2 languages
Arabic classical music (maqam)
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Genre
Arabic classical music (maqam) · In Baghdad, founded in 762, a refined musical culture grew up at the court of the Abbasid caliphs around the oud, a pear-shaped, fretless lute. The singer Ibrahim al-Mawsili and his son Ishaq became famous there, and in the tenth century the philosopher Al-Farabi wrote his Kitāb al-mūsīqā al-kabīr (Great Book of Music). Everything revolves around the maqam: a mode with its own intervals, sometimes smaller than a semitone, and fixed melodic turns. In a taqsim a player improvises freely within one maqam.
Listening
Listening tip. Hear how Munir Bashir, in this taqsim on the oud without a fixed metre, explores the maqam Rast and keeps returning to the same tonic.
Taqsîm en maqâm Râst · Munir Bashir, 1971
Maqâm Sabâ et pasta · Husayn Ismâ'îl al-A'zamî & Ensemble Al-Kindî, 1994
Sukûn al-layl fî Baghdad · Naseer Shamma, 1999
See also
- Ziryab
- Oum Kalthoum
- Fairuz
- Husayn Ismâ'îl al-A'zamî & Ensemble Al-Kindî
- Naseer Shamma
- Mesopotamia
- Ancient Greece
- Persian classical music
- Andalusian music
- Sufi music
- Ottoman classical music
- Tarab: the Egyptian golden age
- Azerbaijani mugham
Categories: Genres