- Naseer Shamma
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Naseer Shamma 
Background information Born 1963 Origin Iraq Genres Iraqi, Arabic Music, Oud Occupations Oud player Naseer Shamma (Arabic: نصير شمه) is a renowned Arab Iraqi musician and oud player.
He was born in 1963 in Kut, a city on the Tigris River. He is born to a Fayli Kurdish father and a Khazrajite Arab mother.[1] He began studying the oud at the age of 12 in Baghdad, following in the footsteps of Jamil and Munir Bashir. When he was 11-years old, Shamma saw an oud for the first time, in the hands of a stylish music teacher. Although Shamma's father, a shop owner, was religiously conservative, he did not object to his son's artistic ambitions. In 1985, Shamma played his own compositions at his first concert, attended by several renowned Iraqi artists. At the time, he worked closely with the late Iraqi master Munir Bashir. But Shamma wanted to blaze his own path. Master Munir invented the technique of contemplation with oud, but Shamma wanted his music to carry content, an idea or image that is shocking. He received his diploma from the Baghdad Academy of Music in 1987. He began to teach oud after three years at the academy, as well as continuing his own studies. Shamma has composed music for films, plays and television.
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Contribution
Between 1993 and 1998 he taught oud the Higher Institute of Music in Tunisia, and in 1999 he took the post of Director of The Arab House of Oud (بيت العود العربي) in Cairo. He performs on the oud in a manner which combines traditional methods with his own modern compositions.
Naseer Shamma has also created an eight-string oud or lute following the manuscript of the 9th-century music theorist Al-Farabi. This new design (eight instead of six strings) expanded the musical range of the oud and gave it a distinct tonality. His innovations also include a new method of playing the oud with only one hand, which was originally invented by Salim Abdulkarim, so that children and soldiers injured during the Gulf War could play and enjoy the oud.
Oyoun Group
Naseer Shamma established Al Oyoun Group in Cairo in 1999 based on the workshop system which gives the musician a high value in the musical field and in his relationship with the instrument he plays. With the use of musical instruments for which the traditional Arabic orchestra (Al-Takht) was known, they introduced other instruments that were added to the traditional Takht. The Takht is a form of a band consisted of more or less than five musicians not more than seven, which was favored at the Abbasid era, and specifically during the days of Haroun Al-Rasheed and subsequent eras. The Takht was always present and changed commensurate with to the type of music and the prevailing cultural atmosphere.
Discography
- Le luth de Baghdad ("The Baghdad Lute") (1994, Paris)
- Ishrāq (1996)
- The Moon fades (1999)
- Maqamat Ziryab (2003)
- Ancient Dreams (2004)
- Meditation (2005)
- Hilal (2005)
- Ard Alsawad (2006)
References
External links
Categories:- 1963 births
- Living people
- Arab musicians
- Iraqi musicians
- Iraqi oud players
- Iraqi Shi'a Muslims
- Oud players
- People from Kut
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