Amr D
Amr Diab suffered, and still suffers, from being reduced to the type of “show singer”, who relies on “intelligence”, “dazzling”, and the form of stardom only, but he does not have the vocal and musical abilities that qualify him for the title of “singer” according to the Eastern talents and in the established definition of the word. These are accusations that are usually directed at modernizers in every era, as they affected Abdel Halim Hafez himself!
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Returning to our main topic, there is no better way to discover Amr Diab, “the authentic oriental singer,” than within Amr Diab, “the composer.” The truth is that Diab was not only innovative in singing all the forms and oriental musical maqams, but he also excelled in composing them.
Although this is not sufficient, scientifically, to demonstrate his abilities as a singer in the established sense, it is a very clear indicator of a career that cannot be reduced to delicate songs only. It is a statement that his attempts to develop and keep pace with international music did not come at the expense of Eastern musical origins, whether in the established or academic sense. This is what we will explain in this episode.
The second direction: performance composition
There are no fixed standards for good melody, and it is a matter of taste and preference. However, there are characteristics that distinguish an Eastern composer who owns his instruments and is proficient in technical aspects. For example, he makes sure in his melodies to apply oriental maqams, especially those that contain the quarter ton (Rast, Hazam, Saba, and Bayati). He must have the ability to move between all the maqams smoothly within one song.
It would be better if he had adapted these melodies into different forms and placed them in up-to-date contexts. This is what Amr Diab began in the album “Hala Hala” by taming the quartertone and subjecting it to the theory of harmony, and then continued it in many of his works, some of which were for the purpose of serving a specific musical form, and others for the purpose of simply stretching the muscles.
“May God protect you” from the album “Don’t Be afraid” 1990. One of the early models of the school of show composition. Amr Diab composed this song from Maqam Al-Hazzam. It is an oriental maqam that has become rarely used in songs. It is the most complex to dress up as a up-to-date song, not only because it contains the oriental sika tone, the “quarter ton”; But because the sika is located in the major degree, and it is the most critical tone in any musical scale, because it determines the shape of the first chord (tonic chord). Consequently, it was complex to subject the melodies of this maqam to Western harmony, even if only in principle.
The song's arranger, Hamid Al-Shaeri, succeeds in providing acceptable harmony for the song, and composer Amr Diab is given more credit for the experimental approach, with his bold attempt to create a up-to-date song far from the eastern Takht from this complex maqam, at a time when everyone was rushing towards the basic and palatable maqams such as the Kurd and Nahawand.
Kalthumiya method
The melody is based on flexing the muscles again in the song “Habibi”, which was the title of the album released in 1991. Amr says that he made this melody influenced by the song “Biography of Love” by Umm Kulthum, which was composed by Baligh Hamdi from Maqam al-Hazzam, with which Amr became mingled during his long road trip in Lebanon. He found himself humming a sentence that said: “My beloved, owner of my heart with love,” in melody and speech, before assigning Majdi Al-Najjar to complete writing the melody.
It appears from this song that Diab wanted to respond to those of the ancient musicians who doubted and disdained his singing school, repeating the phrase “a singer, not a singer.” So he decided to create this melody with striking richness in the eastern maqams.
Amr begins singing from the Maqam al-Bayati, “My beloved, O Owner of my heart with love,” and ends this sentence with a wonderful melodic extension at the end of the phrase “Hawa,” where it rises with groans on the Bayati scale, passing through all the steps of the scale, and skipping the answer by two steps before settling on it. This is an exhilarating shift that requires tonal imagination. And vocal and composing muscles. After that, Amr leaves the position of Al-Bayati temporarily, moving to the position of the Persians in “You are my home with my preoccupation”, then he stops with majesty and awe at the position of Al-Saba in “If my eyes were true, if you felt my tenderness…”
The intentions are clearer than the musical form in “Habibi”, with Amr Diab’s decision to apply the veteran sax player Samir Sorour, known for his iconic solos in Baligh Hamdi’s songs in the time of the giants. Despite the extinction of this color at that time, Amr decided to revive it again. In confirmation of the Kalthumi-Halimi situation he targets with this song, and to silence all the voices that claim that he cannot be a singer according to the established definition.
The slow great saxophonist Samir Sorour
The musical form and compositional imprint in “Habibi” extends into later songs. The most notable of which is “The Laughter of My Love’s Eyes” from the album “Ya Omarna” 1993. In which Amr Diab moves very smoothly between the maqamats of Nahawand, Bayati, Saba and Ajam, in the same manner that we heard in “Habibi”. It also brings back the apply of Samir Sorour's solos, which will become fashionable with all cassette tapes at that time thanks to Amr Diab's vision.
Muscle individual
The musical maqam is the character of the melody. It represents the tonal dimensions that translate abstract feelings. As for the continuous movement between the maqams within a single song, this means the richness in the states and feelings that the music conveys. This mobility is not a technical miracle in itself for a composer who studied music academically like Amr Diab. But there is no doubt that the value of moving between maqams increases when composing up-to-date songs that are relatively low in terms of time. The Giants did it with songs lasting half an hour, and Amr did it with songs that do not exceed four minutes.
“You knew who loved you” from the album “Our Days” 1992. It was among Amr's most personal favorite songs, and he often spoke of it fondly, as he considered it a song directed to the homeland. From a musical standpoint, it belongs to the style of Western pop music, which was implemented by distributor Hamid Al Shaeri in a way that was ahead of his time at the time. Amr Diab composed it himself to serve this musical form, and also to stretch his composing muscles, as it combines several skills.
The service to the musical form is evident through the quick cuts of sentences from the maqam al-nahawand (sool) in “Your love is something that has been born within me since my childhood.” While the muscles appear in the unexpected oriental transition to the maqam al-Bayati (ri) in the phrase “Ella, as fate wills, you know who loved you.” It is worth noting that the merging of the Nahawand and Bayati genders in this way creates a sub-maqam called “Maqam of Egyptian Lovers.”
Amr Diab
Amr continues to sing on the song “Jens al-Bayati” in the cobalts, but by going down an octave in “Your love is something I have been drawing for all my life, okay.” Here, Diab highlights his talent in moving between maqams, as well as in moving between layers, in order to reveal the beauty of the low and high areas in his voice.
Maqamat from outside the course
The song “I Tried” from the album “Rajeeeen” 1995. One of Amr Diab's most different songs in terms of musical form. Firstly, thanks to the arranger Ashraf Mahrous, who introduced live orchestral instruments such as the harp, flute, oboe, strings and bells, along with the zither and tambourines playing the cabbage rhythm; To create a infrequent combination that is closer to Orientalist fantasies than Pharaonic music.
Secondly, thanks to Amr Diab’s distinctive melody, in which he used uncommon positions and transitions. The song “I Tried” was composed by Amr Diab from the Persian maqam, on the level of (M), where he says at the beginning, “I tried to be far away from you…”, but this Persian tonal structure changes unexpectedly in the sentence “..I am wrong and it is not possible for love to be hidden away.” Where the genre of the branch changes from Persian to Hijaz on (Du), forming with the genre of the original a recent maqam called “Shuq Afza”, which is a infrequent sub-maqam in oriental music that is considered a hybrid of Persian and Hijaz.
Amr Diab
Amr Diab is not satisfied with this strange shift, as he follows it with another shift that is no less strange in the sentence “I tried a lot, but my heart did not talk to me or blame me..” Here we turn to another infrequent maqam called “suznak” on the degree of (mi), which consists of the original gender. Rast with the gender of the Hijaz branch.
What composer Amr Diab did in this song, in low, was to manipulate three famed genres: Persian, Hijaz, and Rast, to form various and uncommon subscales with them, and move between them within one song. Therefore, it is considered one of the most convoluted melodies in its history.
Stick to the quarter ton
Although pop songs are almost completely controlled by the musical maqams based on the half-tone, such as the Kurd and Nahawand, especially in emotional songs that rarely deviate from these two maqams. Amr Diab found a way to exploit special songs to get out of this predicament, and kept presenting quarter-tone melodies from time to time. This is specifically evident in two songs:
First, “Egypt Qalat,” which Diab composed from Maqam al-Rast; Inspired by the spirit of Umm Kulthum in “Egypt Speaks for Itself,” and Wadih Al-Safi in “Azima Ya Masr,” but this time Amr does it with advanced Western harmonic accompaniment by musician Adel Haqqi, who supported this wonderful oriental melody with hints of new-age Western music and the arrival of classical flute. .
Secondly, the supplication of “Nour upon Light”, which is also from the Maqam Rast, which contains two dimensions of the quarter ton, and is considered the basis of the Eastern Maqams. Amr Diab succeeded in composing this supplication in a unique style in terms of structure and harmony. It is worth noting that Diab performed more than twenty supplications for the Most Beautiful Names of God in his career, and composed them all, and focused on flexing his muscles in composing them with the Eastern Maqams, especially the Rast.
Among the other most prominent supplications that Diab composed from Maqam al-Rast are: the supplication of “the Strong” and the supplication of “the Forgiver.”
In the same vein, Diab tried to create a “retro” musical experience with distributor Fahd, through the single song “Haniyat Al-Dunya Feek.” Although this song has not completed the stages of its making, it reveals the capabilities of Amr the composer and his antique audio repertoire, and also reveals Amr the legitimate oriental singer.
The good thing is that composer Amr Diab did not make all of these compositional achievements seem complex, complicated, or daunting to the ears. Rather, he chose the basic and the impossible. He chose to create “tarab” with his tunes, and to “enjoy” it with his voice, without noise or striving for the rank of “singer.”
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Amr Diab Amr Diab, composer
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