Pauline in joyful tune

ophadece

Ekhrestos anesty,

Dear all,

I would like to draw upon your expertise in this confusing issue for me. I am at a big loss and hope for some clarification from you about the history and the actualities of singing this hymn. 

Basically, I set upon learning this hymn from cantor Gad Lewis; there were some broken parts, so I thought I will patch it up from cantor Zaher, and cantor Ibrahim, and here the confusion begins. What happens is that cantor Zaher is very close (if not THE SAME) in his style of signing the hymn as cantor Gad. However, cantor Ibrahim has some major shifts, and I found an old recording (probably downloaded from this website) from HICS (possibly cantor Sadek ???) who agrees with cantor Ibrahim. I doubt that cantor Ibrahim's style is correct. Anyway, this is what I mean to ask you about: 

--- the characteristic musical segment of this hymn is repeated 3 times; in /e/ of Yasos (sorry because the correct pronunciation is not adhered to by any of the cantors unfortunately, but that is definitely a side issue), and /a:/ of attaham, and /e/ of heshenowfa. What appears to happen is that Ibrahim modifies the second part of three (first of repetitive sentence). He cuts it much shorter, while both Gad and Zaher lengthens it with a somewhat lower tune. The latter makes sense to me as Ibrahim seems to have borrowed his modification from another hymn (most possibly maghalo). 

---- the second issue I have a big problem with is the /a/ of attaham. Just before switching to the "ham" part Gad and Zaher raises the tune of /a/ and then switch to ham. Ibrahim however starts the /a/ (it is /e/ according to them) of ham raising the tune at that point. That doesn't make sense; it doesn't sound right musically. How can you close a segment with a new vowel?!!! You close a musical segment with the end of the vowel you were already in!!! I am not trying to complicate things, but I would like to think of myself as a perfectionist, and therefore I am trying to find subtle answers. 

There are other differences of course, but too little to be mentioned, and they are not a confusion. Looking forward to your help...

Oujai

minasafwat

when we find that cantor Gad and Ibrahim are someway different in a hymn we should not let ourselves guess that one is correct and the other is not without a reasonable solid evidence...honestly i see that people here gudge cantors and they know nothing about their history when i read here i feel that cantor Ibrahim is the only cantor and all the others are just his little students( that what i feel).                                                 _any way your question is a good one.. joyful pauline is a hymn that cantor Mikhail has taught to his early students we can see that from cantors ( Farag_Habib elmirahem_and Tawfiq)..so we have old three sources from them we can see which is the correct one...cantor habib and cantor farag are the same and cantor tawfic is different in the things you mentioned...clearly cantor ibrahim has learnt it from cantor tawfic(and that what ALBAIR has done) and cantor Gad learnt it directly from cantor farag....so first we can see that cantor gad is more accurate in this hymns as two big late cantors support him( habib and farag) ..a question may appear ( why not cantor Tawfiq is more accurate than cantor habib and cantor farag?) in this case we return to newland smith who wrote hymns from cantor Mikhail mouth..we see that what he has written totally maches cantors habib_ farag and of course GAD ..and conclude that cantor Tawfiq and of course cantor Ibrahim and albair are not accurate.......one of things that i want ton tell you that never suspect cantor Gad because he is the only one who cantor farag trusted him to teach on his place...and i want you to hear the youth cantors( Zaher-Amir-Ilia...) and cantor Reda all of them are the same with cantor Gad you can hear their recordings.....one last thing before you or any other say that cantor(...)is correct and the others are not you should first study and listen to what the early cantors have recorded...

ophadece

Ekhrestos anesty,

@minasafwat,

Thank you very much man for answering my question that thoroughly and educated me a lot. I will need you loads. However, please stop saying we should not judge, or we should say who is correct and who is not. You sound like defending one cantor over others, which I really don't think is your position, and at the end of the day, I am someone who strongly believe in a "proper, authentic, and more correct" way, and don't want to learn from someone who doesn't respect the history, or the hymn itself. Trust me I am not talking about any particular cantor or teacher right now, but in general, I would follow the humble and more correct. To name some names, I heard cantor Gad say other things less correctly, and that's fine. He is not a Bible, neither is Ibrahim, Farag, or Mikhail himself. Studying the history is indeed very important as you taught me now; alas I don't have that privilege for a variety of reasons, so I'll depend on people like you - prepare yourself... haha... thanks again

Oujai

minasafwat

that is really what iam talking about...How do you know that some other things of cantor Gad are less correctly?..i am not defending anyone and i know that cantor gad is a man who is liable to err.but soon you will discover more about gad...could you give me some names of those less correctly things? so i can figure out your view

ophadece

Ekhrestos anesty
@minasafwat,
I can't remember now, it's a difficult exercise for me to get those cantor Gad says less correctly and may be I will let you know when I come across some examples. Anyway you don't need to figure out my view. Why should you? Thanks for educating me in your first post, that was great..
Oujai

minasafwat

hahahaha......

minatasgeel

M. Gad had a nice voice is good at teaching. I learned Kerie leison of lent from him but then then reviewed it with m Ibrahim. So i recommend M Gad lessons for learning and then you can review it with other sources. 

ophadece

Ekhrestos anesty
@minatasgeel,
Why do you think reviewing it from other sources is important? I'm just asking a general question, as I do like cantor Gad too and trust him in a lot of cases, but there could be exceptions. I guess what I'm trying to say is that comparing comes in the beginning and that's why I get confused for a long time!
Oujai

minatasgeel

Hmmm.....because i do not believe that hymns and hazzat are absolute nor there is one only unique/incomparable/accurate teaching for hymns. ya3ny to get to the bottom of the argument that we may start on :-)

ophadece

Ekhrestos anesty
@minatasgeel,
I disagree completely. I believe there's one proper way, first because there was a single source, second because the principle is unison in the church, and third because we're orthodox and that means strict and narrow-minded.. joking but you know what I mean. So if somebody chooses to deviate or embellish tunes or correct them through their own efforts, that destroys any of the three mentioned. I can generalise more but I think you understand enough of what I want to say..
Oujai

drewhalim

I agree with @minatasgeel to an extent. We must remember that our hymns are handed down orally and sometimes the person learning may not pick up every single hezaat but that does not mean they do not know the hymn it is simply that persons' ability to pickup by ear and also that fact that our hymns are not musically noted. Now of course I said to an extent as there are those who make blatant or major deviations but the very basic ones are just the result or oral teaching.

lfahmy

Referring back to @ophadece's comment, I'm confused on who we would use as a source past Cantor Mikhail. Who else is there? Sorry, I am not very educated on this matter.

ophadece

@lfahmy,
I never referred to any sources beyond cantor Mikhail. Why did you get that impression?
Oujai

lfahmy

You were referring to how the cantors are not "Bibles." As you listed a few cantors as examples, you included Mikhail. In the case that we don't use Mikhail as a source, who would we use?

ophadece

@lfahmy,
Sorry I forgot the comment I made. No cantor is to be taken as a Bible and cantor Mikhail is of course the sole source. But I listened to a couple of hymns in his voice and tunes were rather aberrant. Ok, how do I know they are aberrant? Because something like Bebnewma has repetitivessegments so when he says one thing one way, and another in another, that raises doubts. Of course also those recordings were not educational as such. That's all I meant and I hope I am clear this time..
Oujai

minasafwat

concerning pi epnivma(be ebnawma)...you may lack information..the recording of cantor Mikhail is very accurate but he cut the hymn at the end of the(rob3)...this may raise dout for you but i think you did not give yourself enough time to think or you did not hear the late cantors and started to express a special opnion without a solid base....this hymn cantor mikhail has taught it to students from all regions of Egypt. when we hear the cantors learnt from him all are the same from all regions..i will mention the cantors who learnt it from him starting from upper egypt to its north...1_cantor Wissa from luxor  2_cantor Tawfiq from assiut 3_ cantor farag and fahim and sadik from cairo  4_cantor habib elmirahim from alexandria...all of these learnt from him and all of them are the same..

ophadece

@minasafwat,
Thanks man, great info..
Oujai

drewhalim

I beg to differ. I have heard recordings from all the cantors you mention apart from Habib Elmirahim and they are not the same. The differences seem to be in pauses and transitions for example in 'ehoou' where some elongate on the first letter 'e' and others jump straight to 'o'. Another example is the classic 'ente' versus 'ente ti' from the words 'ente tipenticosti'. Now the biggest differences always appear with the word 'tirou' from the third line 'navthowit tirou' where some repeat the hezaat twice while others only say it once. In all honesty I found the most confusing to be Cantor Wissa as he seemed to be a mixture of them all.

minasafwat

 i have them ..state one name that i can understand your opnion...when i say that all of them are the same iam of course mean the the hazzat not eltarkeeb...i listened to all late cantors now they all the same in elhazzat ...concernig the third (rob3)...i listened to them and found no difference....if i have time i will download this hymns with more than 10 sources....for you cantor wissa has a special way to say hymns you can understand him if only you heared alot of hymns by him

minasafwat

you can hear cantor elmirahim from here

http://www.mediafire.com/download/9nib8egkd8hm6wg/اوران+إنشوشو.wma

ophadece

@minasafwat
Now you're not making sense. What do you mean by hazzat and tarkeeb? How should these be differentiated from each other? Also on this site the recording by HICS is different than Ibrahim in hazzat in the third stanza. How can you say they are all the same?
Oujai

minatasgeel

oh my dear @ophadece...those two things are very different. In full unique hymns, ekhrestos anist, kata nikhoros, o-on-ohelpees, niroumi,...etc hazzat matter. In praises where there are psalies or hooses or madayeh, it's all about tarkeep to a specific "way" matters and not hazzat.

ophadece

@minatasgeel,
I completely understand what you're saying of course. However how does that apply to Bebnewma that @minasafwat was explaining? I didn't understand what he meant by this..
Oujai