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Abul-3ila Mohamed & Umm Kulthum

Abul-3la Mohamed was one of Umm Kulthum's early teachers, as well as one of her first composers. Her very young performance here of a Rast Layali (a vocal improvisation on the syllables "Ya Layl") is more or less a condensed version of the Layali Abul-3ala performs: it follows the identical pathways through vocal areas (ajnas), and even some of the same melodies, in about half the time.

Abul-3ila's second piece transcribed here, the Mawwal Rast "Fein Ya Gameel Wa3dak," is in the exact same key and recording quality; each is about 3 minutes, and one follows the other immediately on the Radio France Archives CD - therefore my assumption is that these were two halves of a wax cylinder, and were intended to be performed together. They fit well maqamwise - with the Mawwal emphasizing the upper register of Rast only briefly reached in the Layali, and adding a few additional ajnas to the total picture.

I've also analyzed Mawwal Rast "Fein Ya Gameel Wa3dak" on the Analysis site (the link is also in the top tab), so you can visit it there to see the jins breakdown, as opposed to the sentence breakdown shown here. Interesting to see the overlaps!

Abul-3ila Mohamed: Layali Rast

Actual Key: Rast on C

Abul-3ila Mohamed: Mawwal Rast "Fein ya gamil wa3dak"

Actual Key: Rast on C


Umm Kulthum: Layali Rast

Actual Key: Rast on B


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