The Cornell Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Music Ensemble, which has been off for the summer break, had its first rehearsal of the new season last night. It was interesting. For one thing it’s always interesting to go to the first fall rehearsal and see what people will be there! Inevitably we lose a few people, mostly due to student members of the ensemble graduating and leaving town, but we always manage to pick up a few new folks. The new people at last night’s rehearsal displayed an interesting variety of musical backgrounds.
We played one new piece which I’d never seen before, a Lebanese song called “Ya Habibi,” by the Rahbani brothers. It threw me off for a while at first because I didn’t recognize the key signature, i.e. it didn’t correspond to any common maqam that I’m real familiar with. I started out trying to play it on the kaval and found it to be confusing, until I realized that the main part of the song is in Hijaz from E, so the fingering turns out to be pretty straightforward on the E ney. And later in the song it modulates to Rast from D, which can also be played easily on the E ney. So this song turned out to be not so bad after all, at least if it’s played on the right instrument. It’s very playable.
We also played a couple of Greek songs that I’m already pretty familiar with. After the rehearsal one of the new folks, a guy named Mike who was playing the recorder, came up to me and asked me a lot of questions about my set of neys. Apparently he has always wanted to play the ney but has never tried it yet. I always enjoy talking to someone who is interested in the ney! (Historical aside: I recognized this fellow Mike because he drummed with me briefly on a silly little Circus Eccentrithica skit called “Stompede” at Ithaca Festival 2004. I was desperately looking for drummers to join me so I wouldn’t be drumming all by myself, and at the last minute he and a few others came and joined me, drumming in the circus ring. I don’t know if he remembers me from that experience or not. I will ask him at the next rehearsal if he remembers that crazy little drumming gig that we did back then).
