THE TIME CAPSULE a Musical Album About Real Stories During the Wartime
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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 1 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 2 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. 5 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.