Emad Ashor, Mahmoud Abdel Maksoud: The Inspiring String, Arabic Orchestral Cello Method

Description

Arabic and English Version
Online video with instructions and exercises to do at home

What is the Inspiring String series?

This book is part of a series of Arabic language educational books, which aims to teach playing on a String instrument (Cello – Violin – Viola – Contrabass) in a gradual manner. Starting from the first stage (beginner) through to the intermediate student stage (Part 3) and ending in stage 4, which is the stage of Arabic singing on the instrument. It does not require to study it to reach the stage of professionalism in the level of Western play, but it is enough to pass the stage of the first player, as this book series is considered to be the first series of its type in the world.
The authors of our present method used suggested exercises and tunes from some of the Arabic music forms such as : (Samai – Lunga – Muwashshah – Dor), they also use some famous Egyptian and Arabic folk songs as selected exercises to train the Arabic Maqams, as they represent the reality and feelings of Arabic people and translates what is inside their hearts and feelings. The CD for playing each exercise and proposed exercises are composed and performed by Professor: Emad Ashoor, PhD

Introduction:

The origin of Arabic music goes back more than 1,600 years. The old Arab people in Arabian Peninsula derived their music from the neighboring civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Turkey, and Yemen. In the first Islamic centuries, they developed their music by using different rhythms, Durub, and Maqams in addition to musical instruments and methods of singing.
In the nineteenth century, there were many pioneers of teaching and composition in Arabic music but most of their music and manuscripts were lost because music education and performance depended on aural dictation at this time. The real methods of teaching Arabic music and performance were in the twentieth century through the renewed interest of Arab countries to establish music schools and institutions founded by a selective group of performers and composers.
The roots of modern Arabic music lies firstly in the folk legacy. Many old composers and singers did their best in extracting different colors of folk art. Peasant, social occasion songs, and other different resources were the unlimited treasures for those innovators. Since the middle of the twentieth century, Arabic music also was affected by western music and also by the appearance of distinguished musicians such as Abd-Elwahab, Al-Atrash, Mohamed Fawzy, Rahbany Brothers, and many others. Also in the Nineties, Arabic Music was affected by the mixing of Arabic and western Melodies.  Each Arab county has it own music style although they agree on the general aspects of Arabic Music, accordingly we find the Egyptian tune, Algerian, Moroccan, Turkish …etc.