ROCKASa

talata- BINT ALSULTAN - TALATA - BINT ALSULTAN

Enjoy our first videoS on the net

Susu pampanin - musa hanhan - husein dixon

ROCKASA is a band based around the double neck fretless guitar. The concept was to simply be able to play the altered scales that exist in arabic cultures of the middle east and turkey. Those scales are very interesting and add a lot of different moods than the most common diatonic scales are normally played on the guitar like the major, minor, pentatonic, etc.

THe fretless guitar: " Guitar was my first instrument and I really loved playing it, but when it came melodies, it was very limited for Arabic music. Arabic music has quarter tones which are not available on the regular guitar. Some guitarists in the middle east added extra frets to the guitar to get around it. I decided to go about it in a different way. I took the frets off my old guitar and I was able to play all the Arabic scales. The interesting thing about these scales is that their tuning is pretty much set at -50 cents on the keyboard, but that is not the case on the Oud and violins. Once the frets where off the guitar I decided to think of it as a melodic instrument and I changed the tuning of the bottom two strings to match the Oud. I then found my self missing that bright classic sound. The only way around that was to have a double neck 6 string guitar, with one being fretless and one being fretted. that way you can cover the whole range of repertoire. To make up for that dead fretted sound I added the distortion pedal partly because I love the sound and partly because it made it sound full. I love to be able to play those traditional folkloric songs that are traditionally played on the Mizmar, Mijwez and Yarghoul. I think they have a lot in common with the guitar. They both have beautiful singing melodic lines that I think totally fit and complement each other." Musa Hanhan