Entertainment | Music
Serenading a Lebanese heart
Charbel Rouhana is one of the greatest Oud players in the world, probably more so because of his originality and determination to uphold his culture and heritage in his music.
- By Shireena Al Nowais, Staff Writer
- Published: 00:00 May 17, 2007
- Image Credit: Arshad Ali/Gulf News
- The Oud is the main instrument in the Arab world and is the direct ancestor of the European lute.
Charbel Rouhana is one of the greatest Oud players in the world, probably more so because of his originality and determination to uphold his culture and heritage in his music.
He is well known for developing a new method of playing the Oud, which was published and adopted by the National Conservatory of Music and the Faculty of Music at the Holy Spirit University in Lebanon.
Surprisingly, the renowned Oud player does not consider this to be his greatest achievement and says that there is room for improvement.
"I am still young and have time to redo or even make corrections to this method. When I first wrote it, I was 25. Now I am 42. I have learned a lot of things since then and there are many things to correct," he says.
Rouhana is a passionate artist whose driving force and concerns are his Arab ethnicity, identity and hometown. He sums himself up in three words: "I am Lebanese," he says, "I am not and can't be French, American or anything else."
Born in Amchit, Lebanon in 1965, he says: "In my music I want to express myself. I want to create a dialogue between different cultures. But I don't want to lose my identity. In my last CD Dangerous, I had a song called Hi, Keefak, Ca Vas? I was asking why we needed three different languages just to greet each other in Lebanon. I find it strange when two Arabs who speak Arabic fluently have to talk in English or French."
This dialogue that Rouhana strives to create is mainly a dialogue between Arabs and other cultures.
"I want to create a dialogue but while respecting my roots. After all, I am Lebanese ... I can't be anything other than an Arab. It just isn't my goal to express what the French or the Americans have to say."
Confluent symphony
Rouhana's music is a fusion of Western and Oriental. Trying to explain how he creates this unique mixture, he says: "It all depends on making arrangements to traditional Arabian music. Also when composing, I don't want to imitate jazz or Italian music or any other music. I want my music to be Oriental."
To achieve that, he explains, a musician has to know his or her culture very well since music is a big part of society, and does not exist independently.
Yet Rouhana says he doesn't want musicians "to be prisoners of tradition".
"At least they should understand their traditions before venturing out," he says.
Even though Rouhana's music can be viewed as somewhat controversial and political, he claims otherwise.
"I don't want to or mean to be political," he says. "In one of my songs I speak of love. In another, I sing about how it feels to be searched at airports as if I am a criminal. Another song addresses culture, traditions, visas and so on.
"The most important thing for me is to be sincere and honest in my music. It reflects how I feel about issues of the common man."
Rouhana is also a man with many talents. He is the author of eight books describing a new style, technique and method of playing the Oud, and a teacher at USEK (The Holy-Spirit University) and at Lebanon's National Conservatory of Music.
Apart from his academic achievements, he is also a composer, an Oud player and a singer.
"It would have been easier for me to be just an Oud player or a composer or a singer but life pushed me into becoming all these things. Some musicians have specialised into just being Oud players or composers, and maybe they are a lot better than I am at playing the Oud or composing but I just can't give all my time to doing just one thing. I just had to do it all."
But all this has left Rouhana confused and unsure of his next step.
"Currently I am confused. I have a lot to do. In the middle of writing music and playing in concerts, I also have a family that I need to spend time with." But he assures his next project will not be a repeat of his latest CD Dangerous.
"I was asked to do the same or similar thing again but I can't do that. I am constantly growing and learning. I can't repeat the same thing."
So whatever Rouhana decides to come up with next, rest assured it will be new but fiercely Oriental. It wouldn't be Charbel Rouhana if it wasn't Oriental.
A uniquely Arab instrument
The Oud is a short-necked, half pear shaped, stringed lute. It is the main instrument in the Arab world and is the direct ancestor of the European lute.
It has five pairs of strings, each pair tuned to the same pitch, and a single string which is also the thickest and known as the bamteli in Turkish.
According to Islamic philosopher Abu Nasr Al Farabi, the Oud was invented by Lamech, the sixth grandson of Adam. The legend says the grieving Lamech hung the body of his dead son from a tree. The first Oud was inspired by the shape of his son's bleached skeleton.
The oldest pictorial record of a lute dates back to the Uruk period in Southern Mesopotamia, over 5,000 years ago on a cylinder seal acquired by Dr Dominique Collon and currently kept in the British Museum. The image depicts a female crouching with her instruments on a boat, playing right-handed.
Charbel Rouhana was drawn to the Oud because it reflected the oriental ambience of his beloved homeland.
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