Great sheikhs

December 24, 2006 8:47 PM

Religious popular music from Upper Egypt Munshidin sing devotional songs, Tartil (a melodic recitation of the Qur'an), and Tawashih, which uses call-and-response . One of a number of interesting music resources at bolingo.
posted by Abiezer (9 comments total)

Thank you.
posted by kozad at 9:20 PM on December 24, 2006

Nice.
I can hardly think of any sounds more nuanced and exotic. Putting any cultural and religious prejudices aside, this is amazing music that my wee head and its 12 tone chromatic tendencies can barely wrap itself around. It must be quite an experience to see one of these masters perform in person; say in a domed mosque with that amazing reverb.
posted by isopraxis at 11:00 PM on December 24, 2006

Funny that someone call this sound "exotic" :)

I was raised hearing this music, that's why Madonna is so Dull to my ear :)
posted by zouhair at 12:44 AM on December 25, 2006

Funny that someone call this sound "exotic" :)

One man's exotic is another man's familiar! But I grew up in the US, and Madonna is mostly pretty dull to my ear, too. So matters of musical taste and preference aren't necessarily predetermined by what you grew up with, eh?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:06 AM on December 25, 2006

Oh, and thanks for the post, Abiezer!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:10 AM on December 25, 2006

So, zouhair, when you listen to this music do you hear for instance a build up of tension and round up? In other words does this music to you have a structure like a western song with a beginning, middle and end?

I'm asking because to me this music sounds like a semi-random melisma like in bad R&B music.
posted by jouke at 2:51 AM on December 25, 2006

It's not only the music, it's the lyrics too (I don't talk about Tartil, which is just Quran, even if Tawashih are "religious"), The lyrics are heavy, the voice (and those are so good) is used just to rasie them a little more.

I don't know if they sound like some R&B, I don't have a musical ear, but I love R&B too :)
posted by zouhair at 2:21 PM on December 25, 2006

Thanks for that Burhanistan.
posted by Abiezer at 5:41 PM on December 25, 2006

[Wonderful] I've been looking for some of this type of music for a while and this will give me some leads.
posted by tellurian at 7:32 PM on December 26, 2006