interview gamed with Mohamed Nour

Subject: interview gamed with Mohamed Nour Sun Nov 19, 2006 11:30 am

THE MAKING OF A BAND
CA: How was the band formed? Whose idea was it? How did you guys meet?
Mohamed Nour: It was not an idea. We’ve been friends since grade school. I knew Ahmed Fahmi first; he was in the same grade as me. Nader joined the next year. We all used to study and play music together and we played in the [institute’s] orchestra. We traveled together the institute would hold a concert abroad or in the opera house. So playing music together isn’t a new thing.
CA: But someone must have said “let’s form a band?”
MN: Yeah, sure, but this came much later. We all wanted to sing. We had been friends, throughout high school and during the higher institute. We love singing, but none of us wanted to be a solo singer.
Nader Hamdy: We first created a band called Modern Pharaohs. We just played music: jazz, dance, oriental and everything. And then we thought why not Arabic songs? We started making Arabic songs, and Mohamed Nour and Ahmed Fahmi were originally going to sing those songs. But then we [Ahmed El-Shamy and I] decided to join. Our first song was “Hobaha Gowa El-Albein” (Her Love Is In Two Hearts). Then we made “Kol Alb” (Every Heart). But we didn’t have an album.
CA: So how did the idea of making an album first come about?
MN: We didn’t think of making an album. We thought of making songs just for ourselves. Then Khaled Dagher, an assistant teacher in the Conservatoire [music school], listened to us and asked why we hadn’t made an album. We told him we didn’t want to deal with getting funding and other things, we are just interested in making music. So, he said “if the problem is the money and the studio, then I can provide them.” So we started making songs and people listened to them.
CA: So how long did it take you to prepare for your first album?
Ahmed Fahmi: After Khaled offered to help; we started recording the album right away. Our manager was Hady El-Bagoury, then Maha Awad, and then we went to Tarek [Alarian]. Our first album [Ya Leil (Oh, Night)] was produced by Mega Star and the second [Tehlefly Asada’ (I Believe You When You Swear To Me)] by Fame [Music].
MN: The first album took about a year and a half and the second took a year. This is the usual length of time it takes any singer to make an album.
CA: Don’t you feel that the release of the second album was a bit late?
MN: Of course it was late.
AF: If Samira Saeid released her album yesterday, she would be looking for new melodies for her next album now. The thing is that we make our own music, so we need to rest after the album’s release.
THE MUSIC, THE STYLE
CA: Do you think your music is different?
AF: I think no one sings the same way we do. We sing in a style called ‘Voice Harmony.’ For example, The Four Cats band has four members, but when they sing a melody they all sing on the same note. But we sing differently. For example, I would sing to the main melody, the one you would remember. Then Mohamed would sing on a higher note. Then Ahmed El-Shamy would sing on a very low note the base sound and Nader would sing on the note between me and the base.
Here you have four melodies the same words but different notes. This is something that doesn’t exist in Arabic music, because Arabic music in general is the same as Om Kalthoum’s: she sings and the band behind her plays to the same note. But in classical music, which we studied, the opera would have the orchestra behind the singer playing different notes than what he is singing.
NH: The music may be new to the orient, because we use the ‘harmony’ style, which is a western style. First of all, there’s nothing called arrangements in oriental music. It was introduced in [Mohamed] Abd El-Wahab’s time. [Music] arrangement is a western thing. So we try to mix oriental with western [music]: by using oriental instruments with western arrangements.
CA: So, why this style?
AF: If we sang the same traditional Arabic music, then what’s new?
CA: What has influenced your music style?
AF: Our studies. But the style of singing is similar to Boys II Men, but we are slightly different to them.