Nadine El Guiddawy
Chelsea Green interview
JRMC 202 Interview Project
Interview Transcript
Interviewer:
Nadine El Guiddawy
Narrator:
Chelsea Green
Date:
15/10/2014
Place:
Narrator’s office
AUCCA 2024
AUC Center of The Arts
The American University in Cairo
Avenue, P.O Box 74
New Cairo 11835, Egypt
(202) 2615-1000
College:
The American University in Cairo
Professor:
Kim Fox
Date completed:
21 Oct. 14
Nadine El Guiddawy
Chelsea Green interview
15/10/2014
Persons present:
Nadine El Guiddawy
Chelsea Green
El Guiddawy:
Hi
Green:
Hi Nadine
El Guiddawy:
umm, can you tell me what’s your name?
Green:
Chelsea Green.
El Guiddawy:
And what do you do at AUC?
Green:
Umm, I am a professor of music so I teach a lot of academic courses
like ‘World Music’, ‘Intro to Music’ but I also lead the Guitar
Ensemble and teach private lessons.
El Guiddawy:
Okay and how old are you?
Green:
I am forty years old.
El Guiddawy:
Okay so umm when did you come to Egypt?
Green:
I came umm a little over two years ago, I think I ca - arrived in August
so a month before this semester started and I-I came for this job. This
is my first time I ever teach mm.
El Guiddawy:
Okay so you hold a PhD in - from UCLA in..?
Green:
Actually, it’s the equivalent of a PhD but it is called a DMA which
stands for Doctorate of Musical Arts and the difference between a PhD
in music and a Doc – a DMA in music is that uhh the PhD emphasizes
more research and scholarly endeavours whereas the DMA emphasizes
more of a performing umm more of a like a performing track so I-I do
scholarship and I’ve done music research but in historical research but
also a performer.
El Guiddawy:
Ah okay so let’s start from the beginning uh how did you start playing
guitar and like be into music?
Green:
I’ve always played music when I was a kid umm really really young I
played the violin and that is when I learned how to read notes and
developed a- a great sort of understanding of what it takes to be a
a classical musician; the kind of discipline it takes. And I always
actually enjoyed practicing so even as a kid I- I looked forward to it I
Nadine El Guiddawy
Chelsea Green interview
think.
Um, so I think I have sort of the right disposition for being a classical
musician cos I like regularity I like - I like having this activity I can do
(El Guiddawy: mm) every day. I like improving, I like the challenge.
And then when I was twelve I became a little frustrated with violin
playing and I stopped playing music for a bit then my mom bought
me a guitar just (El Guiddawy: Yeah.) for fun. I think she, looking
back, she wanted me to get back into playing music (El Guiddawy:
mm) and that’s why she bought it for me and then I picked up the
guitar and I played in a few rock bands and stuff when I was a
teenager but umm I always really loved playing classical guitar the
most.
El Guiddawy:
Okay. So, in 2006 you co-found an electric guitar umm like a band
or something entitled ‘the Los Angeles Electric 8’ so tell me more
about it.
Green:
Ah you’ve done your research Nadine (El Guiddawy laughs). Yes, this
was a group we called it ‘An Electric Guitar Octet’ cos there are eight
electric guitars and you can call it a band because it has elements of
you know rock music I guess but for the most part it was I would say
it is like an eighty percent classical type of ensemble in the sense
(El Guiddawy: mm ) that we all read music, we’re all classically
trained (El Guiddawy: Ah) we bring sort of the classical approach to
rehearsing and we play a lot of um pre-composed music as opposed to
music that we improvise or that we write ourselves.
El Guiddawy:
So, it’s a mix.
Green:
mm..
El Guiddawy:
Like..
Green:
If I would say, mostly that classical approach.
El Guiddawy:
Okay.
Green:
Yeah, but there is more to it so the - the problem for us was there was
there was really no music written for eight electric guitars in the
classical genre so we - we had uhh created our own repertoire and
what we did is a lot of us arranged pieces s – for example in the late
1500’s in Italy umm a few Italian composers wrote works for eight
different instruments usually they were for a-a mix of violins and
trumpets and that sort of things. And it had eight parts so we take those
works and we just rearrange them so that eight guitars could play it so,
(El Guiddawy: Yeah) we ended up playing a lot of this kind of music
Nadine El Guiddawy
Chelsea Green interview
which is Renaissance sacred music for our instruments so we do
these things that we call as arrangements; when you take a work that
was originally written for a different ensemble (El Guiddawy:Yeah)
and you play it for yours. And then we also we – we went and made
connections with modern day composers and asked them to write stuff
for us (El Guiddawy: Ah okay) and then we also did we took world
music meaning you know music that wasn’t from the Western tradition
(El Guiddawy: mm.) and specifically we found that Indonesian
traditional music uhh really worked well for electric guitars so we did
our own arrangements in that music. And So, we ended up playing a
lot of unique kind of repertoire.
El Guiddawy:
Ah okay, but you chose like staying in Egypt over like going and
staying there in California.
Green:
Mm I did and there are a few reasons for that. Umm, I guess the main
one is even though I like performing and it was fun to be a part of the
group the Electric Eight and I did leave the group to come here. I- I
like teaching a lot. (El Guiddawy: Yes) I really prefer teaching to
performing umm I like doing a bit of both to be honest but umm
(El Guiddawy: mm.) and jobs in my field don’t come up very often,
most universities don’t even have professors of guitar
(El Guiddawy: mm.) so the fact that few universities even have
programs for guitar makes it so really owe me about three job
openings a year come up for being a professor of guitar (El Guiddawy:
Ah okay.) in a university and so it is very rare. So, when I – when I got
this job I just thought no I gotta do it, sounds like fun.
(El Guiddawy: Mm).
El Guiddawy:
So, do you use music a – like as a tool to provide your students with
different backgrounds, in the class?
Green:
To provide them with what?
El Guiddawy:
Like mm different backgrounds about like mm music in the cultures
and everything.
Green:
Mm, it depends on the class and what the, you know, what the goals
are of the class, what the expected outcomes you know.
(El Guiddawy: mm) objectives, the course objectives, I guess that’s
the terminology now people use umm so depends on the course
objectives. Of course, in World Music, absolutely music is all about
t-trying to get people to have an appreciation for different cultures
and an understanding of (El Guiddawy: hmm) significant umm
factors. In every culture, there are sort of themes you know um
(El Guiddawy: hmm) by that I mean umm you know the institution of
Nadine El Guiddawy
Chelsea Green interview
marriage every culture has this but it’s different from culture to culture
and that’s what I mean by a theme so a lot of time (El Guiddawy: Ah
okay) it would take what analyze that as we see in different cultures.
El Guiddawy:
Okay, can you play something for us like for seven seconds or
something?
Green:
Ah seven seconds, okay. (She plays guitar) That’s it!
El Guiddawy:
Thank you so much.
Green:
you’re welcome.