Nasyid cafe: Making The Band Part 2.

PART 2:

1- Where were we? Yes, Hizbi. It was an awesome experience with that group that I will totally keep dear to my heart. It was with Hizbi that I learned more about harmonies and arrangements. Me, Abdullah Abdul Rahman, Azri Hamdan, Ahmad Kamal and Mohd Azhar were all law students and we were all best of friends, well at some points during that time line.

2- Besides the love for Nasheed music, it was the love for harmonies that kept me going. In Malaysia, a lot of established harmony singers among the malays were first introduced to harmonies by listening to nasheed. Back then, nasheed was still in its rigid phase. You could have no string instruments nor wind instruments in the likes of guitars nor flutes. So we would go all percussive and there would be a lot of spaces that needs filling. 

3- The harmony singing in nasheed basically was developed to fill that empty lots. It replaces the rhythm section that was usually occupied by the sound of guitars and bass. The common harmony lines consists of triad harmonies. A mid section (tenor), a high section (usually sang in falsetto or the counter tenor for men or soprano for women) and a low section (baritone) and most of the time you will have a bass singer to fill up the much lower section.

4- The basic idea behind vocal harmonies was to imitate the chords of a guitar and to fill up the empty spaces in a structure of a song with the rhythm section.It was a lot of fun learning and listening to the smooth harmony lines. When I was with Hizbi and my later groups, I was more of the harmony guy rather then the solo guy. You should try and give Raihan's first album, Puji Pujian a proper listen. They got loads of good harmonies in that album. That album was not famous world wide for nothing you know.

5- Hizbi broke up after I furthered my studies to the Main Campus much earlier than the rest of my friends. After Ahmad Kamal and Abdullah joined me later, we formed another group with Radzlan Jalaludin (He is now one of Anwar Ibrahim's many lawyers) and Mohd Azmi called One Faith. Covering songs from Snada and All 4 One. 

6- One Faith later broke up when I decided to jump ship and joined Marjaan, one of the more well established nasheed groups within the circuit of the university back then. Most of the group members were Kelantanese and during the holidays I would often performed with them in Kelantan. Radzlan decided to keep the name One Faith and recruited new members to accompany him while Azmi, Kamal and Abdullah formed Al'an with Nizam and Toy from the group Inspirasi. One of the main lead singer of Inspirasi before they broke up was Hanafi Jantan who used to be in the Nasheed group Ideal (now called Aidil and is currently recording a new album under the talented Hafiz Hamidon) if you can still remember.

To Be Continued: