North African Music 2

7/30/2019 North African Music 2

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NORTH AFRICAN MUSIC

Five Processes in Music History


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CONTACT WITH

ASSIMILATED CULTURES

Cosmopolitan Cultural

Centers

Syria under the

Umayyads (661-750)

Iraq under the

Abbasids (750-909)


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CONTACT WITH


Musical Traditions Mesopotamia

Byzantium

Persia

Syria

Music of North Africa

and West Asia or

Arabia


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CONTACT WITH


Musical Results New Performance

Techniques

New Aspects of

Intonation

New Musical Instruments

Retention of strong local

elements (e.g., singing of

poetical lyrics in Arabic)

Court patronage of poets

and musicians became

commonplace


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CONTACT WITH


Major Patrons The Abbasid Caliphs

Al-Mahdi (reigned 775-

785)

Al-Amin (reigned 809-813)


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CONTACTwith the

CLASSICAL PAST The Bayt al-Hikmah

House of Wisdom

Established by Abbasid

Caliph al-Mamun

(reigned 813-833)

A scholarly institution that

translated into Arabic

several Greek classics,

including musical

treatises by major

Pythagorean scholars,Plato, Aristotle and

Plotinus


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CONTACTWITH THE

CLASSICAL PAST Musical Results The term al-musiqa

Music became aspeculative discipline,

one of al-ulum al-riyadiyyah or themathematicalsciences

An extensive musicalnomenclature

Theoretical treatises


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CONTACTWITH THE

CLASSICAL PAST Ibn al-Munajjim

(d.912) Described an

established system of8 melodic modes,each had an octavespan of Pythagoreanhalf and whole steps(i.e., each had its owndiatonic scale). These

were used during theeighth and ninthcenturies.


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CONTACTWITH THE

CLASSICAL PAST Abu al-Faraj al-

Isfahani (d.967)

Kitab al-Aghani or

Book of Songs. Each

mode was indicated

by the names of thefingers and the frets

employed when

playing the ud.


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CONTACTWITH THE

CLASSICAL PAST al-Kindi (d.873) Elaborated on the

diatonic ud fretting

known at his time and

proposed adding a fifth

string to the 4 stringed udin order to expand the

theoretical pitch range

into two octaves;

discussed thephenomenon of sound,

intervals and

compositions.


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CONTACTWITH THE

CLASSICAL PAST al-Farabi (d.950) Kitab al-Musiqa al-Kabir or The

Grand Treatise on Musicprovided a lute fretting thatcombined the basic diatonicarrangement of Pythagoreanintervals with additional frets

suited for playing two newlyintroduced neutral, ormicrotonal, intervals.Described two types of tunburor long-necked fretted lute,each with a different system offrets: an Arabian type whosefrets produced quarter-toneintervals and another withintervals based on the limmaand comma subdivisions of thePythagorean whole tone.


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CONTACTWITH THE

CLASSICAL PAST Ibn Sina or Avicenna

(d. 1037)

discussed sound,

dissonants and

consonants, lute

fretting andreferences to melodic

modes by specific

names as did al-

Farabi


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CONTACTWITH THE

CLASSICAL PAST Safi ad-Din al-Urmawi (d.1291) In two authoritative treatises

discussed various aspects ofmusical knowledge, includingrhythm and meter; expoundedon the subject of melodic

modes, describing the intervalsof each mode in accordancewith a detailed theoreticalscale as did al-Farabi. Had aprofound influence on laterscholars and especially the

musical systems ofcontemporary Iran and Turkey.


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CONTACTWITH THE

MEDIEVAL WEST Contact between

North Africa and

Europe at the time of

the Crusades (11th

,12th, and 13th

centuries)

Contact between

North Africa and

Europe during the

Islamic occupation ofSpain (713-1492)


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CONTACTWITH THE

MEDIEVAL WEST Musical Results scientific scholarship

moved into the Muslim

universities of Spain;

influenced the Christian

West; and

promoted the translation

of Arabic works, including

commentaries on Greek

sources, into Latin.


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CONTACTWITH THE

MEDIEVAL WEST Musical results

(Introduced instruments

to Europe)

From al-ud to lute

From naqqarat to

nakers or kettledrums

From rabab to rebec

From al-nafir to the

anafil or natural

trumpet


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CONTACTWITH THE

MEDIEVAL WEST ZARYAB (d. 850) Compiled a repertoire of 24

nawbat (sing. Nawbah ornubah), each of which was acomposite of vocal andinstrumental pieces in a certain

melodic mode. Nawbat werereportedly associated with thedifferent hours of the day. Thistradition was carried into North

Africa and thrived therethrough the late fifteenth

century, even after theMuslims were expelled fromthe Iberian Peninsula.


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CONTACTWITH THE

MEDIEVAL WEST Musical results A musical form that utilized

romantic subject matter,featuring strophic texts withrefrains (contrast with theclassical Arabic quasidah,which followed a continuous

flow of lines or of coupletsusing a single poetical meterand a single rhyme ending)

The muwashshah form, usedby major poets, emerged andsurvived in North African cities

and in the Levant (greaterSyria and Palestine, and wasespecially popular in Aleppo,Syria)


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THE OTTOMAN PERIOD

The hegemony of the OttomanTurks over much of North

Africa (also Syria, Palestine,Iraq, the coasts of West Asia

and parts of Eastern Europe)1517-1917

Arab music interacted withTurkish music which hadalready absorbed musicalelements from Central Asia,

Anatolia, Persia, medieval

Islamic Syria and Iraqaninteraction concentrated inlarge cities such as Aleppo,Damascus, Baghdad, andCairo. Rural communitiessuch as areas inhabited by the

North African Berbers (andSyrian Bedouins) maintained afair degree of continuity andstability.


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THE OTTOMAN PERIOD

Musical results Introduced the samai (orTurkish saz semai) and thebashraf (or Turkish pesrev),instrumental genres used inTurkish court and religious Sufi

music, before the late 19th

century

Instrumental and possiblyvocal and dance forms weretransmitted partly through theMevlevis, a mystical order

established in Konya, Turkey(13th century)


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CONTACTWITH THE

MODERN WEST Results of

Westernization (1798-

1801) following the

Napoleonic conquestof Egypt

The military band

imported by

Muhammad Ali (19th

century) Establishment of

military schools

which used Western

instruments andmusical notations


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CONTACTWITH THE

MODERN WESTResult of Westernization (1798-

1801) following theNapoleonic conquest of Egypt

Building of the Cairo OperaHouse by Khedive Ismail(reigned 1863-1876) on theoccasion of the opening of theSuez Canal

Inaugural performance at theOpera House (November1869) was of Guiseppe VerdisRigoletto

Notable subsequentperformance was Aida

(December 1871) by GuiseppeVerdi


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CONTACTWITH THE

MODERN WESTResult of Westernization (1798-

1801) following theNapoleonic conquest of Egypt

Increase in the role of Westerntheory, notation, instruments,and overall musical attitudes

Kamil al-KhulaI (Egyptian)mentions in his Kitab al-

Musiqa al-Sharqi (ca. 1904)the piano, accordion, mouthorgan

Shayk Sayyid Darwish(d.1923) composed a newtheatrical form, combining

comedy and vaudevilleArabized

Congress of Arab Music heldin Cairo (1932)


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SUMMARYOF

ARABIC MUSIC CHARACTERISTICS

Intimate connectionbetween music and the

Arabic language

The principal position ofmelody

Compound formspredominate

The traditional musicalcontent of Arab socialand religious life

The link between melodyand modality, aconceptual organizationalframework known asmaqam (pl. maqamat)

The use of metric modesand the modal treatmentof rhythm

The modern electronicmedia as a unifying

factor, for example in thespread of ughniyyah

Individuality in smallerareas and repertoires

North African Music 2

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