Salaam Aleichem

February 8, 2008

by Aaron Shneyer

Yes. It’s time for an update! Heartbeat is off to a great start in 2008. Despite a “blizzard” and security precautions for President Bush that temporarily shut down Jerusalem, we’ve managed to hold three fantastic meetings. Kela, Yael, Sameera, Tamer, Roi, Fouad, Kareen, Samer, Mohamed, Dana, Ron, Isam, and Rami are VERY excited to e-meet you all soon…

The quick low-down:
The first meeting was mostly intros, names, where we’re from, the kind of music we listen to. Each musician played or sang us a little sample of the music they’re into. My feeling is that people left excited, but still a bit confused as to what this experience is going to be like. I continue to insist that the experience is exactly what the musicians choose to make it… Our second meeting was at the Sabreen Studio in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, right around the corner from the Palestinian National Theater. We took the first couple of hours to get to know each other a bit more and then we split into small groups (about 4 people per group) for a songwriting activity. They came up with some pretty nice stuff. After about two hours, we cut the meeting a bit short so we could walk down to the aforementioned theater and see Wissam Murad and his band in concert. Wissam is a fantastic Oud player and singer with a unique style, blending new and old sounds. The show was stunning. You can check him out at www.wissammurad.com

For our third meeting, Wissam lead a workshop on Arabic music, teaching some of the main scales and rhythms along with a beautiful classical Arabic song. What’s most striking is that Wissam got the students who had never played these very difficult rhythms (in 10/8), playing them beautifully; he got the students who had never improvised, improvising beautiful melodies, and he got this band that had never quite sounded good before, sounding great! As soon as the release forms are in you can see and hear their beautiful work. Until then, many thanks to the people at the Consulate for introducing me to Sabreen and Wissam, and please do enjoy some pics of Jerusalem in the snow…

Take cover! Snowballs incoming.

From the promenade near my house, facing east.

From the promenade, with the dome of the rock, Al-Aqsa mosque, the western wall, and the Mt. of Olives in the distance. sometimes I can’t believe I live here.