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When I think about music and what I enjoy about it I think about my home country and the music that I have known all my life. Arabic music is my favorite musical styling. Although I have come to enjoy classical and contemporary styling as well, Arabic music has almost an innate quality of enjoyment for me. I am from the Middle-East and I have known Arabic music for the majority of my life. Its songs speak of the life and culture of Arabic countries and its melody is not commonly heard on American radio stations. Its songs tell the story of my people, people who are similar to Americans but also different in many ways.
The songs are a romantic and wonderful inspiration to me while living and studying in America. The tradition of Arabic music has been cultivated throughout Arab regions for thousands of years. Although it has undergone many changes over the centuries, it has retained certain distinctive traits. The Arabic music tradition developed in the courts of dynasties in the Islamic empire from the 7 th century to the 13 th century. It flourished during the Umayyad dynasty in the 7 th century and 8 th century in Syria. Great performers were drawn to Baghdad, now the capital of Iraq, under such rulers as Harun ar-Rashid, who was a patron of the musical arts during the late 700 s. 3 The cities of the Islamic empire, from Spain across North Africa and throughout the Middle East, boasted many fine musicians.
These early musicians were often composers and poets as well as performers. Although the major writings on Arab music appeared after the spread of Islam in the beginning of the 7 th century, the music tradition had already begun. Before the spread of Islam, Arab music incorporated music traditions of the Sassanid dynasty (224 - 641) in Persia and the early Byzantine empire (4 th century to 6 th century) and of sung poetry from the Arabian Peninsula. 3 Arabic-speaking scholars also studied the treatises of ancient Greek philosophers on music. Music theorists of the 10 th century and 11 th century, such as al-Arabic and Avicenna, produced their own theories of music based on what they had learned from the Greeks and on the music of their own times. Greek works translated by the Arab scholars were later studied by European scientists and philosophers. Arabic music is created using un harmonized melodic and rhythmic systems.
Arabic melodies draw from a vast array of models, or melodic modes, known as mahamat. Arabic books on music include as many as 52 melodic modes, of which at least 12 are commonly used. 3 These modes feature more tones than are present in the Western musical system, including notably smaller intervals that are sometimes called microtone's, or half-flats and half-sharps. Arabic melodies frequently use the augmented second interval, an interval larger than those of most Western melodies. 3 The sound of Arabic music is richly melodic and offers opportunity for subtle nuance and creative variation The rhythmic structure of Arabic music is similarly complex. Rhythmic patterns have up to 48 beats and typically include several downbeats (called dum's) as well as upbeats (called taks) and silences, or rests. 3 To grasp a rhythmic mode, the listener must hear a relatively long pattern. Moreover, the performers do not simply play the pattern; they elaborate upon and ornament it. Often the pattern is recognizable by the arrangement of downbeats.
In Arab tradition, good musicians offer something new in each performance by varying and improvising on known pieces or models in a fashion similar to that of jazz musicians. The inventions of musicians can be lengthy, extending ten-minute compositions into hour-long performances that bear only a skeletal resemblance to the models. The inventions of the musician traditionally depend upon the response of the audience. Listeners are expected to react during the performance, either verbally or with applause. Quiet is interpreted as disinterest or dislike.
The audience members, in this tradition, are active participants in determining the length of the performance and in shaping the piece of music by encouraging musicians to either repeat a section of the piece or to move to the next section. Born of the cultures of the Arab World stretching from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, Arabic music is becoming popular world-wide. It is made up of an astonishing variety of folk, classical, and popular musical traditions. Many of these have survived for centuries, reflecting the musical sensibilities of the ancient world as well as the Middle Ages. While each region within the Arab World has its distinctive styles, commonalities of instrumentation, modal structure, rhythmic patterns, performance techniques, and lyric content extend across the area, forming a fascinating weaving of artistic tradition that changes and evolves while remaining true to its ancient heritage.
In the last decades a growing global audience has come to appreciate the richness of this music. The global audience is hungry for information about these traditions, their history, the playing techniques and theories behind them, as well as news about performances, recordings, and concerts. Listeners, performers and students rely on word of mouth to keep current on Arabic music news. This is due to the fact that it is primarily distributed through smaller recording labels, and since performances occur outside the mainstream concert circuits. Arabic Song and its English Translation 1 What follows is a translation into English of the song lyrics for Sawah. Also, there is a transliteration into the Roman alphabet of the original Arabic lyrics.
This song was first popularized by Abdel Halim Hafez. Sawah, wei master feil belaud, sawah Vagabond, and walking between countries, vagabond Weil katha being wei bein habib arab And the step between me and my beloved [is] big Mesh war bei-eed, wana free garden A long journey, and I'm wounded from it Weil level you-arab, weil near sawah And the night approaches, and the day goes Wein laa kom habib, saleimulee are And if you see my beloved, say "Hello" to him [her] Tameinuneel asmara nee, all eil el gloria fee Reassure me: how is my brown-looking girl doing so far away Vagabond, not knowing what I'm doing Vagabond, and the separation, oh my dear Weisneen, weissen wana day eib bush' wei happen And years, years, and I'm melting in loneliness and tenderness I want to know just where is his [her] road E gara lak fein end, wei bta-mail e What has happened to you and what are you doing? Ya znounee, ah ya znounee mat seibounee My worries, oh my worries, leave me alone Lana are ar-that, wana ta-year sawah Neither can I rest, and I'm lost like a vagabond Nawarlee, warrener, seifert el habayeib Enlighten me, show me the road to the beloved Waseitak, wei seiya, ya shared always I've made you promise, you who witnessed And what I've suffered during my nights. Bibliography: Endnotes 1. Goodyear, Amina. Sawah - song compositional elements. 1996. 2.
Ibrahim, Nicole. Sawah - song translation, transliteration. 1996. 3. Nasser, Abdul. Arabic Music and Its Cultural Influences. New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
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Research essay sample on 7 Th Century Middle East
