A couple of people contacted me and asked if I had transcribed Halfaouine, one of Anouar Brahem's most famous pieces. It's been recorded by him several times, and there is also a version with lyrics recorded by Lotfi Bouchnak.
I learned it from his 1999 album Astrakan Café, back when it was first released! I had only been playing oud for about a year at that point. His 1998 album with Dave Holland and John Surman, Thimar, came out the year I started playing oud and was one of the first recordings I was obsessed with — I learned a bunch of those songs and have shared my transcriptions here already of Qurb and Talwin.
The transcription I made back then was a little rough and I had updated it a couple of times over the years, but I only recently went back and compared a bunch of the different recorded versions to attempt to create a sort of “universal” lead sheet for the tune. Ultimately, there are some differences with any two recordings — one of the beautiful features of Arabic music is how it resists narrow restrictions and insists on an openness of interpretation.
This is my 2026 attempt at a straightforward representation of the tune. I tried to make it as simple as possible, with plenty of room for interpretation. I encourage anyone who wants to learn this beautiful composition to listen to many versions in order to discover all the beautiful variations he's explored over the years.
Notes: The rhythm is marked as “wahda w-nuss” but it has many names. Çiftitelli (Shiftetelli) is a well-known name for a very similar rhythm, and it's also similar to Wahda Tawila or Soumbati depending on the tempo. On the Astrakan Café album they switch to Karachi for the B section but this is not required. The figure at the end is always repeated at the end of the tune, but if there are improvisations then it is optional.