Emirati songs

Its first paths and ancient sources

Ali Al-Abdan

This book primarily presents the ancient sources from which Emirati songs derived their musical and performance elements. It also presents in some detail the beginnings of professional solo singing, its early paths among early Emirati singers, and the formation of what later became known as Emirati songs and their special characteristics. This answers, to some extent, a large part of the anthropological questions related to the musical and lyrical development of the people of the land of the Emirates in the twentieth century, a specialty that has rarely been delved into. All of this is in order for us to appreciate our artists as they deserve, and so that we do not forget them. I was afraid - and still am - that time will pass without us mentioning their artistic and literary merit, and that what Paul Anton Matar mentioned in his book (The Gulf of Songs) will come true, that the Gulf is "the land of forgetting the ancients."