Arabic Music Overview
Arabic music
or Arab music (Arabic: موسيقى
عربية;
Mūsīqā ʿArabīyya)
includes several genres and styles of music ranging from Arabic classical to
Arabic pop music and from secular to sacred music.
Arabic music whilst independent and
very alive, has a long history of interaction with many other regional
musical styles and genres. It is an amalgam of the music of the Arabs in the
Arabian Peninsula and the music of all the peoples that make up the Arab
world today. It also influenced and has been influenced by ancient Egyptian,
ancient Greek, Persian, Kurdish, Assyrian, Turkish, Indian, North African
music (i.e. Berber), African music (i.e. Swahili), and European music (i.e.
Flamenco). As was the case in other artistic and scientific fields, Arabs
translated and developed Greek texts and works of music and mastered the
musical theory of the Greeks (i.e. Systema ametabolon, enharmonium,
chromatikon, diatonon).[1] Such
inter-influences can often be traced in language; for example, the word
Shî'ir (poetry in Arabic) bears much similarity to its equivalents in
other Semitic languages (such as Shûr in Aramaic and Shîr in
Hebrew), and Shîro in Babylonian.[2] Afar
music is similar to the music of Ethiopia with elements of Arab music. The
Somali oral traditions include an array of poetry and proverbs, much of it
devoted to the lives of Sufi saints. Afar oral literature is more musical,
and comes in many varieties, including songs for weddings, war, praise and
boasting.
History
Pre-Islamic
period
The development of Arabic music has deep
roots in Arabic poetry dating back to the pre-Islamic period known as
Jahiliyyah. Though there is a lack of scientific study to definitively confirm
the existence of Arabic music at those times, most historians agree that there
existed distinct forms of music in the Arabian peninsula in the pre-Islamic
period between the 5th and the 7th century AD. Arab poets of that time - called
شعراء الجاهلية
or "Jahili poets" which translates to "The poets of the period of ignorance" -
used to recite poems with a high musical rhythm and tone.[3]
LMusic at that time played an important
role in cultivating the mystique of exorcists and magicians. It was believed
that Jinns revealed poems to poets and music to musicians.[4]
The Choir at the time served as a pedagologial tool where the educated poets
would recite their poems. Singing was not thought to be the work of these
intellectuals and was instead entrusted to women with beautiful voices (i.e.
Al-Khansa) who would learn how to play some instruments used at that time (i.e.
lute, drum, Oud, rebab, etc...) and then perform the songs while respecting the
poetic metre.[5] It should be noted that the
compositions were simple and every singer would sing in a single maqam.
Among the notable songs of the period were the "huda" from which the ghina'
derived, the nasb, sanad, and rukbani.
Early
Islamic period
Al-Kindi (801–873 AD) was the first
great theoretician of Arabic music. He proposed adding a
fifth string to the oud and discussed the cosmological connotations of
music. He surpassed the achievement of the Greek musicians in using the
alphabetical annotation for one eighth. He published fifteen treatises on
music theory, but only five have survived. In one of his treaties the word
musiqia was used for the first time in Arabic, which today means
music in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, English and several other languages in
the Islamic world.[6]
Al-Farabi (872-950) wrote a notable
book on music titled Kitab al-Musiqi al-Kabir (The Great Book of
Music). His pure Arabian tone system is still used in Arabic music.[7]
Arabic maqam is the system of
melodic modes used in traditional Arabic music, which is mainly melodic. The
word maqam in Arabic means place, location or rank. The Arabic
maqam is a melody type. Each maqam is built on a scale, and
carries a tradition that defines its habitual phrases, important notes,
melodic development and modulation. Both compositions and improvisations in
traditional Arabic music are based on the maqam system. Maqams
can be realized with either vocal or instrumental music, and do not include
a rhythmic component.
Al-Andalus
Bayad
plays the oud to The Lady. from the Riyad & Bayad , Arabic tale
By the 11th century, Moorish Spain
had become a center for the manufacture of instruments. These goods spread
gradually throughout France, influencing French troubadours, and eventually
reaching the rest of Europe. The English words lute, rebec, guitar, organ
and naker are derived from Arabic oud, rabab, qitara, urghun and nagqara'.
The Arabs invented the Ghazal (love
song), often used since in Arabic music. Al-Ghazali (1059 - 1111) wrote a
treatise on music in Persia which declared, "Ecstasy means the state that
comes from listening to music". The oud was popular between the tenth and
sixteenth centuries then fell into disuse, enjoying renewed popularity in
the nineteenth century.
Influence
of Arabic music
A number of musical instruments used
in Western music are believed to have been derived from Arabic musical
instruments: the lute was derived from the al'ud, the rebec (ancestor
of violin) from the rebab, the guitar from qitara, naker from
naqareh, adufe from al-duff, alboka from al-buq, anafil
from al-nafir, exabeba from al-shabbaba (flute), atabal (bass
drum) from al-tabl, atambal from al-tinbal,[8]
the balaban, the castanet from kasatan, sonajas de azófar from
sunuj al-sufr, the conical bore wind instruments,[9]
the xelami from the sulami or fistula (flute or musical pipe),[10]
the shawm and dulzaina from the reed instruments zamr and al-zurna,[11]
the gaita from the ghaita, rackett from iraqya or iraqiyya,[12]
the harp and zither from the qanun,[13]
canon from qanun, geige (violin) from ghichak,[14]
and the theorbo from the tarab.[15]
The lute
was adopted from the Arab world. 1568 print.
According to a common theory on the
origins of the troubadour, a composer of medieval lyric poetry, it may have
had Arabic origins. Ezra Pound, in his Canto VIII, famously declared
that William of Aquitaine "had brought the song up out of Spain / with the
singers and veils..." referring to the troubadour song. In his study,
Lévi-Provençal is said to have found four Arabo-Hispanic verses nearly or
completely recopied in William's manuscript. According to historic sources,
William VIII, the father of William, brought to Poitiers hundreds of Muslim
prisoners.[16] Trend admitted that the
troubadours derived their sense of form and even the subject matter of their
poetry from the Andalusian Muslims.[17] The
hypothesis that the troubadour tradition was created, more or less, by
William after his experience of Moorish arts while fighting with the
Reconquista in Spain was also championed by Ramón Menéndez Pidal in the
early twentieth-century, but its origins go back to the Cinquecento
and Giammaria Barbieri (died 1575) and Juan Andrés (died 1822). Meg Bogin,
English translator of the trobairitz, held this hypothesis. Certainly "a
body of song of comparable intensity, profanity and eroticism [existed] in
Arabic from the second half of the 9th century onwards."[18]
Another theory on the origins of the
Western Solfège musical notation suggests that it may have also had Arabic
origins. It has been argued that the Solfège syllables (do, re, mi, fa,
sol, la, ti) may have been derived from the syllables of the Arabic
solmization system Durr-i-Mufassal ("Separated Pearls") (dal, ra,
mim, fa, sad, lam). This origin theory was first proposed by Meninski in
his Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalum (1680) and then by Laborde in his
Essai sur la Musique Ancienne et Moderne (1780).[19][20]
Sixteenth
century
Bartol Gyurgieuvits (1506 - 1566)
spent 13 years as a slave in the Ottoman empire. After escaping, he
published De Turvarum ritu et caermoniis in Amsterdam in 1544. It is
one of the first European books to describe music in Islamic society. In
India, the Islamic Mughal emperors ruled both Muslims and Hindus. The
greatest of these, Akbar (1542 - 1605) had a team of at least fifty
musicians, thirty-six of whom are known to us by name. The origins of the
"belly dance" are very obscure, as depictions and descriptions are rare. It
may have originated in Persia or Turkey, possibly developing within the
harems. Essential elements of belly dancing are the zills (finger cymbals).
Examples have been found from 200 BC, suggesting a possible pre-Islamic
origin.
Female
Harem
Slavery was widespread around the
world. Just as in the Roman empire, slaves were often brought into the Arab
world from Africa. Black slaves from Zanzibar were noted in the eleventh
century for the quality of their song and dance. The "Epistle on Singing
Girls", written in Baghdad in 9 CE satirizes the excessive money that could
be made by singers. The author mentioned an Abyssinian girl who fetched
120,000 dinars at an auction - far more than an ordinary slave. A festival
in 8 CE is mentioned as having fifty singing slave-girls with lutes who
acted as back-up musicians for a singer called Jamilia. In 1893, "Little
Egypt", a belly-dancer from Syria, appeared at the Chicago world's fair and
caused a sensation.
Male
instrumentalists
Musicians
in Aleppo, 18th century.
Male instrumentalists were condemned
in a treatise in 9 CE. They were associated with perceived vices such as
chess, love poetry, wine drinking and homosexuality. Many Persian treatises
on music were burned by zealots. Following the invasion of Egypt, Napoleon
commissioned reports on the state of Ottoman culture. Villoteau's account
reveals that there were guilds of male instrumentalists, who played to male
audiences, and "learned females," who sang and played for women. The
instruments included the oud, the kanun (zither) and the
ney (flute). By
1800, several instruments that were first encountered in Turkish military
bands had been adopted into European classical orchestras: the piccolo, the
cymbal and the kettle drum. The
santur or
hammered dulcimer was cultivated within Persian classical schools of music
that can be traced back to the middle of 19 CE. There was no written
notation for the santur until the 1970s. Everything was learned face-to-face
.
Twentieth century
Early
Secular Formation
Musicians
in Aleppo, 1915.
In the 20th century, Egypt was the
first in a series of Arab countries to experience a sudden emergence of
nationalism, as it became independent after 2000 years of foreign rule.
Turkish music, popular during the rule of the Ottoman Empire in the region,
was replaced by national music. Cairo became a center for musical
innovation.
One of the first female musicians to
take a secular approach was Umm Kulthum quickly followed by Fairuz. Both
have been extremely popular through the decades that followed and both are
considered "Arabic Music Legends".
Westernization
Arabic
Pop
During the 1950s and the 1960s
Arabic music began to take on a more Western tone with such artists as
Dalida paving the way. By the 1970s several other singers had followed suit
and a strand of Arabic pop was born. Arabic pop usually consists of Western
styled songs with Arabic instruments and lyrics. Melodies are often a mix
between Eastern and Western.
In the 1990s and the 00s several
artists have taken up such a style including Sabah, Warda Al-Jazairia,
Magida El Roumi, Nawal El Kuwaiti, Latifa, Samira Said, Angham, Asalah
Nasri, Thekra, Kadhem Al Saher, Amr Diab, Diana Haddad, Najwa Karam, Nawal
Al Zoghbi, Ehab Tawfik, Hisham Abbas, Wael Kfoury, Amal Hijazi, Elissa,
Nancy Ajram, Haifa Wehbe, Maria Tekdep, Aldo (musician) and Natacha Atlas.
Arabic Pop has been able to be
extremely popular in the Arab world as well as parts of Europe especially
places with huge expat communities such as France.
Franco-Arabic
A popular form of West meets East
style of music, similar in many respects to modern Arabic Pop. This blend of
western and eastern music was popularized as Franco-Arabic music by artists
such as Dalida(Egypt), Sammy Clarke (Lebanon) and Aldo (musician) from
Australia. Although Franco-Arabic is a term used to describe many forms of
cross-cultural blending between the West and the Middle East, musically the
genre crosses over many lines as is seen in songs that incorporate Arabic
and Italian, Arabic and French and, of course, Arabic and English styles and
or lyrics.
Arabic
R&B, Reggae, and Hip Hop
Main
article: Arabic hip hop
There has also been a rise of R&B,
reggae and hip hop influence of Arabic music in the past 5 years. This
usually involves a rapper featured in a song (such as Ishtar in her song
'Habibi Sawah')
However certain artists have taken
to usuing full R&B and reggae beats and styling such as Darine. This has
been met with mixed critical and commercial reaction. As of now it is not a
widespread genre.
Arabic
jazz
Another popular form of West meets
East, Arabic Jazz is also popular, with many songs using jazz instruments.
Early jazz influences began with the use of the saxophone by musicians like
Samir Suroor, in the "oriental" style. The use of the saxophone in that
manner can be found in Abdel Halim Hafez's songs, as well as Kadim Al Sahir
and Rida Al Abdallah today. The first mainstream jazz elements were
incorporated into Arabic music by the Rahbani brothers. Fairuz's later work
was almost exclusively made up of jazz songs, composed by her son Ziad
Rahbani. Ziad Rahbani also pioneered today's oriental jazz movement, which
singers like Rima Khcheich, Salma El Mosfi, and Latifa at one point, adhere
too.
Arabic
rock
Rock music is popular all around the
world, and the Arab world is no exception. There are many Arabic rock bands
that fuse the sound of hard rock with traditional Arabic instruments. Arabic
Rock is gaining a lot of attention in the middle east, with bands such as
Meen and Dabke in Lebanon , and in Jordan with bands such as Jadal,
Musical regions
North Africa
- Raï
- Gnawa
- El gil
- Sha'abi
- Chaabi (Algeria)
- Chaabi (Morocco)
- Haqibah
- Mezwed
|
|
Gulf
- Adani
- Dabkah
- Khaliji
- Sawt
- Liwa
- Fijiri
- Fann at Tanbura
- Samiri
- Ardha
- Mizmar
- M'alayah
|
|
Levant
|
Genres
Secular
art music
Secular genres include maqam
al-iraqi, andalusi nubah, muwashshah, Fjiri songs, qasidah, layali, mawwal,
taqsim, bashraf, sama'i, tahmilah, dulab, sawt, and liwa (Touma 1996, pp.
55-108).
Sacred
music
Arabic religious music includes
Jewish, Christian, and Islamic music. However, Islamic music, including the
Tajwid or recitation of Qur'an readings, is structurally equivalent
to Arabic secular music, while Christian Arab music has been influenced by
Syriac Orthodox, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Anglican, Coptic, and Maronite
church music. (ibid, p.152)
Characteristics
Much Arabic music, is characterized
by an emphasis on melody and rhythm, as opposed to harmony. There are some
genres of Arabic music that are polyphonic, but typically, Arabic music is
homophonic[21].
Habib Hassan Touma (1996, p.xix-xx)
submits that there are "five components" that characterize Arabic music:
-
The Arab tone system; that is, a
musical tuning system that relies on specific
interval structures and was invented by al-Farabi in
the 10th century (p. 170)
-
Rhythmic-temporal structures that
produce a rich variety of rhythmic patterns, known
as awzan or "weight", that are used to
accompany metered vocal and instrumental genres, to
accent or give them form.
-
A number of Musical instruments that
are found throughout the Arab world that represent a
standardized tone system, are played with generally
standardized performance techniques, and display
similar details in construction and design.
-
Specific social contexts that
produce sub-categories of Arabic music, or musical
genres that can be broadly classified as urban
(music of the city inhabitants), rural (music of the
country inhabitants), or Bedouin (music of the
desert inhabitants)..."
-
An Arab musical mentality,
"responsible for the aesthetic homogeneity of the
tonal-spatial and rhythmic-temporal structures
throughout the Arab world whether composed or
improvised, instrumental or vocal, secular or
sacred." Touma describes this musical mentality as
being composed of:
·
The
phenomenon of the maqām
·
The
predominance of vocal music
·
The tendency
toward small instrumental ensembles
·
The
arrangement in different combinatory sequences of the
small and smallest melodic elements - the maqams and
ajnas - "and their repetition, combination, and
permutation within the framework of the tonal-spatial
model."
·
The general
absence of polyphony, polyrhythm, and motivic
development, though Arabic music is familiar with the
use of
ostinato, and an even more instinctive heterophonic
way of producing and performing music.
·
The
alternation between a free rhythmic-temporal and fixed
tonal-spatial organization on the one hand, and a fixed
rhythmic-temporal and free tonal-spatial structure on
the other.
Maqam system
A Maqam tone level example
Though it would
be incorrect to call it a modal, for the Arabic system
is more complex than that of the Greek modes, the basis
of Arabic music is the maqam (pl. maqamat), which looks
like the mode, but is not quite the same. The tonic
note, dominant note, and ending note (unless modulation
occurs) are generally determined by the maqam used.
Arabic maqam theory as ascribed in literature over the
ages names between 90 and 110 maqams, that are grouped
into larger categories known as fasilah. Fasilah are
groupings of maqams whose first four primary pitches are
shared in common.[22]
Jins/Ajnas
The maqam
consists of at least two jins, or scale segments. "Jins"
in Arabic comes from the ancient Latin word "genus,"
meaning type. In practice, a jins (pl. ajnas) is either
a trichord, a tetrachord, or a pentachord. The trichord
is three notes, the tetrachord four, and the pentachord
five. The maqam usually covers only one octave (usually
two jins), but can cover more. Like the melodic minor
scale, some maqamat use different ajnas, and thus note
progressions, when descending and ascending. Due to
continuous innovation and the emergence of new jins, and
because most music scholars have not reached consensus
on the subject, it is difficult to provide a solid
figure for the total number of jins in use. Nonetheless,
in practice most musicians would agree there are at
least eight major ajnas: Rast, Bayat, Sikah, Hijaz,
Saba, Kurd, Nahawand, and Ajam - and their commonly used
variants such as the Nakriz, Athar Kurd, Sikah Beladi,
Saba Zamzama. Mukhalif is a rare jins used almost
exclusively in Iraq, and it is not used in combination
with other ajnas.
More notes used than in Western scale
The main
difference between the Western chromatic scale and the
Arabic scales is the existence of many in-between notes,
which are sometimes referred to as quarter tones, for
the sake of simplicity. In some treatments of theory,
the quarter tone scale or all twenty four tones should
exist. According to Yūsuf Shawqī (1969), in practice,
there are many fewer tones (Touma 1996, p. 170).
Additionally, in
1932, at the Cairo Congress of Arab Music held in Cairo,
Egypt - and attended by such Western luminaries as Béla
Bartók and Henry George Farmer - experiments were done
which determined conclusively that the notes in actual
use differ substantially from an even-tempered 24-tone
scale. Furthermore, the intonation of many of those
notes differ slightly from region to region (Egypt,
Turkey, Syria, Iraq).
Regional scales
As a result of
these findings, the following recommendation was issued:
"The tempered scale and the natural scale should be
rejected. In Egypt, the Egyptian scale is to be kept
with the values, which were measured with all possible
precision. The Turkish, Syrian, and Iraqi scales should
remain what they are..." (translated in Maalouf 2002, p.
220).[citation
needed] Both in modern practice, and
evident in recorded music over the course of the last
century, several differently-tuned "E"s in between the
E-flat and E-natural of the Western Chromatic scale are
used, that vary according to the types of maqams and
ajnas used, and the region in which they are used.
Practical treatment
Musicians and
teachers refer to these in-between notes as "quarter
tones," using "half-flat" or "half-sharp" as a
deisgnation for the in-between flats and sharps, for
ease of nomenclature. Performance and teaching of the
exact values of intonation in each jins or maqam is
usually done by ear. It should also be added, in
reference to Habib Hassan Touma's comment above, that
these "quarter-tones" are not used everywhere in the
maqamat: in practice, Arabic music does not modulate to
12 different tonic areas like the Well-Tempered Klavier.
The most commonly used "quarter tones" are on E (between
E-flat and E-natural), A, B, D, F (between F-natural and
F-sharp) and C.
Vocal traditions
Arab classical
music is known for its famed virtuoso singers, who sing
long, elaborately ornamented, melismatic tunes, and are
known for driving audiences into ecstasy. Its traditions
come from pre-Islamic times, when female singing slaves
entertained the wealthy, and inspired warriors on the
battlefield with their rajaz poetry, also performing at
weddings.
Instruments and ensembles
Front and rear views of an
oud.
The prototypical
Arabic music ensemble in Egypt and Syria is known as the
takht, and includes, (or included at different time
periods) instruments such as the 'oud, qānūn, rabab,
ney, violin (introduced in the 1840s or 50s), riq and
dumbek. In Iraq, the traditional ensemble, known as the
chalghi, includes only two melodic instruments - the
jowza (similar to the rabab but with four strings) and
santur- accompanied by the riq and dumbek.
The Arab world
has incorporated instruments from the West, including
the electric guitar, cello, double bass and oboe, and
incorporated influences from jazz and other foreign
musical styles. The singers remained the stars, however,
especially after the development of the recording and
film industry in the 1920s in Cairo. These singing
celebrities include Abd el-Halim Hafez, Farid Al
Attrach, Asmahan, Sayed Darwish, Mohammed Abd el-Wahaab,
Warda Al-Jazairia, and possibly the biggest star of
modern Arab classical music, Umm Kulthum.
Information courtesy of Wikipedia Encyclopedia