherished later as a teenager. Iraqis love Qahtan and Fouad Salim, both of whom had similar styles and both fled to Kuwait from Iraq. The music of Iraq in the 1970s and 1980s was a lighter version of maqam, focusing on the pestat (rhythmic songs) with a shorter maqam-based improvisation or mawwal. The performers included youngsters who took the baton from pioneers in Iraqi music and other older reciters of maqamat and atwaar, and rearranged the songs of the earlier era during the 70’s. This music became very sentimental for Iraqis later because it evokes nostalgia for life before the Ba’ath Party completely imposed upon every aspect of the culture and of life, and dragged the country into a series of wars that lasted for decades. 

Have you been working on music during this pandemic era of extended shutdowns of musical venues and performances? 

The pandemic gave me the space to pull back and study more, as the demand for my presence to be a singer had just accelerated recently, particularly in the beginning of the year. I began working on the ‘ud. I had lessons with the ‘ud player Farah Zahra and the qanun and bass player, John Murchison. While I didn’t play before, what helped was that I already had melodies in my head. It was much easier than I expected to find the notes on the instrument after being so intimidated to do it for so many years. I’m still reading Johnny Farraj and Sami Abu Shumays’s book, Inside Arabic Music. I also focused on listening to my mentor, the maqam reciter Hamid al-Saadi recordings, and I’ve been working with him on some of his videos that he regularly publishes on social media. The repetition of watching him has been the easiest way to get the maqam. 

I’ve also begun small projects with some members of the music community in New York. Omar Dewachi is an associate professor at Rutgers University and is also a musician. He comes from a really interesting background in Iraqi music of the 1990s. He plays keyboard, ‘ud, and synth. We have an appreciation for songs that no one looks for to be musical masterpieces--from late 1980s- and 1990s-Iraq--as an interesting musical archive of some sort. These songs are related to an era--the socio-economic and political phase in Iraq we lived under--where people dressed a certain way, acted in a way, where older Iraqi music was recycled in a certain way: but they have nice simple melodies and fun rhythms. Omar and I are interested in a similar fusion. I’m interested in the classical repertoire of maqam, as I’m aspiring to learn proper recitation. And Omar, who is well-versed in Iraqi maqam music, has a love for creating sounds. So we’re experimenting. 

We started working on a piece on the maqam awshar, which is the Iraqi version of the segah maqam (musical mode). It’s just very eerie, and focuses a lot on the tawr, a rural musical genre, as opposed to the urban genre of Iraqi maqam. Atwaar represents more of where I’m from, the southern region of Iraq, the music outside from cities. I’m interested in creating more music that honors and experiments with voice and sound in atwaar. This track that we are working on is a tawr ale’nesi, that already exists as a song. My vocal interpretation is faithful to the original song when it comes to the essence, the ruhiyya, but the feel is based on the sound environment Omar creates with his music. It is the ruhiyya that I’m trying to translate with my voice, and with my understanding of the tradition. Staying faithful to that can translate in different ways, but the only reality is you have to practice for years to gain understanding and experience. 

What has your musical journey been like in New York? Was it a place you ever expected would connect you more to Iraqi music? 

Prior to 2018, I was very out of touch with the Arabic music scene because I was working all the time. I was heavily involved in productions and films, both as an actor and a worker in post-production. This was full-time work, and I was just another human being trying to survive NYC. But I continued singing at parties and gatherings during this time. If someone had an ’ud there, I’d take the opportunity to sing. Finally, I had friends who just told me that I really needed to get out and sing publicly. They put an email together saying, “Brooklyn Maqam Hang at Sisters: They’ll love you, go!” And so I went to the Hang fully dressed up in traditional attire! The next time I attended the Hang, Johnny Farraj urged me to meet Hamid al-Saadi personally at the Queens Museum where he was to perform. I met Hamid and Amir ElSaffar at the same time. Ustadh Hamid really took me under his wing and started with me from zero. We would talk a lot about maqam, singing, poetry, and his relationship with his renowned mentor, Yusuf ‘Umar. There is a whole world around the student-mentor relationship in maqam, playing a huge part in passing down the tradition: I felt very lucky to experience this relationship in a city like New York. I’m grateful to him for introducing me as a vocalist and to have shared the stage with him and with Safaafir, the only ensemble in the United States to perform Iraqi maqam. 

Can you talk more about what Iraqi music means to you? 

Generally, I’ve always been interested in learning how to perform Iraqi music that I have already known my whole life. When the opportunity finally presented itself, I didn’t hesitate, and immediately dropped everything to focus on maqam. At the time, I was feeling very down about politics, and with the length of time I’d been outside of Iraq, I was losing my identity, whatever that means. You try to hold onto something, but there’s not much to cling onto because everything is either being erased from memory or you’re forced to move on from it and respect the ever-changing nature of life. I struggled to look back the more the years passed by, and I watched the country from the outside, while living inside the idea of Iraq. Iraqis have joined Palestinians along with Syrians and Lebanese in the trauma of displacement and PTSD. We just tend to try not to look back, and to only move forward, it’s hard for me to go back and look at where I come from without feeling hurt or shattered by the cruelty of what happened and is still happening, but I still felt the need to connect. Songs are literally a dimension to exist in when you feel dehumanized completely, because your deepest emotions are intact and complete and perfect within them. 

Are you drawn more to performing either maqam or atwaar, and what are the aspects that speak to you? 

At this point, I’m still a beginner. I have a passion for all musical styles and I love listening to both atwaar and maqamat equally. Sometimes, I’m drawn more emotionally to atwaar due to familiarity, while I’m more intimidated by the maqam and the various styles, regions, dialects, languages it has been performed within. But at the same time, I feel very comfortable and in a place to explore and absorb whatever I can. Poetry is relevant for both of them; they’re both heavily dependent on playing with poetry and melodies. Whether it's classical or colloquial Arabic, I find that having a passion for Arabic poetry-- and Iraqi poetry specifically--helps a lot in determining my spiritual and mood tendencies. 

Who or what are your other artistic influences and interests? Has acting helped you as a singer? 

Living in different cultures and cities has definitely influenced me; life experiences and the people I worked with in music, film, and stage, and pretty much anything that can teach me something have influenced me as well. I immerse myself in music, but I have other interests in movement, theater, installation, screenwriting, languages, and even photography, working with photographers by creating narratives and unique visuals. 

The acting training was amazing: spending time on stage kills your fear of the public. It helped me be myself more when I’m performing. Acting also trains you to be present as a performer, and to commit to your physical surroundings and to the psychological background that you figure out for your character. Understanding who you are in the moment is key in being present and focused, and to embody the state of emotions you’re about to perform in sound or movement. 

You occasionally go live on Instagram to sing and play music. How do you approach these live sessions? 

I really enjoy going online sometimes just to sing. If I see the sky is beautiful, or the breeze is blowing, or there’s a nice moment where I’m contemplating life and I want to express myself with a song, I go live. But I quickly realize that maybe going live isn’t the best way to engage, because your presence can come across as trivial when you don’t have other materials online, as I’ve only otherwise done live shows. However, my most successful Instagram Live appearance was when I got my mom to go live with me. She’s now in her late 70s. She laughs, and has funny answers for everything. My dream is to perform with her at some point, as I’m now learning how to play our favorite songs on ‘ud.  

MEDIA 

Sound cloud: 

https://soundcloud.com/zahrazubaidi 

Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/zahra_zubaidi/ 

YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwGcLVC-V00

By Insia Malik 

Megumi Saruhashi is a Japanese violinist and composer. Her dedication to bring healing to the heart and restoration of innocent perception through music propelled her to perform around the globe for people in all circumstances from Carnegie Hall to refugee camps in the Middle East. Megumi bounces between New York, Japan, and Egypt constantly, with her passion to compose music that expresses a joyful and boundless celebration of all the cultural influences to which she has been exposed, and fulfills her dedication to the discovery of a universal healing medium that embraces all ages and cultural diversity. www.megumisaruhashi.com 

Where did you grow up and how was music a part of your upbringing? 

I grew up in Japan surrounded by rice fields. My father was a jazz musician, and he was gigging with his quartet in Tokyo until I was about 15 years old. When I was little, his band members would come to the house and jam, so I would hear them rehearse all the time. My mom also plays piano. We used to sing and play when I was little. I played classical piano growing up, but didn’t play violin until much later in life. I really wanted to play jazz and loved jazz violin when I was in high school, and I woke up one day realizing I couldn’t live anymore without playing violin. I borrowed money from my dad to buy a violin. But I just didn’t have the time or the right environment to play. Because Asian college entrance examinations are really stressful, I was studying 16 hours a day for a few years and then gained admission to a top university. I was almost 20 years old when I started playing violin seriously. I was studying comparative cultures at university, but I quit university to come to New York to study violin and jazz. 

That’s a huge move! 

Yes, it was huge. I prepared everything by myself. My parents didn’t even know I was quitting my school. In Japan, quitting school doesn’t exist. In America people transfer, but you just don’t do that in Japan. I worked so hard to get into this school and my life was completely set with my program. My parents just couldn’t make sense of my decision. Once I was in New York in 2007, I went to the City College of New York, as they had the cheapest bachelor’s program in jazz. I didn’t know anybody. I shared a small apartment with four people and two dogs, and shared a bed with a friend. While I was in school, I worked the coat check at the Village Vanguard. As I was studying jazz, it was perfect that I was able to see everyone major in the jazz scene perform. And I could watch the show the whole time, since I didn’t have to serve anyone. I started to teach 4-5 days a week shortly after the Village Vanguard job, and I was gigging with singer-songwriters, orchestras, and a gospel band while I was in school. 

How did you start playing Arabic music? Was it in New York? 

Yes, it was with Bassam Saba’s New York Arabic Orchestra. My friend, violist Edmundo Ramirez, would often bring me onto his gigs, usually classical music ones. This one time he called me, he asked if I wanted to check out the “[something something] orchestra”. I only picked up the word “orchestra” and agreed to go without knowing anything! I just showed up to the NYAO rehearsal and I was thinking to myself, seeing all these different [string and percussion] instruments: What’s going on here? 

Bassam asked me, “What do you tune in?” [Arabic tuning for the violin differs from Western classical tuning.] 

And I asked, “What do you mean?” 

How did you end up studying with renowned Egyptian violinist and composer, ‘Abdu Dagher in Cairo? 

Many people who play Arabic music in Japan study in Cairo and somehow they all study with ‘Abdu Dagher. There was a woman in Egypt, Zeinab, I was connected to who speaks Japanese and acts as a secretary to ‘Abdu Dagher. We connected and she picked me up from the airport in Cairo when I arrived, even though we had never met. She allowed me to stay with her for seven weeks right after I met her! She introduced me to ‘Abdu Dagher, and would call him to make my lesson appointments. ‘Abdu Dagher is very pure, with a wonderful sense of humor. Someone asked him why he doesn’t charge much to foreigners for private lessons, as he has students come to him every day from different countries. He said he doesn’t charge much because he knows he will die one day, but he wants his compositions to stay alive. This is rare, as I’ve had friends be charged $400 for a single lesson! One of my friends was studying with the old violinist Mohammad Sa’ad Hassan, who used to play with Umm Kulthum. Like ‘Abdu Dagher, he didn’t really charge and was just thankful people came all the way to Japan to study with him. Some people are so pure with the music, not just trying to monetize and squeeze money out of you. 

I’ve now been to Cairo five or six times. Since 2017, I’ve gone for three months in the summers, and for one month during the winter. 

On your website, you state your credo: “The earth is my home, the sky is my blanket. Wherever I go, I am home”. Can you tell us more about what this means to you as it relates to your life and performance life? 

This is a quote from the mystic Almine. When I was in New York, I was exposed to a lot of different music. When I was learning jazz, I was also learning English, and I was becoming immersed in American culture for the first time. Next, I was exposed to gospel culture. I was playing in a gospel band in a church in Brooklyn, where I was the only Asian person among black people. I really loved the music, and I was observing different types of people and different types of thinking based in different sufferings. I also got into tango from Argentina and Uruguay, with those musicians’ own struggles reflected in their music. Because I was studying comparative cultures in Tokyo, I really loved learning about cultures and people from different places. How different we are and how beautiful all these cultures are really fascinates me. And then Arabic culture really opened me up, because it was the exact opposite of Japanese culture. Anything I can think of, flip it inside out and upside down, that’s what Egypt is to Japan. That helped me connect everything that I was experiencing, that diversity makes us rich and shouldn’t make us distant: You’re fascinating to me because you’re different. I really appreciate each culture. That’s why whenever I go to other places, I feel like I’m home. I don’t feel excluded. You have to find a home within, right? 

What recent performance of yours was most important to you or that was memorable? 

I’ve performed a bunch of times with the Al Manara ensemble in Cairo. but probably the time when I played solo on the famous Umm Kulthum song “Enta ‘Umri” was most memorable. People were so welcoming to me, a foreigner trying to play Arabic music. The musicians and audience were so warm and so helpful. It was also so fun backstage, as everyone was trying to help. I really felt like the audience was also happy to be understood more, as I’m someone coming from Japan. I felt I was able to feel and share love. 

You are also a composer. In what ways has your Arabic music training and time spent in the Middle East impacted your compositional creative process? 

I compose mostly for my group Megumi and Friends. I think the training showed me more possibilities in compositions. Arabic music has the subtleties that [other musical styles have] lost. It helped me to feel the deeper parts of me that I wasn’t able to express before. ‘Abdu Dagher’s entire life was unrestricted by rules. I definitely received something in particular from him that I can’t really put into words. 

Who are your favorite musicians and top artistic influences, Arabic or otherwise? 

‘Abdu Dagher and the composer Mohammad al-Moogi are my top influences in Arabic music. Aside from Arabic music, I’m really into EDM music, particularly the artist Avicii, who passed away recently. It’s a completely different genre but I really feel his soul through his music. Any music that has the truth of the person in it, that really speaks to me. Also, as I played classical piano for 13 years, Chopin and Liszt were a foundation for me: I love the Romantic sound. One of my favorite albums of all time is Nocturne by Charlie Haden. The violinist in this album has really captured my soul. There is also Fernando Otero, the multi-Grammy winning composer and pianist from Argentina. In his music, I see, smell, and can almost touch Buenos Aires. When I first performed his compositions as a duo with him in New Jersey, I was so excited, and he gave me a lot of inspiration as a composer. Also, I love Piazzolla, Quinteto Real, Diego Schissi, and other musicians from Argentina. I've always loved songs from the south of Japan. 

What music have you been working on during this era of quarantine? What’s next? 

I’m writing music for my group (Megumi & Friends). I also want to write a violin concerto for myself to be performed with an Arabic orchestra in Cairo. I really love vocal songs, so I’m mainly learning Arabic vocal music these days. In my email newsletter, I share more esoteric things and what is happening in my life and cosmos. I’m starting a Patreon soon, which will be more of a virtual tip jar. On it, I want to share videos of Arabic music and my compositions, as well as my cultural insights, including about learning languages. I’m studying Arabic, and now in quarantine I have much more time to study. Japanese, English, and Arabic are three totally different languages of very different musical cultures, so language has really fascinated me.

Visit Megumi Saruhashi on Patreon

Megumi's Blog: http://megumisaruhashi.com/new-blog/

by Insia Malik 

Johnny Farraj is a Lebanese-born musician and software engineer of Palestinian descent. His main instrument is the riqq; he also plays the 'ud and sings. Johnny is the creator of MaqamWorld.com, the leading Internet reference on Arabic music theory, and co-author of the recent comprehensive reference book Inside Arabic Music. Johnny is a frequent Arabic music blogger, teacher and performer, as well as a lifelong listener. He lives in New York City with his wife, their two children, and their cat Cocoa.

How was music a part of your upbringing in Lebanon? How would you describe your musical training? 

I started on the piano at a young age. My mom has a lot of musicians on her side of the family, although they were all Western-trained. She was born at the end of the Ottoman Empire where everything considered good was coming from Europe, and the instrument of choice was the piano. I really hated the lessons for two reasons: I hated practicing and I hated the music I was playing. After a while I decided to quit taking lessons and I started learning music by ear. I would follow along on the piano to Arabic music, such as Fairuz’s “Bhibbak Ya Libnan”, until she would hit Jins Bayati. And then I got stuck and realized that there are some notes I can’t play on piano…interesting! Of course, I’d already heard these other notes and scales before from two religious sources. The mosque was right outside my bedroom window and I would hear the adhan from there all day. Also, the Byzantine music we heard at church had quarter tones and microtones. So, my ear was already attuned, and I did grow up around Arabic music on the radio, it’s just that my first instrument didn’t incorporate it. 

When I was in Catholic school, I joined a children’s choir. So actually, my first instrument was the voice. We learned everything by ear: harmonic music, with some in Latin and some in French. I also joined a Western choir in Abu Dhabi, and two years later when I came to NJ I joined the Kirkpatrick Choir at Rutgers University. Throughout all this I had one common problem which was that I couldn’t sight-read music, and I would learn everything by ear. When I lived in England, I went to audition for a prestigious choir. The final test was sight-reading…and I couldn’t do it! From then on, I stopped pursuing activities that required reading music. 

How did you end up playing Arabic music and the riqq in particular? 

In 1998, I attended an event at the venue Cedars in New York, where I made friends with Ranya Renee, a belly dancer. She introduced me to the violinist Sami Abu Shumays. One time, we attended a concert of Simon Shaheen at Columbia University. At that point, I had started to accumulate CDs of Arabic music, but I hadn’t played any of it. Simon Shaheen’s Taqasim was one of them, so I did know him by name. Sami introduced us after, and I went to Simon’s Arabic Music Retreat for the first time soon after taking some ‘ud lessons with him. Before my first Retreat, I met the percussionist Karim Nagi at a concert by Najib Shaheen, on which he played riqq. He was gregarious and talkative. He loved introducing his instrument to the world. And he said to me, “This is called the riqq, do you want to try it and play it?” He gave me his riqq, saying, “This is how you do the dum, and this is how you do the tak”…and that just blew my mind! I told him, “This is amazing, I’m going to buy one of these.” I bought a riqq before my first Retreat and my first instrument my first year there was the riqq. I owe that to Karim. Twenty years later, I try to do the same thing: I try to spot candidates in the audience who are curious about the instrument and let them hold it. Having people hold it can become this magic moment that can really convince someone. Before this moment with Karim, I was aware of the ‘ud because everyone knows of it, but I hadn’t really thought about the riqq. “This is not a tambourine. You are the leader of the rhythm.” Karim taught me this in my first lesson, and now I teach that to my students. 

In this early period, I met Taoufik Ben Amor, who formed a small ensemble that was ideal for me as a beginner. You can’t really learn this music between four walls. You have to actually go and practice it in public, with other musicians and a real audience. There was this restaurant called Tagine in Manhattan, and we would play there once a month after rehearsing at Taoufik’s apartment. I went to the Retreat six years in a row, and played gigs with Taoufik’s ensemble and a few other musicians, and started getting more experience playing Arabic music. 

What more can you tell us about the role of percussion in Arabic music? 

Americans have a problem understanding the concept of the percussionist leading the ensemble. If you shoot a percussionist in a symphony orchestra, probably no one will notice, and everyone will keep playing. But in Umm Kulthum’s orchestra, if someone shot Ibrahim al-‘Afifi—good luck! Iqa’ is a very important component of the music and is almost as complex as maqam. You have to fill up with ornamentation and tashkil, like all the accents put above words in Arabic calligraphy. You flesh it out, give that skeleton a body. You need to learn how to do that, as per the performance. To be the leader, the mechanism by which you lead everyone is through these ornaments and your playing. How do you convey all this information to the ensemble? Through the modulations of iqa’, volume, and ornaments. By the end of the piece you’ve done a million things, by ornamenting and giving information to the rest of the musicians. I can talk about this for hours. There’s so much to do on the riqq. I always contend that I know the melody better than the melodic instrumentalists. Also, you have to know the lyrics. One of the important jobs of the “Dabit al-Iqa’” is to catch the vocalist’s mistakes. Even excellent singers might skip a beat sometimes (including Umm Kulthum), and the percussionists need to be ready. When you’re in a state of saltana or ecstasy you might forget a beat: not a big deal, but we have to be ready for that. You have to know what syllables start on the dum beat. The lead percussionist needs to have a mental map of the song, syllable by syllable on every beat, so they can see whether or not he is dragging or trying to push the beat. 

We lost a legendary riqq player recently, ustaz Michel Merhej Baklouk. How would you describe his legacy? 

Michel is part of an era that is now gone. I think we will continue his legacy, albeit in an inferior way. It’s not possible…There was a critical mass of everything (in the Golden Age), of performers and of listeners, and right now we don’t have either. There’s a better mass of performers but a worse one of listeners. I think so many musicians are coming to like this music but there are not enough listeners to appreciate it. 

On a personal level, I really like Michel’s school of playing, and it has influenced me a lot. His approach and philosophy is that you don’t show off your technique just for the sake of showing off technique. One time I took a lesson with him, and I asked him if he could show me some variations of the iqa’ we were working on. He said, “I can’t show you any variations because I don’t know what the melody is. If you give me a muwashshah, I’ll listen to it, learn the melody, and then show you variations that work with the melody.” That was a huge lesson I’ll never forget. He refused to ad lib without a melody. Without a melody, you don’t just show off your technique. Michel really captured the role of the riqq as the leader of the iqa’ and also as the instrument that adapts and supplements and beautifies everything else rather than shows off themselves. 

Describe your ideal setting for a performance. 

It would be a small space, ideally a house concert: 20 to 30 people, with the audience knowing the music and repertoire. The quality rather than the quantity of listeners is important. A small takht ensemble with a singer, and ideally the musicians can double as the chorus, and everybody would improvise a lot in between composed music. The ideal repertoire would be muwashahat or adwar, or the repertoire from any long concert by Sabah Fakhri, with a wasla in one maqam and then a wasla in another maqam: that would be perfect. 

Let’s talk listening rituals. You share lots of recordings and links to music on your Facebook page regularly. How do you listen to music? 

I listen on YouTube and start my day pondering what mood I am in. Umm Kulthum, ‘Abd al-Halim Hafiz/Warda, or someone from Aleppo: these are the three directions I usually start from in terms of my daily listening. If it’s Umm Kulthum, I try to think what song would fit my mood, because each one is so different. Riyad al-Sunbati and Baligh Hamdi are two ends of the spectrum. Sunbati is totally sober and serious. Hamdi is hedonistic and sexy and groovy.  Whereas Mohammad ‘Abd al- Wahab is a little bit of both, brainy and groovy at the same time. He’s more commercial than the others. My energy for listening is much higher in the morning. The first couple of hours after I wake up are the best time for me to listen. I can reach this really good level of “mental tarab”…I get really high from it. As the day goes by, that mental state goes down. In my normal week while I’m commuting and taking the subway into the city, that’s my optimal time. I can start singing on the subway! I can get really excited. 

What were you listening to this morning that you’d recommend? 

A video of Hossein Sabsabi (‘ud) and the singer Shadi ‘Abd al-Karim from Aleppo, also accompanied by qanun, and an electric guitarist. It filled my head. I think they were in a hotel lobby while on tour just playing between performances.