The Encyclopedia of Music

“Gymnastics for the body, and music for the mind.”

Arabic Music

1. Introduction

Arabic music includes several genres and styles of music ranging from Arab classical to Arabic pop music and from secular to sacred music.

Arabic music has a long history of interaction with many other regional musical styles and genres. It influenced and has been influenced by Ancient Greek, Persian, Assyrian, Turkish, Indian, African (i.e. Berber & 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). 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.

Peter van der Merwe explains that, "The common style that developed is usually called 'Islamic' or 'Arab', though in fact it transcends religious, ethnic, geographical, and linguistic boundaries," and it has been suggested that it be called the "Near East style" (stretching from Morocco to India).

2. History of Arabic Music

2.1 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 defnitively 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 "Jahili poets" which translates to "The poets of the period of ignorance" - used to recite poems with a high musical rhythm and tone.

Music 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. The Choir at the time served as a pedagogical 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. 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, rukbani.

2.2 Al-Andalus

By the 11th century, Moorish Spain had become a centre 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.

2.3 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.

2.4 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 satirises 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.

2.5 Male instrumentalists

Male instrumentalists were condemned in a treatise in 9 CE. They were associated with 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 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 .

2.6 Twentieth century

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.

The first Conference of Arabic Music hosting musicians from across the Arab world was held in Cairo in 1932. Umm Kalthum (1904 - 1975) and Fairuz were by far the most popular singers of the Arab world. During her lifetime, Umm Kalthum was slightly more popular than Fairuz, however the latter's reputation grew after the former's death. Both are considered "Arabic Music Legends". More recently, popular artists have included, Sabah, Warda Al-Jazairia, Magida El Roumi, Latifa, Samira Said, Angham, Asalah Nasri, Thekra, Amr Diab, Najwa Karam, Nawal Al Zoghbi, Ehab Tawfik, Hisham Abbas, Wael Kfoury, Amal Hijazi, Elissa, Nancy Ajram, Haifa Wehbe and Natacha Atlas.

Radio Tarifa play a mixture of electric guitars and antique instruments. Their music consists of historical styles from Moorish Spain and the Maghreb countries of Northern Africa. Traditionally Arabic music has not used chords, but over the past 40 years their use has become more frequent as exposure to a more global musical culture has taken place.

In Islam, there is an obligation called Tajwid or Tajweed - to recite every letter correctly. Records broadcast in Islamic countries often have to pass a test of clarity. Compared to the much of the rest of the world, the diction of singers is therefore of very high quality.

3. Musical Regions

The world of modern Arabic music has long been dominated by musical trends that have emerged from Cairo, Egypt. The city is generally considered a cultural center in the Arab world. Innovations in popular music via the influence of other regional styles have also abounded from Morocco to Saudi Arabia. In recent years, Beirut has become a major center, dictating trends in the development of Arabic pop music. Other regional styles that have enjoyed popular music status throughout the Arab world include the Algerian raï, the Moroccan Gnawa, the Gulfian sawt, the Egyptian el gil and Turkish Arabesque-pop music.

4. Genres

4.1 Secular art music

Secular genres include maqam al-iraqi, andalusi nubah, muwashshah, Fjiri songs, qasidah, layali, mawwal, taqsim, bashraf, sama'i, tashmilah, dulab, and sawt.

4.2 Sacred music

Arabic religious music includes Christian and Islamic music. However, Islamic music, including the "singing" 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)

5. 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.

Habib Hassan Touma submits that there are "five components" that characterize Arabic music:

1. The Arab tone system; that is, a musical tuning system that relies on specific interval structures and was invented by al-Farabi in 10 CE (p.170)

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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)..."

5. 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:

1. The phenomenon of the maqām

2. The predominance of vocal music

3. The tendency toward small instrumental ensembles

4. 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."

5. 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.

5.1 Maqam System

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.

5.1.1 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.

5.2 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 International Convention on Arabic 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).

5.2.1Regional 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...". 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.

5.2.2 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.

5.3 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.

5.4 Instruments and Ensembles

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, qanún, 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 Kalthum.

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