Googoosh's Hamseda Medly

I watched the Hamseda Medly by Googoosh. In this music video, one of the biggest things I noticed was the use ornamentation in her voice. When she would sing, she would frequently use the musical technique known as melisma, in which her melody would often contain many notes to one syllable. Googoosh’s talent would allow her to improvise off the basic melody and experiment with the ornamentation.

The second aspect of this video that I noticed was the supporting instrumental harmony to her voice. The heterophonic instrumental music maintained a similar style throughout the entire piece, and like Googoosh would often venture off from the basic harmony to make the piece more interesting.

Googoosh’s music definitely falls into the musical styles of other Middle Eastern countries, while standing out as being uniquely Iranian pop. Specifically, her song seems to carry similar melodies to Egyptian music. The instrumentation of Googoosh sounds like it uses many of the same instruments as stereotypical Egyptian music, especially similar sounding chordophones, as can be seen in Egyptian singer, Umm Kulthum’s video, as well as even in Youssou N’Dour’s Egypt album. Also, when watching Umm Kulthum’s video you can hear the same aspect of melisma, that is frequently used in Googoosh’s music.

Through the unique combination of Middle Eastern elements (melismas, heterophonic melodies, and improvisations) and pop elements (generally upbeat melodies, and music that has the feeling of a dance beat of some kind), Googoosh’s performance of Hamseda Medley represents the expertly crafted musical style that has made Googoosh so widely known.