Arabic karaoke anyone?!

[Eshta]

Slightly off the dance end of the scale but...

While I was in India I was singing as well as dancing (though not often at the same time!) and a possible opportunity appears to be presenting itself to me, but it would involve demonstrating that I could sing a few songs in Arabic !

Well, I does likes a challenge, and I can sing in French and Spanish so I figured what the hell, let's see if we can master a few pop songs in Arabic. It's gonna take some serious learning (I'm talking syllable at a time) but I may as well give it a go.

The problem is that I need to find appropriate backing tracks. So does anyone know where one can find karaoke versions of arabic pop songs? I'm thinking the Nancy Ajram end of the spectrum rather than the om Kalthoum end !

 

[Farasha Hanem]

I"ve been wondering the same thing. There are a few songs I'd like to learn in Arabic, but not sure if there are any karaoke Arabic tracks out there.

Do Middle Easterners even enjoy doing karaoke? :think:

Oh, BTW, Eshta, I sang a couple of French solos for some contests back in high school!

 

[gisela]

I have a karaoke cd with Hisham Abbas songs :lol: Haven't really used it though. Maybe you want it?

 

[Farasha Hanem]

I have a karaoke cd with Hisham Abbas songs :lol: Haven't really used it though. Maybe you want it?

Well, I'm not sure which one of us your post is intended for, but since Eshta is the OP for this thread, it's only fair she has first crack at it. That's a very generous offer; thank you, and I believe I can say that for Eshta as well, although I'm sure she will also give you her thanks.

 

[gisela]

Sorry to be unclear, I meant Eshta .
I don't think it is an amazing cd, but it is kinda fun. I seem to remember some problem with the lyrics, perhaps that they were in arabic with arabic writing and then translated to english. So I couldn't read the arabic lyrics and sing along. I have to find it to see if I remember correctly.

 

[Farasha Hanem]

Sorry to be unclear, I meant Eshta .

That's okay, Gisela! No worries. I get confused easily, anyways! xD

 

[Daimona]

It would be fun to sing songs in arabic (I've sung songs in several languages previously), but no way I'll be doing karaokes... (once tried, never more..)

 

[Eshta]

Ooh Gisela, that would be a wonderful start!

Do you know which songs are listed on it? I would probably only want one or two!

Picking songs to sing in arabic are extra hard. There's the usual questions of whether it suits my voice, whether it would be a 'catchy' number the audience would like, and then there are the additional questions of how easy it is to learn the lyrics (syllable at a time!) and then also how much of the "twiddling" of the notes is required - you know, that varied vocalisation around the note rather than just on it, characteristic of arabic music that we don't have in the west, there's probably a proper name for it but I don't know what it is!

 

[Jeanne]

There's a few Arabic karaoke CDs on maqam.com.
karaoke

 

[Eshta]

Thanks Jeanne,

I eagerly followed the link but short of the actual karaoke player itself, one album had one karaoke version song on it and that was about it :-(

But worth a shot. Am going to send my spies out in Egypt on a mission. Surely anything's possible in Cairo...?!

Lol!