Music of Egypt

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The music of Egypt has been spreading supraregional traditions of classical Arabic music since the Islamic period and a regional folk music, which partly goes back to ancient Egyptian forms of music. The Bedouins on the Sinai Peninsula and the Nubians in Upper Egypt have their own traditional music. In addition to the Islamic music , the chant of the Copts another genre of religious music. The modern urban pop music is influenced by rural traditions and Western popular music. Western classical music has been performed in major cities such as Cairo and Alexandria since the 19th century .

Music in ancient Egypt

In the art of music, the ancient Egyptians showed from around 3000 BC Chr. Technical skill in the great variety of their musical instruments , the differently designed harps , lutes , lyres , flutes , double clarinets, drums, etc., which are depicted in numerous wall paintings; further knowledge is derived from archaeological excavations.

Folk music

In the post-Ptolemaic and post-Roman times, music in Egypt integrated influences from Byzantine , Persian and - above all - Arabic music . Within Egypt, the traditions of the Bedouins, Saiyidis and Nubians in particular influenced Egyptian folk music.

Popular music

Until the late 1970s, singers such as Umm Kalthum , Abdel Halim Hafez , Mohammed Abdel Wahab and the siblings Asmahan and their brother Farid el Atrache, who immigrated from Syria, were Egypt's greatest pop stars. To this day you are among the most famous musicians of the 20th century in the Arab world. From the mid-1980s, however, they were supplanted by newer forms of music such as Al-jil (which includes the greatest Arab pop star Amr Diab ) and Shaabi , especially among younger audiences.

Modern Egyptian pop music began to develop in the late 1960s with singers such as Aida al-Shah and Layla Nasmy . At the same time, the military musician Salah Ragab founded the Cairo Jazz Band , which was in contact with protagonists of the jazz avant-garde such as Sun Ra .

Shaabi

The breakthrough for Shaabi music came in 1971 with the success of Ahmed Adaweyah . Adaweyah integrated influences from Great Britain and the USA as well as other Arab pop stars in his music .

Mahraganat

Mahraganat ("Festival") is considered a further development of Shaabi music. Mahraganat, influenced by hip-hop , has been popular especially in the poor suburbs of Cairo since the Arab Spring . Because of their "vulgar lyrics", the responsible Egyptian trade union refuses to accept the musicians.

Al-Jil

Al-Jil music developed in the 1970s. It was danceable pop music that included typical Arabic features. The main representative of this genre is Hamid el-Shaeri , who released the first Al-Jil hit with Lolaiki (1988).

Some representatives of popular music

A large number of Egyptian musicians working abroad who make their culture known and spread it in other European countries

The most popular music group in Cairo is Wust el-Balad , which combines Arabic stylistic devices and rock music.

Contemporary and classical European music

Contemporary Egyptian serious music is divided into two groups:

  • One that divides the octave into 24 quarter tones, and
  • one with 17 steps ( lute ladder ).

See also: List of Egyptian Classical Music Composers

literature

  • Frédéric Lagrange: Al-Tarab - The Music of Egypt , with a foreword by Rabih Abou-Khalil, from the French by Maximilien Vogel, Palmyra-Verlag, Heidelberg 2000.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ben Hubbard: Out of Egypt's Chaos, Musical Rebellion . In: New York Times , May 11, 2013. Retrieved April 13, 2014. 
  2. ↑ Khalid El Kaoutit: Mahraganat: Cairo's Music Revolution ( s ) German wave. April 12, 2014. Retrieved April 13, 2014.