Here's a good song by Dalal Abu Amneh, the daughter of Palestine who got its soul and warmth from living among too many contradictions. Despite all the misery and identity-crisis, Dalal came out fine. This diva who has made the Arab 48 region a rich musical ground, has also made so many of us proud as she is also a woman of science and research.
She has a beautiful family of her own, and most working in the entertainment industry love to work with her--photographers, musicians, composers, poets, lyricists, radio jocks, and studio owners. Her talent make them proud of who they are--someone form among us has the world-class gift that makes people happy around the world. This is where Dalal tops the others, if there is no connection between me and the music, than there is no point for me to consider listening to it.
I love when Dalal Abu Amneh does classical-style music as such music can be interpreted in an infinite amount of ways. Its emotion is much more vast compared to most modern music in which a beat overpowers everything and there are electronic voices puffing out words. It requires actual talent to play an instrument and compose well while it takes no talent to flip a switch to create sounds and change a voice. That's why classical music is timeless and doesn't go out of style. In modern music you listen to a song and three months later it is virtually out of popularity.
Try listening to her song performed with a live orchestra about the land, homesickness, the sun and love stories. "Khaleeni Fe Balak" Keep Me On Mind, this is an experience, not just a song, it's almost if your favorite spring themed painting could sing, it would sound like Dalal. Newcomers to Arabic classical music are often a bit overwhelmed at the sheer number of composers, works, sub-genres and interpretations that are out there. With its immortal opening four-note theme, Dalal is unquestionably one of the greatest Arab divas of all time, a talent unlike any other.
Dalal Abu Amneh Khaleeni Fe Balak دلال أبو آمنه- خلّيني في بالك
"...it takes no talent to flip a switch to create sounds and change a voice."
ReplyDeleteThat's not entirely true. Music production is often the difference between a song that becomes a hit and one that doesn't. There are whole genres of music (rap, mahraganat, ...) where simple musical constructs rely heavily on electronic tweaking to create the final product, and many of those songs are indeed stupid, glorified noise, but there's real artistry happening in those styles, too. A good pop song requires cleverness, creativity and self restraint on the part of the person/team on the other side of the mixing board, and a promising concept (melody, lyrics, likeable singer) without that is at a real disadvantage when trying to get an audience's attention. There's plenty of self-indulgent, boring, badly implemented classical music suffering from a lack of good production, too.