Arts Lab 5.0: Muhammed Awed Badr Ali, Egypt - Month 3

This month has been very good for me. It all started when my friends went to Moldova while Hassan, Ahmed, and I stayed home to think and work on our personal projects. I began the process of writing the lyrics for a Cucuteni song. It was a bit challenging since it wasn't the first song I had written for Cucuteni, but I love writing songs, so I was enjoying my time. It took me five hours of direct focus to write the lyrics.

Next, I moved on to the part I love, which is creating the melody or rhythm for the lyrics. Sometimes I make the melody while I am writing, or after I finish writing the song. Regardless, on the second day after completing the lyrics, I went to our ceramic studio to record the song. It took about two hours. On the same day, Hassan and I were preparing for the Egyptian night, so I couldn't work on the song.

The following day, I started working on my favorite part, mixing and mastering the song with the instrumental. I finished it, but I had to make some edits, which took some time. After my friends returned from Moldova, we had the Egyptian night. Hassan and I created a PowerPoint presentation about Egypt and prepared some Egyptian food. We had a great time because I missed our friends, so I was very happy to see them again after their workshops in Moldova.

Once I finished the song, Aliye started planning the videoclip for it. We went to the Cucuteni museum to shoot some videos, as well as the hills. This wouldn't have been possible without our sunshine Raphaelle and my brother Ahmed. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to them for their help and want to say I love you guys.

We also had a Caravan in Ruginoasa, where I conducted a workshop on writing songs about Cucuteni. I had a wonderful time there with the kids at the school. Then, we had the Cucuteni exhibition, which turned out to be a success for us. I felt proud of my colleagues because they did an excellent job with their personal projects.

 Muhammed Awed Badr Ali and he is participating in a six-month volunteering program within Arts Lab 5.0, a project co-funded by the European Union through the European Solidarity Corps.