Sami Abu Shumays

I'm starting to "get" facebook, as I posted on my status yesterday--an easier way to casually chat about what i'm up to regularly.  If you'd like to be my facebook friend, you can find me here:
http://www.facebook.com/sami.abu.shumays

But for a more extended description of what I've been up to--the end is in sight for my new Maqamlessons site.  The upgrade has been around 2 years in coming--slouching towards Bethlehem to be born, as Yeats would have it.  I've just completed the initial photoshop draft of the 33 maqam pages which will be on the site.  I guess I've learned through the process that there are 33 maqams I can claim to have apprehended--and it is clear to me that the process so far has shown me that, that I wasn't quite clear before going through it how many maqams I actually know, or what is the structure of the maqams I know.  Now I have a sense of that.

When I actually get around to the recording phase--which will be nearly the last phase of the project (... for whatever reason, I felt I needed to see the system in its entirety before starting to record for it... once I finish photoshop, then I will write all of the code, and then I will record the lessons, and then will code in their placement on the site...)--I suspect I will learn quite a bit more about what I know and what I've learned, in the last 11 years I've been learning Arabic music.

Coming soon!  ...Hopefully before I present my paper at the SEM conference in November.

Arabic Music Classes (Maqam)
taught by Sami Abu Shumays

Mondays 7:30-9:00pm
May 4, 11, 18, June 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, July 6
*no class May 25th (memorial day)

Rates:      
    $15/class; $50 for 4 classes;
    $100 for all 9 classes.
    
(students may attend classes on a drop-in basis, and are not required to attend all 9 in the session)

@  Joria Productions
     www.joriaproductions.com
     260 W. 36th Street (7th/8th),
     3rd floor

Classes open to people with any level of music experience.  Sami leads the class in singing or playing melodies in a particular Maqam (Arabic melodic mode, similar to Raga in Indian Music).  Students imitate in a call-and-response fashion on their preferred instrument, or by singing, learning the building blocks of Arabic music in a way similar to how people learn language, by repeating common phrases.  Sami makes these classes accessible to all by presenting musical phrases that are short and clear enough for beginners to imitate, but which have subtleties and details that only the most advanced students will grasp.  Each class will focus on one maqam, and over the course of several classes students will gain an understanding of several different maqamat and an appreciation for the breadth of the maqam system.

www.maqamlessons.com for more information