Ney with flamenco guitar | Taksim, Silencio a Maria

Ney with flamenco guitar, original composition by Ofer Ronen, "Silencio a Maria". Performed as live music in the Confederaion House, Jerusalem. The ney instrument is an instrument used mainly in sufi music and sufi songs. Several kinds of ney exists, Turkish ney, Arabic ney, and persian ney, among other similar reed flutes. In this video Yogev Levi is playing a Turkish ney. The ney begins with beautiful Taksim (a free improvisational introduction) to open the piece.

The atmosphere created by the ney brings to life a sense of peacful music, which probably was the intention of its usage by the sufis in Turkey. We may feel it brings us relaxing music sensation, that calms the mind and spirit.

The flamenco guitar enters and creates a musical dialogue, answering the ney with its own notes of relaxing music. All of that before the percussion comes in to give us a sense of rhythm and advance the piece to its rhytmical parts.

Ney flute is my favourite kind of flute, and its sound is what brought to want to try and mix flamenco sounds with arabic music, and other kinds of musics from the middle east and the mediterranean. The first ney I heard was a Persian ney, which is played differently, holding it inside the mouth, and not on the edge of the lips. Playing with Yogev I was introduced also to the Turkish ney and Arabic, which are the two kinds of ney used in the pieces we played together. This piece is based on the alegrias flamenco dance, and its the piece which the ney has the most prominence from repertoire.

Ofer Ronen: guitar and composition

Leat Sabbah: cello
Yogev Levi: ney
Hagai Leshem: percussion
Miriam Levy: palmas

Sound recording, mixing and mastering: Daniel Motola
Video photography: Eyal Refaelov
Video edit: Shon Ovadia