35+ Best For Your Arabic Music-Related Vocab

Original blog post: https://ling-app.com/ar/arabic-music-related-vocab/

Are you fond of Arabic music? Would you like to know about its history, primary elements, and epic vocab to discuss music with your friends? If that’s the case, this article is perfect for you since we brought you a complete article about Arabic music-related vocab. So let’s get started!

Brief History And Evolution

The development of Arabic music through time and its interaction with musical traditions from nearby civilizations may be seen in the genre’s history. Arab music nowadays is a vibrant mosaic combining Arab and international influences.

If we talk about history, the muezzin for the call to prayer was chosen by the Prophet Muhammad because of the beauty and power of Abu Musa Al-Achaari’s voice. During the Umayyad and Abbasid eras, there were intercultural encounters between Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Byzantines that gave rise to new musical genres and instruments.

Ibn Misjah And Caliph Harun Al-Rashid

Ibn Misjah was a Persian lutenist who fused Persian, Syriac, Byzantine, and Arab music elements. Books penned by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani preserved his legacy and contributions to Arabian art songs. With the Caliph Harun al-Rashid and his son al-Mamun, the music peaked under the Abbasid Caliphate.

Zeryab And Music Theory

Zeryab is regarded as the fabled founder of the Andalusian musical tradition, which survived the fall of Granada in 1492 and the exodus of Muslims and Jews from Spain. Zeryab’s contributions to music theory and practice diverged from Middle Eastern and Greek theorists, who thought each mode had a distinct ethos. He created a system of twenty-four methods, one for each hour of the day, with “inherent” seasonal, emotional, and temporal features.

Components Of Arabic Music

The main elements of Arabian music are modal homophony, modal rhythm, and florid ornamentation. In its ultimate form, Ibn Misjah’s melodic modal system had eight modes. This system persisted until the eleventh century when there were twelve modes, which by the thirteenth century were known as maqamat.

Maqams

Maqams are short, meterless verses performed to accompany an oud or drum while adhering to the poetic meter. Songs were short and had only one melody or maqam, still used today in Arabic music.

The community uses a new Maqam every Shabbat in Mizrahi and Sephardic Middle Eastern Jewish prayer services. The reading of the Qur’an has also included musical elements called maqams. The maqams are the essence of melody in Arabic music, and there is no definitive standard for Arabic music.

The maqamat are composed of the melodic and rhythmic elements of Arabic, Turkish, Armenian, and Byzantine music. Through oral tradition, the poetry and music of each region persisted, creating de facto norms for each.

Despite several initiatives, including the Cairo Music Conference, compiling a complete list of all Maqams is almost impossible.

Tones In Arabic Music

The Arabian gamut had formerly consisted of twelve tones, or about the same as the chromatic scale in Western music.

Five more tones were introduced in the thirteenth century, each one-eighth note just below chord complete note, i.e., below d, e, g, a, and b. In the sixteenth century, new optimizations of the gamut were established, and the tones and maqamat’s characteristics were altered.

They evolved into melodic formulae to be used in composition rather than scales within which melodies were written, a system akin to the ragas of Hindu music.

Nauba

The nauba, a collection of vocal compositions with instrumental preludes, presumably beginning at the Abbasid court, is the primary style of Arabic music.

The short-necked lute known as the ud, from which the European lute took its shape and name, and the long-necked lute known as the tanbur were the main Arabian instruments, apart from others that were adapted from earlier Semitic civilizations.

There is little doubt that the Moors from Spain brought the flute to Europe, yet it is still debatable how much of an impact Arabic music has had on Western culture.

Tarkib

The tarkib — the simultaneous striking of specific notes with their fourth, fifth, or octave — was used as ornaments in Arabian music.

Before the emergence of instrumental music in the tenth century, poetry’s vocal meters dominated the rhythmic patterns. For each stanza or verse in vocal music, a brief theme is often repeated with intricate ornamentation.

Arabic Music-Related Vocab

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Useful Sentences

Here is a list of all the useful sentences that can help you immensely while talking about Arabic music or even music in general.

Wrapping Up

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