Qadry
Serour is a wonderful instructor in Cairo. He has a PhD in music
and Ney. He works and teaches in the Hilwan High Institute of
Music. He also plays in the Umm Kulthoum band of Arabic
Music. If you have Arabic Satellite channels, you must have seen
him playing the ney in the background behind some singers.
You would never think that a
man of such a small stature and short fingers can play the ney, but
you would be surprised. I believe he can play the best trills I
have ever heard. I had to slow his recordings 8 times to figure
out what he does with the trills.
He is a ney maker but at this
time, he prefers to get his neys from Awlad AlSayyed Bayoumi
makers. If you are not familiar with them, they are the children
of the late farmer Sayyed Bayoumi, the most popular ney maker in
Egypt.
I started to know Dr. Serour in
Christmas of 1995 and I went to his home and he allowed me to record
an hour interview of him explaining many topics about the ney. A
year later, I went to him and recorded some of the popular tunes to
learn from. Unfortunately, it was recorded using a small tape
player that I then transferred to digital format.
I included his recordings in
this page in real media format so you can practice with
it. If you are every in Egypt, look him up. He is a
very great teacher.
