Happy World Music Day - Page 3

Bhajans

The predominant theme of bhajans or devotional lyrics, which are often set to music, is the love of man for God, which is represented in the form of woman's love for man, and most particularly as the love of Radha for Krishna, a perennial theme of much of Indian painting, music, poetry, and folk art. Mirabai, a sixteenth-century saint and poet, became "mad" by virtue of her love for Krishna, and she speaks in her compositions of having to abandon this world. Bhakti literature shows a disdain for the conventional pieties and forms of Sanskrit literature, and bhakti poets advocated direct communion with God, having little use for the priestly brahmin class, or for other forms of institutionalized religion. Bhakti poets wrote in the vernacular tongues, but not only in an attempt to acquire a large following, for they thought of Sanskrit as a stagnant language. Another bhakti poet, Kabir, a weaver by birth, mocked the pretensions of both Hindus and Muslims, and described the adherents of both religions as bound by superstitions. He is known for having written in ulti-bhasa, the upside-down tongue, which is also to say that he thought of the world as an upside-down and peculiar place, where the innocent must struggle and the wicked prosper.

The lyrics in the selection are by Kabir; the musical composition is by Srinivas Khale, and the bhajan, entitled "Ye Tanu Mundana be Mundna", is sung by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, one of the greatest exponents of Hindustani music. Born on 4 February 1922 in the Dharwad district of what is now Maharashtra, Bhimsen Joshi received his training at the hands of Sawai Gandharwa, himself the most brilliant disciple of Abdul Karim Khan, who founded the Kirana gharana. His professional career has spanned nearly five decades.

Originally posted by: paljay

Thanks Anu, Bapigua2, Munjuji.
Great post. (I have not read everything yet)


Happy world music day to everyone.

payal, do read the articles.. they are real good collections..

Great thread Anu....... 👏 👏 👏

Great Posts Manju ji and Bapigua..... 👏 👏 👏

Happy Music day to all.......

HEALING MUSIC


Music works as a healing agent – by harmonizing the body's vibrations (breath, heart, organ, metabolic, cellular) and by transforming emotions and states of mind. Music that heals carries with it the sacred intention of the musicians. Sacred chants bring in the blessings of the celestial realm and carry healing powers known to some of the world's most ancient spiritual teachers.

Arab music
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arab music is the music of Arabic-speaking people or countries, especially those centered around the Arabian Peninsula.The world of Arab music has long been dominated by Cairo, a cultural center, though musical innovation and regional styles abound from Morocco to Saudi Arabia. Beirut has, in recent years, also become a major center of Arabic music. Classical Arab music is extremely popular across the population, especially a small number of superstars known throughout the Arab world. Regional styles of popular music include Algerian ra, Moroccan gnawa, Kuwaiti sawt, Egyptian el gil and Turkish Arabesque-pop music.

"The common style that developed is usually called 'Islamic' or 'Arab', though in fact it transcends religious, ethnic, geographical, and linguistic boundaries" and it is suggested that it be called the Near East (from Morrocco to India) style (van der Merwe 1989, p.9).

Habib Hassan Touma (1996, p.xix-xx) lists "five components" which "characterize the music of the Arabs:

The Arab tone system (a musical tuning system) with specific interval structures, invented by al-Farabi in the tenth century (p.170).
Rhythmic-temporal structures that produce a rich variety of rhythmic patterns, awzan, used to accompany the metered vocal and instrumental genres and give them form.
Musical instruments that are found throughout the Arabian world and that represent a standardized tone system, are played with standardized performance techniques, and exhibit similar details in construction and design.
Specific social contexts for the making of music, whereby musical genres can be classified as urban (music of the city inhabitants), rural (music of the country inhabitants), or Bedouin (music of the desert inhabitants)....
A musical mentality that is responsible for the aesthetic homogeneity of the tonal-spatial and rhythmic-temporal structures in Arabian music, whether composed or improvised, instrumental or vocal, secular or sacred. The Arab's musical mentality is defined by:
The maqam phenomenon....
The predominance of vocal music...
The prediliction for small instrumental ensembles...
The mosaiclike stringing together of musical form elements, that is, the arrangement in a sequence of small and smallest melodic elements, and their repetition, combination, and permutation within the framework of the tonal-spatial model.
The absence of polyphony, polyrhythm, and motivic development. Arabian music is, however, very familiar with the ostinato, as well as with a more instinctive heterophonic way of making 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. This alternation...results in exciting contrasts."
Much Arab music is characterized by an emphasis on melody and rhythm rather than harmony. Thus much Arabic music is homophonic in nature. Some genres of Arab music are polyphonic—as the instrument Qanoun is based upon the idea of playing two-note chords—but quintessentially, Arabic music is melodic.

It would be incorrect though to call it modal, for the Arabic system is more complex than that of the Greek modes. The basis of the Arabic music is the maqam (pl. maqamat), which looks like the mode, but is not quite the same. The maqam has a "tonal" note on which the piece must end (unless modulation occurs).

The maqam consists of at least two jins, or scale segments. "Jins" in Arabic comes from the ancient Greek 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 (two jins), but sometimes it covers more than one octave. Like the melodic minor scale and Indian ragas, some maqamat have different ajnas, and thus notes, while descending or ascending. Because of the continuous innovation of jins and because most music scholars don't agree on the existing number anyway, it's hard to give an accurate number of the jins. Nonetheless, in practice most musicians would agree on the 8 most frequently used ajnas: Rast, Bayat, Sikah, Hijaz, Saba, Kurd, Nahawand, and Ajam--and a few of the most commonly used variants of those: Nakriz, Athar Kurd, Sikah Beladi, Saba Zamzama. Mukhalif is a rare jins used exclusively in Iraq, and it does not occur in combination with other ajnas.

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 practicality. However, while in some treatments of theory the quarter tone scale or all twenty four tones should exist, according to Yusuf Shawqi (1969) in practice there are many fewer tones (Touma 1996, p.170).

In fact, the situation is much more complicated than that. In 1932, at International Convention on Arabic music held in Cairo, Egypt (attended by such Western luminaries as Bela Bartok 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, and furthermore that the intonation of many of those notes differ slightly from region to region (Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Iraq). The commission's recommendation is as follows: "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). Both in modern practice, and based on the evidence from recorded music over the course of the last century, there are several differently-tuned "E"s in between the E-flat and E-natural of the Western Chromatic scale, depending on the maqam or jins in use, and depending on the region.

Musicians and teachers refer to these in-between notes as "quarter-tones" ("half-flat" or "half-sharp") for ease of nomenclature, put perform and teach the exact values of intonation in each jins or maqam by ear. It should also be added, in reference to 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, and so 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.

The prototypical Arab ensemble in Egypt and Syria is known as the takht, which includes, (or included at different time periods) instruments such as the 'oud, qann, rabab, nay, violin (which was 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--with riq and dumbek.

Arab classical music is known for its famed virtuoso singers, who sing long, elaborately ornamented, melismatic tunes, and who are known for driving audiences into ecstasy. Its traditions come from pre-Islam days, when female singing slaves entertained the wealthy, and inspired warriors on the battlefield with their rajaz poetry; the also performed at weddings and later, for the hajj. Male performers were limited to mukhanathin, or transvestite slaves, who were scorned by most Muslims. Early Islam largely looked down upon music, and considered it sinful and vile. Music in most of the Arab countries is entirely secular in nature.

In the 20th century, Egypt was the first in a series of Arab countries to see a sudden emergence of nationalism, as it became independent after 2000 years of foreign rule. Turkish music was replaced by national music, and Cairo became a center for musical innovation, hosting a 1932 conference of musicians from across the Arab world.

Soon, the Arab world was inundated with new instruments from the west, including the electric guitar, cello, double bass and oboe, and adding 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 el-Atrache, Asmahan, Sayed Darweesh, Mohammed Abd el-Wahaab, Warda Al-Jazairia, and possibly the biggest star of modern Arab classical music, Umm Kalthum.

Egyptian Music
Seven Millennia of Performance

Author's Note: Once again I am relying on my readership to aid me in the creation and maintenance of this document. Music is a tricky subject at best, and I must confess that I am neither a theorist nor a musical academe. My experience in music is largely as a performer and a listener. Thus I am prone to missteps in discussions of theory and of musical history. I invite each and every one of you point out where I have been oblique, or forgetful, or just plain errant. I am hoping that you will aid me in adding to this article and make it a useful resource to anyone who wishes to know more about Arabic music.

A brief note on spelling is probably in order. When transliterating from the Arabic to the Roman alphabet, I have used the spelling that seems to be in the most common usage. For example, although some sources give Omme Koulsoum, the predominant spelling is Umm Kulthum, and so the latter is used in this document. I apologize in advance for any confusion this might create. -- DCS

Overview and Ancient Music
Structure of Arabic Music, or, "I've got Rhythm"
The Turn of the Century and the Recording Boom
The Modern Day
Links for Further Enjoyment
Overview and Ancient Music

Music has been a part of Egyptian culture probably since its beginning. Tomb and temple paintings show a variety of musical instruments in both sacred and secular environments, and many of the dead were buried with instruments. This leads to the thought that music formed an integral part of not only Egyptian rituals, but also daily life and recreation. Sadly, no written pieces of music have survived, and no system of notation is known to have been developed by the ancient Egyptians. It would seem that music in ancient Egypt was, like so many of the arts at that time, passed down from one person to another in a form of "aural" tradition. Various universities and institutions are working to extrapolate what ancient Egyptian music might have sounded like based on present-day and known historical forms using recreations of instruments.

Instruments known to have existed in ancient Egypt are roughly the same ones as have been created by nearly all civilizations. Lyres, harps, flutes, pipes, horns (not "true" horns as we know them, but instruments similar to the didgeridoo of the Australian Aborigines, the dragon-horn of Tibet, and the shofar of the Hebrew people), and of course, drums, cymbals, and other percussion. As the ages passed, new instruments were added in as they were developed or introduced from other peoples. Given Egypt's importance in the ancient world, one can easily assume that at one time or another, every kind of instrument ever created has been played in within its borders.

The Arab musical tradition as it is known today developed between the AD 7th and 13th Centuries in the courts of Islam. The first great renaissance of Arab music occurred in Syria and the surrounding regions during the Umayyad Dynasty (AD 7th-8th Century). At that time Baghdad, in what is now Iraq, was a central city for musicians and performers, partly due to its ruler, the legendary Haroun al-Raschid.

Arabic music, insofar as can be inferred reliably, traces its ancestry in part to the music of the 3rd Century Persians and the early Byzantine Empire (AD 4th-6th Century). These traditions in turn can trace themselves back in part to the works of the Greeks, themselves great lovers of poetry and song. But both are traced back to the ancient Semitic traditions which may have their origins in the music of the ancient Egyptians.

The 10th Century music theorist Al-Farabi translated the major works of the ancient Greeks on music into Arabic: Aristotle's Problems, Themistius' commentaries on the Problems, Ptolemy's Harmonics, and the Elements of Music by Euclid. This increased the effect of the Greeks on Arabic music, but also gave a foundation upon which to build a concrete theory of Arabic music, which Al-Farabi did.

Like Euclid before him, Al-Farabi was a mathematician and physicist, and so was able to examine musical structure from the scientific standpoint. But what was more, he was a musician and was perhaps better equipped mentally to study music as an art form and not cold mathematics. He focused not only on the science of sound but also the aesthetics and the enjoyment of music, a subject which the Greeks apparently had ignored.

Structure of Arabic Music, or, "I've Got Rhythm"

The musical forms of the Arab and Islamic world are the predominant form of music in Egypt in its recent history (two millennia is recent to an historian). However, there is some weight to the idea that Arabic musical forms are in fact the product of ancient Egyptian musical forms. Such a discussion is unfortunately beyond the scope of this article. The Arabic forms are the most easily accessible for study and their basic traits have continued relatively unchanged for several centuries.

Arabic music, like most other forms of the African tradition, is based largely on variation and improvisation of and upon a central theme. This makes it very similar in structure to jazz, which also has deep roots in African music. Central to the musical piece is a complex skeletal rhythm comprised of strong downbeats (dum), rests, and upbeats (tak). This base structure, the maqamat, can be played on a variety of instruments, though the drum and the guitar are the most common. On this framework, the performers build a sequence of unharmonized melodies, varying the original rhythm and improvising new ones.

An intriguing side-effect of improvisational music forms is the use of notes not actually present in the formal musical scale used by the artist. Arabic music makes extensive use of what are called microtones, or half-flats and half-sharps, resulting in music that has more notes than many Western forms (though jazz, with its portmanteau technique, is a notable exception).

A performance of traditional Arabic music is a union of performer and audience. A silent audience is seen by many Arab musicians as disapproving. Unlike Western audiences, the perfect audience in the Arab world is expected to clap, sing along, and make requests for the performer to repeat sections of the piece. Often, these requests are made during the performance, and a ten-minute composition may turn into a half-hour one as the musicians replay and embellish their melody for an appreciative audience. A performance of traditional music can be quite friendly and informal and hearkens back to the days before recordings when most Arabic music was played in coffeehouses.

The Turn of the Century and the Recording Boom

It was the invention of the phonograph and its later descendants that put music in the hands of the people at large. Obviously, before recordings, music was limited to performance only, and depending on the genre, this could greatly limit the audience. Orchestral pieces, for example, were the mostly the province of the rich due to the cost of maintaining facilities and performers and the high ticket prices to cover that cost. With the coming of recorded music, people could listen anytime they wished.

In 1909, Britain's Gramophone Company created its first record label, "His Master's Voice," whose famous dog-and-gramophone logo still exists as part of RCA. "His Master's Voice" began a massive campaign a few years later to record traditional Arabic music as well as the newer forms that were created. In 1914, Decca introduced the famous mass-produced "case" gramophone. Although the gramophone was still expensive, and only the richest individuals purchased them, many public businesses would buy them to play for their customers. It became quite common a decade or so later in Egypt for people to travel to the local coffeehouse to socialize and listen to the latest performances by artists such as Umm Kulthum and Mohamed Abdel Wahab.

Shortly before this time Arabic music began to change, especially in Egypt. Composers like Sayed Darwish were adopting Western elements into traditional forms, resulting in what was considered to be the first truly Egyptian music in centuries. The new music became more orchestral and modern while still retaining the power and freedom of the older. Many of these pieces are still alive today, being arranged for contemporary artists like Sabah Fakhri and Fairouz.

As recording technology became cheaper, so did records and players. More people could purchase them, and did. The gramophone became a household item much in the same way the radio would soon after. The "new" music of Egypt and the Arab world spread, bringing with it a strong cultural identity.

The Modern Day

However, the evolution of Arabic music was not one-way. Being one of the oldest musical traditions in the world still existing it naturally had its influence on other forms. Spanish music shows a strong ancestry of Arabic music due to the conquest of Spain by the Islamic empires (8th-15th Centuries), as does the "Mediterranean" music of Greece and Italy. The effects of Arabic music can even be felt as far as the United States as traditional maqamat surface in nightclub techno music and the Tejano music of the Southwest.

Modern Arabic music now fills all genres. There are musicians who perform traditional melodies and there are those that are closer to the Western conventions of pop and "Top 40." Throughout the years the Egyptians have never lost their love for music. If anything, it has intensified, and today Egypt is seen as a major focus for music in the Arab world. Lebanese-born conductor and composer Salim Sahab, now a citizen of Egypt, once said, "No matter how brilliantly an Arab singer or artist shines in his own country, he or she will never fulfill dreams before setting foot in Egypt."

Egypt's importance in Arabic music is shown by the fact that many of the great masters of Arabic music were Egyptian: Sayed Darwish, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Umm Kulthum, Mohamed Al-Qasabji, Zakariyya Ahmad, and Riad Al-Sunbati just to name a few. Egypt has also opened its doors to artists of other countries, some of them persecuted in their own lands. For example, when Abu Khalil Al-Qabani was accused in Syria of being a negative influence on the youth, he went to Cairo and there founded the first true orchestra for Arabic music. Egypt loves its musicians, and it is said that the funeral of Egypt's greatest singer, Umm Kulthum, in 1975 was larger than that of President Nasser.

Today the ranks of Arabic musicians are filled out with names like Ilham Al Madfai, Fairouz, and Magda El Roumi. Yet the name that is truly taking Arabic music to the world is that of Amr Diab. His talent for music has garnered him numerous accolades including the 1998 World Music Award for his song "Nour El Ain," making him only the second Arabian singer ever to win the award. His English version of that song, called "Habibi," was a top song in Europe and became popular in dance clubs in the United States. He has toured around the world and is an artist with broad appeal because his songs show a variety of musical styles, from traditional Arabic rhythms to European dance to the soulful ballads of the Americas.

The music of the Middle East is now coming full-circle as the modern musicians assimilate elements from many of the musical forms that had their beginnings in Arabic music. Guitar virtuosos like Ilham Al Madfai play with a deep, rich Mediterranean sound that comes from the Moorish Conquest, and the techno and rave music of Ibiza comes now to Alexandria and Cairo, not realizing that it is in fact returning to its homeland. The future paths of Arabic music will show that what is old really can be new again.

Music history
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the academic field of music history. For a chronological overview of music, see history of music.
The field of music history is the subfield of the broader discipline of musicology that studies how music developed over time. The field is also sometimes called historical musicology. In theory "music history" could refer to the study of the history of any type or genre of music (e.g., the history of Indian music or the history of rock). In practice, courses on music history in the West are nearly always studies of European classical music. (Studies of other types of music are generally conducted as part of ethnomusicology even when not culturally based).

The tools and products of music history tend to include manuscript studies, editions of composers' works (sometimes emphasizing textual criticism), biography of composers and other musicians, iconography, studies of the relationship between words and music, and the relationship between music and society. The application of musical analysis to further these goals is often a part of music history, though pure analysis or the development of new tools of music analysis is more likely to be seen in the field of music theory.


Music History as Taught Subject

A History of Western Music Seventh Edition by J. Peter Burkholder, Donald J. Grout, and Claude V. PaItalic textlisca (affectioned called Grout) is one of several popular books used to teach Music History in North America.Although most performers of classical instruments receive some instruction in music history from teachers throughout their training, the majority of formal music history courses are offered at the college level. Particularly in the United States and Canada, these courses tend to be divided into two groups: one type to be taken by students with little or no music theory or ability to read music (often called music appreciation) and the other for more musically literate students (often those planning on making a career in music). Most medium and large institutions will offer both types of courses. The two types of courses will usually differ in length (one to two semesters vs. two to four), breadth (many music appreciation courses begin at the late Baroque or classical eras and might omit music after WWII while courses for majors traditionally spanned the period from the Middle Ages to recent times), and depth.

Both types of courses tend to emphasize a balance among the acquisition of musical repertory (often emphasized through listening examinations), study and analysis of these works, biographical and cultural details of music and musicians, and writing about music, perhaps through music criticism.

More specialized seminars in music history tend to use a similar approach on a narrower subject while introducing more of the tools of research in music history (see below). The range of possible topics is virtually limitless. Some examples might be "Music during WWI," "Medieval and Renaissance instrumental music," "Music and Process," "Mozart's Don Giovanni." In the United States, these seminars are generally taken by advanced undergraduates and graduate students, though in European countries they often form the backbone of music history education.


Research in Music History
The tools of music history are nearly as numerous as its subjects. A desire to examine sources of music closest to the composer or period which produced it has made manuscript, archival, and source study important in almost every field of musicology. In early music in particular, manuscript study may be the only way to study an unedited work. Such study may be complicated by the need to decipher earlier forms of music notation. Manuscript study can also allow a researcher to return to a version of a work prior to the interventions of later editors, perhaps as a basis for her own edition.


Questions such as "Why did Beethoven scratch out the name of Napoleon from the title page of his Eroica symphony?" are of interest to music historiansArchival work may be conducted to find connections to music or musicians in a collection of documents of broader interests (e.g., Vatican pay records, letters to a patroness of the arts) or to more systematically study a collection of documents related to a musician. Rarely but increasingly, such archival work can be done virtually (See for instance the Arnold Schoenberg Center[1]).

Performance practice draws on many of the tools of historical musicology to answer the specific question of how music was performed in various places at various times in the past. Although previously confined to early music, recent research in performance practice has embraced questions such as how the early history of recording affected the use of vibrato in classical music, or instruments in Klezmer.

Biographical studies of composers can give a better sense of the chronology of compositions, influences on style and works, and provide important background to the interpretation (by performers or listeners) of works. Thus biography can form one part of the larger study of the cultural significance, underlying program, or agenda of a work; a study which gained increasing importance in the 1980s and early 1990s. Researchers emphasizing the social importance of music (including classical music) are often called New musicologists.