DANCING ALONE
TONIGHT
from the CD, DANCING ALONE
words based on the following poem by
Farid-ud-din Attar
Such beauty has come to us
That all the world is lit by its splendor tonight.
We do not need the light of candles or of the moon,
Or of the evening star tonight.
The face of beauty shines in our midst
And even the sun hides its face tonight.
In this twilight, joy is king.
Venus and Jupiter are joined tonight.
I will not welcome the dawn
For a gentle friend has come tonight.
Nothing can come between us
For we are sheltered by the darkness tonight.
Let the musicians play their songs of love
And of praise tonight.
On June 4, 2009, I heard a radio broadcast of U.S. President Barack Obama's speech given at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. In it, he called for a “new beginning” in the relationship between the Islamic world and the West, and said the following words:
“So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end”.
My own personal response to this is the creation of the CD, DANCING ALONE. There are fourteen original songs on it, whose words are based on the works of four 12th and 13th century Persian poets: Jalalud'din Rumi, Farid-ud-din Attar, Fakhrud-din Ibrahim Iraqi and Shams-ud-din Hafiz. The message of these great writers and philosophers is universal and speaks to us all regardless of where we are from, or the time in which we live.
From the musical point of view, although the songs are western in style, they are “flavored” with some of the musical instruments of Persia, Northern India and the Middle East. The most important of the instruments is the surbahar. It is a relative newcomer to a very ancient family of Northern Indian stringed instruments which originated in Persia. The surbahar is essentially a bass sitar and it was developed in the 19th century by the Northern Indian musical master, Sahibdad Khan. I fell in love with the sound of the surbahar more than forty years ago, and I have played it ever since.
There are two other stringed instruments of Persian origin on the CD: the qanun (a Persian zither) and the santur (a Persian hammered dulcimer). In ancient time there was a type of Persian harp called the “chang”, very similar in sound the folk harps of other countries that are of similar construction. Since the chang no longer exists as a popular instrument (although some efforts have recently been made to revive it) an Irish harp was used instead to give some idea of what the chang sounds like. You can hear it on the song “ONCE”.
Among the percussion instruments used are the Persian “zarb” or “tombak”, the large tambourine known as the “daf”, and the “tarabuka” (a goblet shaped drum very popular throughout the Middle East today).
LISTEN TO SOME MP3 SAMPLES OF
DANCING ALONE
total CD playing time 57 minutes
1. Dancing
Alone (Hafiz) 4:00
2. Love Makes Not A Sound (Attar) 3:44
3. For Love Is All (Iraqi) 3:42
4. I Did Not Know (Iraqi) 3:55
5. Dance! (Rumi) 4:40
6. Is It You? (Rumi) 4:29
7. The Reed Flute’s Song (Rumi) 5:27
8. Winter (Rumi) 4:20
9. Dust Grains In The Sunlight (Rumi) 3:30
10. Stones (Rumi) 3:47
11. Let The Songs Fly Away (Rumi) 4:29
12. Once (Rumi) 3:35
13. Tonight (Attar) 3:36
14. The Sea Turtle (Hafiz) 4:02
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