Berklee College of Music, Valencia Campus ______
THE TIME CAPSULE A musical album about real stories during the wartime
A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Music in Contemporary Performance
Advisor: Victor Mendoza
Supervisor: Casey Driessen
By Rebal alkhodari
Email: [email protected] Berklee ID Number: 0863278
Valencia, Spain
July 1st, 2019
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Table of Content
Abstract 1. Introduction 4 2. Proposed Culminating Experience 5 3. Objective & Sub-Objectives 6 4. Methodology 6 4.1 Plan of Action 7 4.2 Timeline 8 4.3 Resources / Material needed 10 5. Justification 11 6. Execution / Results 11 6.1 Overview 11 6.2 The competed songs 11 6.2.1 This could be true 12 6.2.2 Perhaps 13 6.2.3 Hotel Transit 14 6.2.4 Ya Habib Allaj 17 6.2.5 Ya Ilahi 19 6.3 Interludes 20 6.4 Remine songs 21 7. Professional plan 21 8. Finale conclusion / Reflection 22 9. Resources 23 9.1 Songs 23 9.2 Documentation 25 Bibliography 25
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Abstract
This culminating experience focuses on expanding my artistic identity through the process of generating original material. The final project consists of four recorded songs and six interludes. I supported the creation of this content with a series of interviews with refugees who inspired me to write my songs.
Searching for stories, writing lyrics, collaborating with lyrics writers, composing, arranging, producing from A to Z and the whole postproduction steps. Throughout the process, I solidified my artistic identity, which consists of four main components: I am a traditional and Syrian songwriter, an instrumentalist, a producer and have an authentic and organic approach to my artistry.
A challenge for me was leaving enough time for rehearsals and preproduction before going into the studio. Ultimately,
I learned more about the recording process, my producing techniques and habits, the significance of composing songs, and how crucial it is to communicate and collaborate with other artists in a respectful manner. The material from this culminating experience will be used to release my first Album in English and to share the stories behind the songs with other audiences.
Keywords: Syria, traditional, orient, songwriting, artist identity, production, composing, creative project
3 1. Introduction
It was a very calm and peaceful life. Like most artists in the world, since I was child, I was living in my country, dreaming of my career and developing my skills. Since that, I believed that I’m an artist. At the age of 6, I recorded my first piece in Syria, and then started learning music with academic Curricula in one of the best music institutes in Syria. I have always wanted to mix between oriental music, which was always my passion, and the world’s music styles. That’s why later, I decided to start learning piano to be able to harmonize my songs.
Life took me further. Most of lyrics writers or composers were not able to fulfill my musical ambition.
They were mostly working to create songs that are considered nice, while not taking voice quality into consideration! So, I decided to start to write my own songs and compose my music. The conservatory, which is called in my country “The higher institute of music” was my choice. And luckily, they established the oriental singing department only one year before I applied. Then I got my biggest chance to learn oriental singing in addition to Oud and piano. Harmony, counterpoint, composing, conducting and so on, which are all important to build my skills, as well as to compose my music myself.
In 2010, I was ready to start my career, yet I still wanted to learn more. At that time, I felt that I can start establishing my music to the society. In that year, I established my first Album Shwayet Haki which means Some talk. The Album was a great start and success and encouraged me to start my second Album Tawshih . I was in the studio most of this year, recording my Album to be released in 2011.
But Win ds blows counter to what ships desire! March 2011, the Syrian revolution started. And it was followed by one of the worst disasters ever in the modern history; The Syrian civil war 2011. Suddenly, I found myself in need to leave my country because I was not practicing freedom of speech and I wasn’t able to express my opinions and thoughts as I wanted. Freedom is the most important tool for any artist and I lost it! Although I kept my thoughts for me and did not share them towards all the events that were happening at that time, the only time I decided to do something and tell the people not to fight and kill each other, I found myself alone in the prison for few days!! Here, I understood clearly that I will never be able to sing freely! Both sides were behaving crazy and I could not think about any kind of music.
4 I decided to leave, and just like any other Syrian, I carried my dreams with me to build a new life somewhere else. In 2015, I was able to stand again and fight to compose music. It was far away from Home, but I could be representing my Home, and the people even if I’m thousands of miles away. And thats where it all started!
2. Proposed Culminating Experience
My proposed Culminating Experience is to expand my own artistic identity by a way of composing, arranging, lyric writing, conducting and producing my own compositions, resulting in a product of a completed album. The best way to achieve it is through research and execution.
The research I am looking forward to achieve, will focus on the stories, which happened in my country during the civil war. I am not going to choose the sad stories only or the negative side of it, because some people around the world don’t believe that many nice things happened during war. The songs will tell others that although war was going on, people were fine and will keep thinking of finding a way to stay fine. I am going to use many resources from TV news, magazines, websites, songs, etc. (See all the relevant resources in section 7) to explore and go in depth in these stories. If possible, I will try to look for the stories heroes and talk to them, in order to express their human feelings regardless of war.
The main purpose of my CE project is to compose songs about these stories which are normal stories that could be happening anywhere. The only difference is: they happened in the wartime and war zones!
My questions will be:
How can war change life? Or, will people adapt even in wartimes?
What new stories could happen, which usually they don’t happen in normal times?!
Since I am talking in this project about my country which is considered an oriental country, what influence
can the oriental environment give to these stories?
How can that all sound when we think about it music-wise?
The life in wartime has many different faces (see figure 1 and figure 2 ). Both pictures are taken in Damascus during the war!!! Does it mean, that people will have a very nice and normal life as much as they are suffering because of the war? Maybe.
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Figure1.Damascus2016.Copyright: Al-AkhbarJournal Figure2.Damascus2016-Copyrighat:M srAl-Arabiya
3. Objective & Sub-Objectives
My main objectives are as follow:
o To forge and discover new unique music talking about wartime stories subject.
o To see from beginning to completion, the arranging, engineering, and producing of at least 5 of
my own compositions.
o To present English Arabic songs, which contain Oriental music in English forms.
However, there are sub-objectives that follow:
To complete lyrics for all my compositions in collaboration with different friends and colleagues.
To complete arrangements for all my compositions
To aid in the engineering and production of all my compositions in collaboration with different partners.
To produce the whole project and conduct all needed ensembles and orchestras for the recordings.
To follow the need of the music producing, by collaborating with different professional musicians in different
cities to help with the recording.
4. Methodology
The methodology for this CE project is performative, research focused and compose. Initially, the research required to begin this project involves qualitative analysis of the albums I’ve chosen to study, particularly compositional concepts (lyrics, form, instrumentation, harmonic, etc.), engineering techniques employed (mic
6 choices, preamp choices, studio set up, etc.), production techniques employed (double-tracking, effects used, editing choices, etc.), and historical context (technological limitations, contemporaneous events, political connotations, etc.). As an ongoing part of the project, the qualitative analysis of these albums plays and will play a big part in the decisions made during the arranging and recording process.
The writing, composing, arranging and recording process involves self-ethnographical research, by way of writing, rewriting, revisiting, collaborating, and experimenting during the compositional through mixing stages of the project. The tools to help me down this path include some traditional tracks as a reference to the topic, New modern tracks as another guidelines to make the songs closer to the international society, individual meetings with
Berklee Faculty (including my Professors, Advisor, and Program director), requests for feedback from industry professionals, and of course, in a more literal sense, the resources available on campus that actually enable me to record (musicians, recording gear, engineers, and time).
4.1. Plan of Action
To finish my project, I needed to go through consecutive steps, as below:
1- Choosing my stories: those which I built my compositions on their bodies. And to do that there were three
steps:
Research step: search in all news websites, Blogs, TV channels, social media, etc. for my stories.
Not all the stories are convertible to be songs in my album. There should be different measurements
related with the topic, story, the ability of being created in a song form.
The Verification step: After this research, the Verification process started. I needed to be certain,
that the stories really happened. In the wartimes, all sides invent some imaginable stories, to gain
the sympathy of others. Here, I was not looking for these kinds. I wated to have stories which had
reality roots and could express the face of my country. In this step meeting with people,
recordings, searching for supportive material and even phone calls with my story heroes, all of
that will be an available tool to check the story and give it the credibility.
Taking decision in which stories will be composed as songs. That would be the last step before
starting the recording part.
7 2- Writing the Lyrics: At this stage, I tried to mix between my original language “Arabic” and the
international language “English.” The challenge was to use both languages in a comfortable way for
listeners, not to ruin the story. I believe using Arabic language in these songs would be like adding the
new flavor. So, Arabic would not be as basic as much as an oriental flavor. The lyrics would be written
in collaboration between my friends and I.
3- The composing part: we started with the melodies, harmonies and arranging the lyrics. This could be a
long process comparing to the other parts. The most important thing in this part was the idea of oriental
music, although we are in an international music contest. The stories needed to be presented in a specific
way not to lose their identity.
4- Production Part: This took place in Berklee mostly and sometimes out of Berklee, depending on the
instruments needed and the musicians. Producing included: asking my colleagues to play and record my
compositions with me, checking my solo friends in and out Berklee to add their solos to my project, check
with my choir in Amaan to record some Arabic parts in the Album, engineering the final editing and
mixing part.
Addition: sometimes, we worked on the songs in parallel; when one song was ready to go for the next step
(lyrics writing as an example) we would proceed with the next step and work on the other songs in parallel,
so that we would noy waste time.
4.2. Timeline
December 2018
Tasks 1 Pick my stories through 3 steps which are: (Researching, Verification, Deciding). 2 Writing the lyrics for the story which have been chosen in collaboration with friends and colleagues. * 3 songs will be completed in this month *
January 2019
Tasks 1 Compose and arrange the music for the first 3 songs. 2 Writing the lyrics for the stories which have been chosen in collaboration with friends and colleagues. 3 Choosing the musicians roster for (1-2-3) songs. check their availability to record. 4 choose new stories to write songs about and write the lyrics for them * In this month I should finish the Lyrics for songs 4 – 5 - 6 *
8 5 Rehearsing with my rhythm section (the basic players) for songs (1- 2 - 3). That should take place at the end of January.
February 2019
Tasks 1 Record the Basic session for songs (1-2-3) – Beginning of February. 2 Rough mix for the songs (1-2-3) – second week 3 12 Feb. Revised culminating experience proposal due to advisor and program director 4 Compose and arrange the new 3 songs (4-5-6), which I’ve wrote their lyrics in January. 5 Choosing the musicians roster for songs (4-5-6) songs. And check their availability to record. 6 Rehearsing with my rhythm section (the basic players) for songs (4-5-6). That should take place at the end of January. 7 choose new stories to write songs about and write the lyrics for them * This month I should finish 3 Lyrics for songs (7-8-9) *
March 2019
Tasks 1 Record the Basic session for songs (4-5-6) – Beginning of March 2 Rough mix for the songs (4-5-6) – Second week 3 12 Mar. Culminating experience committee membership due to advisor and program director 3 Compose and arrange the new 3 songs (7-8-9), which I wrote their lyrics in January. 4 Choosing musicians roster for the new (7-8-9) songs. And check their availability to record. 5 Rehearsing with my rhythm section (the basic players) for songs (7-8-9). That should take place at the end of January. 6 Choose new stories to write songs about and write the lyrics for them * This month I should finish 3 Lyrics for songs (7-8-9) *
April 2019
Tasks 1 Presentation Between 21 March till 26th April : Research analysis paper presented to CE committee, demonstrating applications of research in the writing, engineering, and recording process (*to be expanded upon, and revised after mixing in the Summer Semester). 2 Record the Basic session for songs (7-8-9) – Beginning of April. 3 Rough mix for the songs (7-8-9) 4 Compose and arrange the final songs. We can only do one, or two. More will be fine and even if I found nothing that should be fine. 9 songs could be good for an Album. 5 Choosing the musicians roster for the final songs. And check their availability to record. 6 Rehearsing with my rhythm section (the basic players) for songs (7-8-9). That should take place at the end of January. 7 The last week of April, the overdue will have place: - Choir overdub recordings - Strings overdue recordings
9 - Solos overdue recording (Solos: include the instrumentalists out of Berklee in different cities and other singers could share with me some songs).
May 2019
Tasks 1 Record the Basic session for the final songs 2 Rough mix for the final songs 3 Mixing the Album during the second week of May. 4 Mastering the Album at the end of May. 5 Between 27th and 31st May: 1st Draft of Paper
June 2019
Tasks 1 3– 7 June Initial culminating experience presentation 2 10- 21 June Review of culminating experience by advisor 3 17 till 21 June: Final Reflective Paper 4 24 till 28 June: Final presentation of culminating experience to committee and college community 5 Between 27th and 31st May: 1st Draft of Paper
July 2019
Tasks rd 1 1 July: All deliverables due on July 3
4.3. Resources/Materials Needed
The resources and materials needed to execute this project could be divided into several categories: Media resources, human resources, technological resources, and space requirements. Media resources include the Articles and reports in all the news material to find the heroes of my Songs. Human resources include my friends who will collaborate with me to develop the lyrics, musicians, Choir, engineers, assistant engineers, my advisor, professors, program director, and CE committee. Technological resources include Microsoft Word & PowerPoint, Finale 25, Pro
Tools, Berklee’s Recording Facilities (including mics, preamps, cables, etc.), instruments amplification, and various
DAW plugins. Space requirements include teaching rooms, ensemble rooms, practice rooms, studios A-D, the AKSS,
Studios out of Berklee and the technology lab.
10 5. Justification
This project should benefit my profession as a singer and producer to many levels. It would be my first
Album, where I mix between my mother language Arabic and English. On the other hand, it was definitely a
change of profession, since I needed to manage all the production work (e.g., writing lyrics, composing, arranging,
recording, etc.) and all of that had to take place within a standard duration. In addition, I became more exposed to
different styles of music, since I needed to use different styles of music in the Album to be accepted in the music
society. At the end, the album will represent my identity in Europe, since It would be my first produced album in
Europe.
On the other side, I believed that the album would benefit the society as well; many people all over the world
know Syria as a war zone and tend to forget about the culture of this country. Not only that, but they don’t know the
small detailed stories except the very famous stories, which they became famous because of war.
6. Execution / Results
6.1 Overview:
At this part, I described the results of my Job with all details. At the beginning,I was doing very well with my time plan. Everything was working on time. Songs from 1 till 6 went very smooth and well. But, then I started to feel that I am running to produce the other songs. My plan was not to underestimate this experience and to produce the songs in good way. After song number 5, I decided to go for plan B. Instead of producing 9 to 10 songs, I thought on focusing on 5 songs to present them in great way. alongside, I will work on the other songs without rushing.
6.2 The completed songs:
At this section, I am going to describe the process of producing each song by the following steps:
- The story which I have found and what was the result of my research about the stories heroes.
- What process I chose to work on the lyrics?
- How I treated the lyrics when I was composing.
- The process of recording and the choices.
- Mixing and mastering for the songs and what that did.
11 6.2.1 This could be true
The song was written by me with a help from Kyle knupple on September 2018. Unfortunately, one of the things which we could not avoid when we are talking about the refugees is the refugees camps. Basically, that is the first thing you expect to hear about when we talk about this topic. The countries which share boarders with Syria were the first destination for all people who wanted to escape from the wars. But since these countries have their economic problems, so they complained about the situation very loudly. If we want to see the crises from their point of view, we would understand the situation a little bit. It was not an easy situation to see more 2 million persons coming to stay in your country. But that should not have been a reason to keep almost 70,000 persons in the desert with almost no food or water and to avoid them from entering the country. This was the case in Al-Raukban refugee camp.
In this song, Kyle and I found it very important to talk about this disaster. All refugee camps had enough space in the media except this one, although it was the worst camp suffering from the war. When we started to write about the song, we asked ourselves: What did we want to say exactly? There were many important points in this topic but which one was the main one? Finally, we found that the main point would be about preventing people from entering countries, although they were desperately in need! That was the big main point, Especially, when we used to hear a lot about the basic human rights everywhere but were ignoring them in such a situation like this at the same time! So, we started to write our story thinking always about this point.
The lyrics were super simple and understandable. For me the biggest challenge in this song was how to pronounce well! In general, I can speak and understand English but singing, was a whole new world for me So, to succeed this part, several pronouncing sessions were taken between Kyle and I.
Composing this music was not an easy mission as well. Because, it needed to be very simple and achieve the goal. The goal was to change something in the society. How? By finding the right melody which would stick in the ears after listening. I believed that if we could choose the right and remarkable melody to the main point, then that would make a difference. I remember after finishing the recording, I got one email from an undergrad student who sang with me as choir in this song and she was telling that the song was really effective and she wishes if she could find a way to help.
Starting the song with deep cello voice and ending it with the same Cello but from the very high drive my audience to their climax. After finalizing the song, I decided to add an Arabic Part with the Syrian dialect of this 12 people to give the audience possibility to deeply get into the situation. The arrangements, which were simple with little instruments, changed after the interlude to became complex when the Arabic refrain comes. Big choir, more strings, oud …. etc. It was crowded like the camp, full of sorrows like the people there.
Finally, an imaginary ending, when all instruments played together to fit the lyrics (This could be true? This must have been true.). But the end was again by solo voice and Cello to show that we are talking a lot. But doing little!
Recording process for this song was done on several stages. The basic session included Drums ,Piano &
Electric bass. Postproduction has been organized to have draft main vocal. Later on, we added the main vocal, Cello,
Violin and Oud. Finally, we added 26 singers choir. To make the choir sounds even more, I added 24 choir layer myself so we could feel it as bigger choir.
At the end and after listening to everything, I decided to get the violin out and to have simple drums instead of the acoustic one because I wanted to let the piece sounds less busy.
6.2.2 Perhaps
Two beloved ones were living in Syria. During the war which started back in 2011 the guy had serious health problems; he needed to get one expensive medicine regularly. That was very difficult because they couldn’t afford it and the medicine by itself wasn’t always available. The couple tried to solve the situation in several ways but the health of the guy was getting serious day after the other.
In September 2015, the girl decided finally to leave the country and to find a way for both to leave Syria and find another county where they could find help. She went through one of the most dangerous roads. She went through the Balkan road to reach any wealthy country in west Europe so she as to apply for a refugee status and can ask the government to bring her husband too; It wasn’t an easy mission at all. Especially when we know that the guy was not able to stay without her hand at all.
During her journey, something unexpected happened. The boy started to feel lonely and somehow, he started to imagine that she just left him. When he was calling her, and she couldn’t get the call he was imagining that she is cheating on him and left him alone to be with someone else. But that wasn’t the case. The girl was going through several problems just to help him.
13 When the girl finally was able to reach France, the bond became so weak and the couple decided to end this relationship. They didn’t announce that until the French government approved to give permeation to get the guy to
France. Later, and after the guy arrived France and started to get his medicine regularly, they broke up.
The story itself was very sad. But also, there was Bright side from it. At the end, the guy was able to save his life and they both moved to better life far away from the war. That was my intention when I wanted to talk about the war. We could always do something to help our friends.
Before George and I started to compose the song, I contacted the girl and had call with her. The funny part that she didn’t feel bad about the story but the opposite. She continued to tell me that those doubts were enough for them to understand that their relationship could not work out as partners, but they could only be very good friends.
She also said that being friends was a much better choice than continuing a relationship that would end up with children raised with single parents.
That was my key to create the song. Although the story sounded sad when I first heard it, But the reality wasn’t like this. And that was what George and I tried to present it in the song. We did our best to make the story sounds funny and not sad. The idea was to present the point of view of the guy and the doubts he had for his girl that he shared with his friends.
After getting the lyrics from George I found that the American old jazz school might fit very well with the concept. I did the arrangements in a way where the choir could take the part of the friends of the guy. Our biggest challenge in recording this song was setting the choir in funny concept. I recorded around 32 choir myself using my
(Soprano) voice with different techniques. I tried presenting the dialog between the choir and the soloist using these tracks.
Also, singing as the soloist wasn’t an easy job for nonnative speaker. That’s why I asked one American native speaker to join my recording session. We tried together to solve the Paradox of having funny way of singing while making the pronunciation as understandable as possible. My singing instructor advices strongly presenting that accent that I had instead of escaping from it, that was what my Accent producer and I have tried.
6.2.3 Hotel Transit
“One man stayed in an airport for more than 6 months. “That was not a story from a Hollywood Film! This was True. Hasan, Syrian refugee in Canada now, was facing a holy tragedy last year!
14 After his Visa ended in UAE, Hasan Alkuntar, decided to move to another country since he can’t go back to
Syria. Hasan is 38 years old and if he went back to Syria He would have been arrested on charges of evading compulsory military service so instead, he left to Malaysia where he was planning later to leave to Ecuador. In Kuala-
Lumpur airport, Hasan was denied from Boarding by Turkish airline for unknown reasons. That put him into a trouble.. His visa to Malaysia was invalid and he could not leave to Ecuador or any other country since almost no country in the world give Syrians Visa easily. At that moment, Hasan decided to stay in the airport, but he Had no idea that his stay would last for six months instead! during those 6 months, Hasan became big Star. Many human associations tried to help but no one was able to do anything before those months. At the end Canada accepted him as a refugee and the Government brought him from Kuala -Lumpur airport.
when I started composing the Song about Hasan, I couldn’t reach him easily. But the story was badly good to be a song. After discussing with my colleague George Kroneis, we started the Challenge. Georg read everything about this story. He even watched Pictures from the airport and read about the terminals, flights airlines which run from this airport. At the end I got very nice lyrics.
The lyrics were so much poetic. It wasn’t easy to deal with. Another issue I faced was, that they are super long to be a song. In some moments, I wanted to withdraw the piece. But the story and the nice Lyrics were always stopping me from doing that. But to solve this problem I found a very creative solution. The lyrics were long because they were describing the Feeling of this guy and what he saw in the airport. It was a real story! So, instead I decided not tell it as a story as there was no need to have the same way of composing standard song with the same melody.
The structure here started to become clearer to me. I closed the doors and recitedthe song in singing style.
No matter what rhythm, scales, times signature. I was focusing on reciting. I recorded that. When I finished, I checked with several friends to be sure that it would really sound like a story to them.
Then, I had the melody and needed to start with arranging. At that moment, I faced my biggest challenge.
The composition had many scales, rhythms, times signature. Only one theme was repeated but also in different scales. I decided to go further with the challenge and work to serve the story more than anything else. At the end, I found that the arrangements needed to be mixed between Jazz and Disney music. Because the story itself was supper crazy and no one could imagen that this could actually happen on the 21st century. Same as having a talking-mouse in a Disney movie! I checked many Disney songs and found that Orchestra would fit with the story more than having small band. Because the articulation of the Orchestra instruments are much richer and could follow the story and give
15 nice effect for each melody.
The arranging needed around 32 continually work. I ended up having draft score for big Orchestra + choir.
In total, 32 lines. Then I should have been ready for the next Challenge. How to record that! There is no Orchestra in
Berklee and I could not afford high rates with hiring an Orchestra and choir!
I checked online and discovered that there are several Orchestras offering 25 minutes for shared recording sessions. I chose to work with (Budapest scoring Orchestra) since their budget was affordable. In addition, they were supper clear with their conditions and process.
Then there was another challenge, to send them the score in the easiest way. They would only give me 25 minutes and If there were any mistakes that would happen in the score, there would have been no way to fix that without booking another session. I prepared another session for the Orchestra, in which I added additional bars whenever there is change in the tempo. And also double checked all Chords, articulations, dynamic. Finally, the Pro tools session needed to fit exactly with the score and the charts must have been sent in special way. To get 100% good session, I needed to send everything with no mistakes at all. On the session day, I was with the orchestra remotely and they were super happy with the preparation. They were recording the song 3 or 4 times so I that I would have got several takes which I could use for my song.
Later, the choir challenge! Since there was no Choirs in Berklee and the song needed a well prepared one for that mission, so I had to use my whole voice ranges to record as the choir. I had 32 takes for all the song as eight choir melodies. Each melody was repeated 4 times in different way of producing the voice. Classes with my
Instructor Olga also helped me so much to change the voice in the right way without hurting my throat.
The final step was EDDITING, MIXING & MASTERING. At that point I had little help from my colleague
Arash Rezaei who helped me mostly by adding the right EQ and reverb to the mixing. I used the acoustic standards with panning. So, the panning would sound exactly like an Orchestra. that was Because this was a real story and I wanted someone to live the real life and real dynamics. Almost no compression to save the dynamics.
The final step, Was by recording my voice as solo several times. I wasn’t satisfied with my pronunciation.
My instructor “Casey Driessen”, who is an English Native speaker, encouraged me in the last meeting to work on the pronunciation more in natural way instead of keep thinking about it. For that reason, I asked 2 colleague native speaker to record the song in there talking style and I heard it almost 50 times. Finally, I rerecorded the song with an
16 English native producer (Eryn Legna) to be sure that the song is well understood, and the accent is hidden as much as possible.
6.2.4 Ya Habib Allah,
The hero of this song was “Samah Aljundo”. Before 11, Samah lived in a little village “Al-Haffa” in Syria where she was working as an English Teacher. As a working woman, she was suffering because of the traditions over there where working and love were not easy things for women in her village and sometimes, not accepted. Some families there believed that, women were only allowed to love their husbands after marriage only and had no rights to choose the husbands. Instead their families did!
When the war started. Samah had much bigger problems when her little village was under the heavy war.
The Muslim 30th years old scarfed woman was struggling to finance her life in Syria especially after getting divorced from her Husband in 2015. This was the point when she decided to leave the country. (40 years were more than enough for me to suffer. It is time to change and to be safe in a country where there is are wars). Samah said.
Now, the turning point in Samah’s story was in 2019 when she decided after she moved to Berlin before 4 years- to marry a German Christian Man. That was a very big shock for the Muslim society. In Islam, Muslim women are not allowed to marry non-Muslims. As a result, Samah beame a trend in the media. People found that as great step to have more liberal Islam but most people were against that because it is against of their believes.
The story encouraged me to compose a song about that. A woman like Samah was not allowed to have here liberty even though when she was old and living in far country. Personally, I was very happy by reading her story. In general, nothing good comes because of war. But maybe Samah’s story broke this rule. She is finally married to her beloved one and free.
I decided to use Arabic in this Arabic since I was writing about Samah’s society and was talking on the behalf of this society. At the same time, I added an English part that represents Samah speaking up for herself against these kinds of ideas. For me, the song is a happy and brave one since it represents love and liberty together.
In the lyrics: I tried to talk from Samah’s perspective and be in her shoes But the refrain was by her tongue.
The name of the songs is (Ya habib allah). The literal meaning of this sentence in Arabic is ‘The God’s lover”.
Usually, people in Syria use it when there is something shocking. That why I decided to use this sentence and
17 repeated it. To give the song much better understanding, I decided to add an English part where someone should sing exactly like Samah. The woman who decided to make revolution against of her society.
The structure of composing this song went super smoothly. Because when I wrote the lyrics myself and in my mother language, I felt that all arranging, and composing are in my head and they only needed to be transferred from my head to the papers. Instruments were chosen based on the 2 society of Samah. The old one and the new one.
Oud, Clarinet, Darbuka, Keyboard and Drums would make this a crazy combination presented well. In addition, choir who sang in different ways can present the society.
Recording also wasn’t so much difficult. I only had problem with adding the Darbuka to the project. A
Friend of mine has helped me to find the right software where we can have several Darukka loops and use them. I did the record and acoustic Drums for the song, but I ended up using digital loops because I found that it would make more sense with the story and music. Also, I recorded 12 choir layers with different styles of voices. In this recording, I didn’t use the typical choir way of singing but I tried to have several characters in my voice: Old woman, old man, smoker old woman, children, normal guy ….etc. That was additional reason to have digital loop drums so it will help to let the song less busy.
Recording the song was very easy. I did the recording as overdubbed session. The English part was difficult for me, since I wanted it to be in different voice. At the beginning I tried to do it myself but wasn’t convenience for me so I decided to have guest singer.
Choosing the Guest singer wasn’t an easy Job. The singer needed to be able to scream in some places. Also, she should be Mezzo or Soprano, so she would make a great fit with my voice range. I had 3 singers close to me in the school and before talking with them I did some researches about them and their voices. I ended up asking Kei
Riggins to share the song with me. Reggins fitted exactly with my target. With her background in Opera she would have understood the storyboard and followed the sense of Samah
The song became ready to be mixed and mastered. I did the basic parts with panning and comping and got help from Brian Zani (sound Engineer) to continue the mixing. I needed to have an English ear in this song, so It will be smooth for western ears since the Album in general is targeting the Western audience and even if the song is in
18 Arabic mostly, that shouldn’t be a reason to let the audience apart from the meanings. So, thinking about their EQ preferences and adding the English part should help in this direction.
6.2.5 Ya Ilahi ( My God):
The story of Alan Alkurdi has shocked the humanity in the world in September 2015. The little child was accompanying his family who decided leaving after the war in Syria to Europe. They went through the sea and arrived to Greece but without Alan. The child fall in the sea during the trip. few days later, they found his body on the
Turkish beach and his picture became one of the worst pictures ever in 2015.
In my opinion, closing Countries’ borders in front of people running from wars is one of the biggest crimes humanity could ever face. The little child was killed by the knife of the ugly civilized world. That really needed a song. Maybe a prayer not even a song. It is just a story like any other ones we face . Some have happy ending while others have terrible ones like this.
I decided to create song for that. The song needed to sound like prayer using the new civilized world themes and groove. Because the child was killed by this weird which asks loudly to present better human rights but at the same time does the opposite.
Understanding all of that was my key to start with this song. I wanted something sounding like a prayer.
("Erbarme dich mein gott) from St Matthew Passion composed by J.S. Bach on the 17th Century would serve that well. So many people know this Aria. The meaning of the lyrics is close to what I was looking for “ Have mercy, my
God, for the sake of my tears! See here, before you heart and eyes weep bitterly.”
That’s exactly what I wanted. To make the song sound much close to the modern world we needed to take the song out of its classical form. Samba bossa-nova have done that! I have changed the whole melody and arranged it to work for small band. Instead of ¾ I converted it in a delegate way to 4/4. Finally, to present the story in clearer way and let people understand that it happened with someone living in Arabic country, I did the first part in Arabic instead of English. Then little improvisation to get me to the German original part with the same classical part. sincee my main message from this song was that We always pray since 1600 until now. But, unfortunately instead of helping we are still working to destroy humanity.
Arranging the song was somehow tough job but not supper difficult because It was based on idea that
19 existed in my mind about mixing between classic and Samba Bossa-Nova. Recording went also very smooth. The most presence instrument in the song are Oud and Clarinet. Representing Orient and Occident. My challenge in this song was presenting the modern world in an old-fashioned way. I thought the challenge needed to be improved a little bit more. I would have preferred to have (Kamancheh : an Iranian instrument) instead of oud because it would make nice contrast with the clarinet but for the lack of the instrumentalists limitation I could only use the oud.
6.3 Interludes
After being done with the songs, I did little assessment with several friends. I wanted to see their reactions.
One common thing that I got was that the sounds were like musical shows I almost heard that from everyone who heard the songs, Which actually changed my point of view and started wondering why not to take the project further and kept it be a real musical performance instead! Then I could use that to get some money for charity and support the refugees!
To achieve that, I arranged appointments with several friend who work in music business as well in video production. My idea tuned to perform these songs along on a stage using the music I have it as (playback -1 ) But having visual backgrounds behind me which could explain the stories much better. After discussion with several friends, we found that in this case, we would need some interludes. These interludes could be included in the album as small music pieces and as well could be used for the visual videos behind of me in the live. The idea of the visual videos is to interact with me on stage. For example, in Hotel transit, we need to do some videos form Kuala-Lumpur airport which could surround me and present me during the song like If I am really there and living in the song. Some lines in the lyrics were even taken from the billboards in Kuala Lumpur Airport or from real interview from the story teller. So, It would make more sense to present them somewhere in an inelegant way. The only problem, that we could not do the videos before finishing the whole Album and interludes Since that needed to be evaluated based on the audience acceptances and how to present it in a very smart way.
For that purpose, we started by recording the interclouds. Most of my album music used some western instruments, since the songs are targeting the western Audience. So, It would make sense to make the interludes more in eastern style. Some improvisation with the right instruments would help. My instruments were based on Oud, oriental violin, Indian Tabla. In addition, I used my voice in Arabic way of singing and asked my harp player to play with more oriental style of playing, in which we focused more on melody not in horizontal way of arranging. 20 Finally, since these interludes needed to present the story after, so I decided to find one effect to describe the music. For Example, in (Ya Ilahi), the song was about the child whom his body was found on the beach. So, sound effect for Beach would help. Basically, I looked for nice high-quality Beach sound effect and asked my musicians to hear it during their recording. The interludes were composed in different ways. Some of them were freely improvisation while the Others were improvisation above of Vamp. Not to forget that some of them were short pieces of non-improvisation pieces. Thinking about my audience between live performances and online streaming was my guide in composing.
Now, I finished 6 interludes with 6 effects:
. Sea waves: For Ya Ilahi
. City sound: For Ya habib allah
. Refugee Camp: For This could be true
. Borders: For the uncompleted song (The wedding)
. On the Balkan road: For the song (Perhaps)
. Airport: For the song (Hotel transit)
6,4 Remine songs:
I have already started with the rest of the songs, but I have only decided to put them on hold so that I could finish this research and continue working with them after it ends.
The remaining songs are:
o Just be stupid: based on a real story happened with the American President Donald Trump.
o The Wedding: Based on a real story happened to a refugee in Italy.
o Cocoa dream: Based on a real story happened to a refugee during his trip from France to
England.
o The time Capsule: The message of the Album which asks clearly : If we have got the
chance to send a message to the people in future, what would it be?
7. Professional Plan
My professional plan with this CE Project was to first and foremost, discover and forge my artistic identity
21 for when I enter the international music industry. It also would also be my first professional album in Europe,
allowing me to generate new fans who are different than my previous fans in Arabic countries. I hope to make a tour
after Berklee and promote the album and myself as an international artist, and begin working on the next record. On
a less tangible level, I believe that discovering my own new artistry through creating my first record in English
would give me a ton of professional skills. Already in my recording for production plans, a song called (This could
be true) which will definitely make the album cut, I set up my finals recording session so that I didn’t have to play. I
got to be a musical director, a producer, and an engineer, working behind the glass closely and really getting exactly
what I wanted out of the players. This album gave me the experience of being a producer and director, invaluable
skills in today’s music industry mixing with my original music from my Home country. Through this experience, I
have learned some real hands-on studio skills, having the fortune to use top-of-the-line gear in
high-end facilities.
After finishing this album, I would release it in different theaters. My plan is to produce a show in which I
present part of the songs with visual arts. The visual arts will give an idea about the stories.
8. Finale conclusion / Reflections
At this stage, I decided taking this expeience into the next level by producing a small musical show as
mentioned earlier. This could be achieved by designing the right visual effects and videos which could give the
audience a great show music and humanity wise.
In 2022, I am planning to release this Album after I finish the remaining songs and interludes. At the
same time, my plan is to make an annual tour with the Album to collect Charity by the performances for
refugees.
Final idea, The time capsule turned to be a very unique idea. I have discussed with my project partner
about the idea of collecting other stories from the audience during the tour. We would ask them simply to write
one story they think that people in future should know about it. At the end, and after the tour finishes, we are
going to bury them somewhere, and will think about a way to let people after 100 year be able to find them and
read them!
SO?
22 Finale conclusion / Reflections
Little experience in producing has changed my view to my songs!
No experience in production will make recordings and concerts much tiring
Connecting music with stories is great idea but it always need special treatment.
The most important conclusion is changing the idea from just musical album to become musical performance or
tour.
9. Resources
In the rest of this section, I will address the list of materials, which I used to study and give subjective and objective
reasoning for why they should be focal points of my research.
9.1 Songs:
In my project, I will focus on two types:
A- Anti-war songs:
Since this album is going to describe people’s lives and stories during the world, Then I will study some songs
which are conserved as anti-wars songs. It will be very important to check how other composers dialed with this
type of lyrics. As well, to explore what I can add from my music. I will give some examples here:
I. War - Bob Marley & The Wailers 1976
“War” is a song recorded and made popular by Bob Marley. It first appeared on Bob Marley and the Wailers'
1976 Island Records album, Rastaman Vibration, Marley's only top 10 album in the USA. (In UK it reached position
15 May 15, 1976.) The lyrics are almost entirely derived from a speech made by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie
I before the United Nations General Assembly
II. Soldiers – ABBA 1981
Billboard explains "emphasizing that although there seems to be so little one can do to prevent the machinations
of soldiers and those who control them, we must "not look the other way/taking a chance/cos if the bugle starts to
play/we too must dance”. The Telegraph describes the premise of the song as "how warmongers convince
themselves they are noble men".
III. The Gunner's Dream - Pink Floyd 1983
23 The song tells the story and thoughts of an airman gunner as he falls to his death during a raid, dreaming of a
safe world in the future, without war. It is one of the four songs on the video version of the album The Final
Cut Video EP. In his lyrics, Waters references real-life events including the then very recent Hyde Park and Regent's
Park bombings, and takes the refrain "some corner of a foreign field" from Rupert Brooke's poem The Soldier.
IV. We’ve had enough – Michael Jackson. 2004 Jackson wrote this ballad with songwriter Carole Bayer Sager. The song is about the war in Iraq, a big issue at the time.
B- English songs, which sound Arabic:
As my first language is not English, and my original music is not western, it will be interesting to check other
singers, who they did sing in English, but they sand in English. It will also be interesting to see, what they added
from their original music to these songs. I will take example for that:
I. Karl Wolf - Butterflies 2009
The Darbuka sounds are very important to shape this song. As well, the melody is built in oriental style. The singer
is originally Lebanese.
II. Aisha, Outlandish 2009
Originally, the song was sung by Algerian famous singer in French. When Outlandish used the same melody, he
couldn’t gedrite from the Oriental style in the melody.
III. Desert Rose – Sting 2009
Arabic is mixed with the English. There is an Arabic singer, Momy Cheb, who is making little improvisations with
an oriental melody. The whole song has an Arabic spiritual.
IV. Beautiful Liar, Shakira and Beyoncé 2009
The strings at the end of the song and the melody are working together to give an oriental identity to the song. No
need to mention that Shakira has an Lebanese roots, which gives her voice special temper.
V. Grapes - Black Eyed Peas 2010
Darbuka is working together with the electric drums to make a strong Background in the song. In some parts, we
can listen clearly the front ground built in Arabic scales.
VI. The Chemical Brothers – Galvanize 2011
I believe this song has the most oriental style in all what I found. The whole song was built in 2 notes. One of them
24 is standing ¾ tune from the other (Which is very typical in Arabic scales, but almost not exist in the western music).
9.2 Documentation resources:
The stories are my base to build the project. So, I will need to look for my stories carefully, which will mainly happen in all media platforms like;
I. Social media Platforms: There are many pages where Syrian people are sharing their stories, videos, problems and the funny thing, these pages will be one of my sources until I find my heroes and talk with them.
II. Websites
As well, many websites, were founded to share this news and stories between the Syrians. These websites
are my second resources.
III. All media (TV) reports:
All TV channels share there news nowadays on the video platforms like YouTube for example. I can check these
videos to reach more stories.
Bibliography
I. Aisha, Outlandish 2009 Electronic resources: Outlandish, “Outlandish - Aicha (Video)” posted by Outlandish, October 25, 2009,YouTube video , 4.07 URL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0nFTdKlKLw
II. Beautiful Liar, Shakira and Beyoncé 2009 Electronic resources: Shakira and Beyoncé, “Beyoncé, Shakira - Beautiful Liar” posted by Beyoncé, October 2, 2009,YouTube video , 3.27 URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrOe2h9RtIW
III. Butterflies - Karl Wolf 2009 Electronic resources: Karl Wolf , “Karl Wolf - Butterflies” posted by KarlWolfVEVO, June 2, 2009,YouTube video , 4.28 URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnTP8LhKwzw
IV. Desert Rose – Sting 2009 Electronic resources: Sting & Mumy Cheb, “Sting - Desert Rose” posted by Sting, June 16, 2009,YouTube video , 4.45 URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3lWwBslqW g
V. Galvanize - The Chemical Brothers 2011 Electronic resources: Black Eyed Peas, “The Chemical Brothers - Galvanize” posted by, The Chemical Brothers, July 15, 2011,YouTube video , 3.43 URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu3FTEmN-eg
VI. Grapes - Black Eyed Peas 2010 . Electronic resources: Black Eyed Peas, “The Black Eyed Peas - Grapes (New) 2010, + LYRICS” posted by zZxXPlayer123XxZz, February 16, 2010,YouTube video , 4.01 URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnsErJogJAg
25 VII. Soldiers – ABBA 1981 Cultural resources: Wikipedia, s.v. “Soldiers (ABBA song),” last modified 16 Mar, 2013, 21:58, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldiers_(ABBA_song) Electronic resources: ABBA, “ Soldiers” posted by ABBA, November 29, 2014,. YouTube video , 4.40. URL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBejy5eMW Bs
VIII. The Gunner's Dream - Pink Floyd 1983 Cultural resources: Wikipedia, s.v. “The Gunner's Dream,” last modified 24 April, 2011, 19:15, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gunner%27s_Dream
IX. Electronic resources: Pink Floyd, “ The Gunner's Dream - Pink Floyd (1983) HQ Audio HD Video” posted by MetalGuruMessiah, June 23, 2014,YouTube video , 5.41 URL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThBGJ13mUdc
X. War - Bob Marley & The Wailers 1976 Electronic resources: Bob Marley, “ "War" - Bob Marley & The Wailers | Rastaman Vibration (1976)” posted by Bob Marley, March 5, 2014, YouTube video , 3.36 . URL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JwL3lPBQ5E Cultural resources: Wikipedia, s.v. “War (Bob Marley song),” last modified 15 May, 2015, 11:40, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_(Bob_Marley_song)
XI. We’ve had enough – Michael Jackson. 2004 Electronic resources: Michael Jackson, “Michael Jackson - We've Had Enough (Audio)” posted by Michael Jackson, March 1, 2017, YouTube video , 5.46 . URL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzvwgDhwp3I Cultural resources: Wikipedia, s.v. “The Ultimate Collection (Michael Jackson album),” last modified 16 Jan, 2016, 21:16, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Collection_(Michael_Jackson_album)
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