You can edit, improve or tune your musical notes or mix your
musical instruments’ sounds all by yourself, learns Umer Nangiana
With your music instrument, whatever it is, you can go beyond the mere conventional style of playing music these days. With bundles of computer assisted technologies available on the market, you can virtually create a studio, and record your music in as many ways as you can explore.
You can edit, improve or tune your musical notes or mix your musical instruments’ sounds all by yourself. Qatar Music Academy (QMA) is all set to provide you the platform from where you can learn how to ‘play with music’, not just play music.
With its newly established music laboratory, donated by Occidental Petroleum Qatar (Oxy Qatar), the academy is offering classes in music technology starting next month where the students will have all the required software and equipment ready at hand to learn it from experts.
What is the music laboratory? Is it a place to experiment with music?
“Maybe. When you hear the word laboratory, it definitely comes to your mind that it is the place where we are experimenting with music and songs. That is true in a way, but here we are not going through the details of frequencies or any acoustic research,” Yassine Ayari, the Nay (Arabic flute) teacher at QMA and head of the music department, tells Community.
“Here, we are concerned mostly with how to use technology to notate music and to record music. The plan is to teach ‘Finale’ and ‘Sibelius’ softwares as edit notation software and we are going to teach ‘Pro Tools’ as software where I can record my music,” explains Ayari at the QMA campus in Katara Cultural Village.
In Finale and Sibelius, one can access notes, all things related to music sheets, and can print it and give it to the students for studying. In Pro Tools, one can access sound. “I can have access to all details related to sounds. I can see actually the image of my sound and take my notes,” said the QMA music teacher who has set up the laboratory and a related music studio at the academy.
“These are two different perspectives. The idea is to teach students to hear music differently and to see how the sound is built because if they can see how that is done, they can work on their instrument and learn how to produce better sound,” says Ayari.
The music teacher says since he started learning about music technology, he has started hearing music differently. Today, all he has is a microphone in front of him and he has a totally different way of performing music. It is a totally different personality that you, as a musician, need to build, says the musician.
“It is not enough that you are a good musician or a good instrumentalist, you need to know how to handle this technology as well,” he adds.
Detailing the equipment, Ayari explains that there is a set where they have speakers, an elegant looking Mac, a display and an audio interface that gives a good quality of in and output. Sound goes in from a microphone plugged in to the interface. Microphone, headphones, speakers, computers, everything is related. Every sound coming through this interface and all the sound going through this interface is good quality of sound, says the teacher.
“And then, everything is connected to the software which is Pro Tools, and here (points to a monitor in front of him) I can see all the things that I am doing on the keyboard or through the microphone or computer. I can see my sound in each track,” explains Ayari.
With the Finale software, the same thing can be done to see music notes. There, you can edit and change the notes, Ayari says, giving a short demo. He says you can put whatever you want or edit notes to your needs and requirements. On Pro Tools, you can similarly access the image of the sound.
In a small demonstration, he plays a note on Nay and then sees the image of the sound on the screen in front of him and plays it there. Now, he can edit it from the computer with the help of the software. The software provides multiple plugs in to experiment with the sound.
The system is compatible with all instruments and you can have virtual instruments on it as well which means that you can have access to all virtual instruments. “I can also sample my Nay and add it to the system and play my Nay from the keyboard here,” says Ayari.
The lab has one main workstation for the instructor and similar systems on all the workstations from where students see and access exactly the same thing.
Ayari says the lab would be more useful for the Advanced level students. “For me, it is students who are interested, but we of course need a certain age. But in any case, even with the children, we need to tell them that in the music, we also have perspective that you should know,” says the maestro.
“Music is not just limited to playing your instruments and doing your exercises and that’s it. No, there is another opportunity to experiment with your music,” he adds.
Explaining Pro Tools, Ayari says it is one of the professional softwares that are being used in the market today. It is kind of a virtual studio where you have access to everything and you can edit, mix, add newer sounds with the help of microphone and with the virtual sounds you can do whatever you want.
The music technology classes are starting in QMA from January next year and Ayari is already excited. He established and started with a small studio at the facility last year and it is working well.
Ayari, born and raised in Qayrawan, Tunisia, became well acquainted with the Arab-Andalusian musical traditions at an early age and started to play the Nay when he was 12. The performance practices of the instrument led him to develop a great passion for the Andalusian style and essentially prompted interest in other closely related traditional and Western musical cultures.
Ayari pursued music at the Higher Institute of Music in Tunisia and obtained his Diploma in Nay performance of musicology. He has led a life as both ethnomusicologist and performer ever since. He became a member of the Tunisian National Orchestra and worked with the most renowned Arab singers.
In 2003, Ayari enrolled in the ethnomusicology programme at the Sorbonne University where he obtained a M.A. in ethnomusicology and is currently, finalising his PhD studies.
In France, Ayari explored various other styles of music, including electro-acoustic ventures which provided him with an opportunity to obtain knowledge in computer-adesign and synthesis, and mixing and mastering techniques.
The Music Technology Laboratory was jointly opened by Dr. Abdul Ghafour al-Heeti, principal of QMA, and Stephen Kelly, President and General Manager Oxy Qatar, earlier this month.
At present, more than 500 students are undergoing music classes in QMA. Most of the students are learning western music. There are one-to-one, instrument and theory classes as well as choir. QMA is teaching notation, instrumental music as well as theory and all things related to the instruments.