As we saw last week, the first publication of the centre for the Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage in the field of musical heritage was the works of Om Kalthoum as a book and a CD.
The book contains a comprehensive list of her songs along with each song’s title, date of first performance, composer, lyricist, rhythm, form and maqam (musical node). It also contains all of the lyrics and the scores of some of the songs.
The list tells us how many songs each composer and lyricist was responsible for, as well as what were the most common musical forms and maqamat.
Om Kalthoum’s most prolific composer was Riyadh el-sonbati, who composed 108 songs for her, followed by Mohamed el-Qasabgi (74) and Zakariya Ahmed (72).
Many other composers did significant work for Om Kalthoum, especially Mohamed Abdel Wahab who composed ten songs, the most famous being Inta Omry “you are my life”.
Om Kalthoum’s most favourite lyricist was Ahmed Rami who wrote the lyrics of 150 songs, followed by Bairam el -Tonsi (38), then many others who wrote between one and 11 songs. The most important was Ahmed Shawqi, the prominent Egyptian poet with 11.
There are two Western musical modes: the major scale and the minor scale. For example, the DO-Major and DO-Minor scales. The main difference is the third note in the scale (or the Mi note) which is, in case of a Major Scale, a full note removed from the Re note. While, in the case of a minor Scale, it is replaced by Mi-bimole or half a note.
As for the Arabic musical scale, in addition to the major and minor scales there is a third scale with a value of Mi in between the Mi and Mi-bimole which means, three quarters of a tone removed from the Re note which forms the famous Arabic maqam or mode called the Rast.
Normally the modes in the Arabic music carry names. For example the major in Arabic notation is Agam and the Minor is Nahawand.
Using combinations of the above three modes, there are around 20 different modes generally in use in Arabic music.
Going back to Om Kalthoum, most of her songs were in pure Arabic modes. The Mode she mostly used was Rast (there are 58 songs in that mode), followed by the Bayati mode (45), Huzam (38), Nahawand (32) and Kurd (28).
There are tens of songs in other different modes. Om Kalthoum enriched the Arab world with about 325 songs; the ‘Queen of Arab singers’ left us with a magnificent musical Heritage.
