I think this series is going to be my introduction to understanding this world of music. Have long wanted to get my ears around the maqam system. Thanks so much for the videos!
Thank youuuuuuu for all your videos, you are the best teacher in the world. I am a Kurd from Duhok city but I speak Arabic fluently and I watched hundreds of music videos in Arabic language no one has your ability to simplify the Maqams. Many thanks for the memory techniques.
My sincere thanks for these lessons. I am practicing the kaval and got entranced by arabic music and its makam system, so your channel and lessons are of a great help.
Many thanks, this 22 minutes was a whole different experience for me , I do sing as a hobby, but I never realized what exactly I’m singing . I think your way of explaining and teaching makes me feel connected to sound more . Many thanks again .
Reading the amazing book you authored with Johnny Farraj, I am already hearing new things in familiar recordings. Inside Arabic Music is beautifully organized and written, and I expect to hear (and sing!) a lot more as I study it. These lessons are great for hearing and producing the proper intonation. I have waited a long time to study the music of my grandfather, having never before found a clear path. Thank you!
I've been repeating lesson 1 for maybe two months now. But the issue is that I don't know when it is the time that I should move to another one. Is it until I totally internalize each lesson and after that I can move to another one, or can I move between multiple of them at the same time even though I didn't memorize/internalize what is in each one of them completely ?
I like the way you are teaching here. I have recently decided to learn playing violin. I like Arabic violin style. Can you suggest which violin I should purchase to start learning. I am absolutely new to violin playing but I am a singer. I sing light Indian classical and old Italian. Many thanks
Getting loads from this lesson over the past two weeks. I can't seem to find the first qudud you mention around 15:50 in your Rast playlist you shared below. Not being able to read Arabic isn't helping but I did give each track a quick listen and still didn't not find it. Would you be able to provide a direct link?
There's one version of that song ("Sayyid il-asaari") halfway through track 9 in the Maqam Rast /Suznak/Kirdan playlist, and another version as track 11
The songs in here are Ghanilli ( shwaya, shwaaya )-and which others? We will be listening to these for the next two weeks ( at least!). Making playlist.
Hi Sami, thanks you so much for this amazing videos... I would like to ask about the qudud in rast that you play from 15:55 , its beautiful. I want to listen to it.. what is the name of the two qudud exactly? do you have a link to this songs in youtube? Thanks you so much!!!! Have a great day! Myriam
Thanks for your lessons, they are great. I read on other sites that Jins Rast was composed on only 4 notes (intervals : 1, 3/4, 3/4), here it's 5 notes. I'm confused, is there something that can explain this difference?
If you want a detailed explanation you can read either my book Inside Arabic Music, or my article "Maqam Analysis: A Primer" which you can find on my website maqamlessons.com The short answer is what I explain in the video itself- the melodic behavior of Jins Rast leans toward its 5th scale degree as a note of emphasis as well as a note of modulation - what we call thr "ghammaz." So since that 5th scale degree is essential to the melodies of Rast, it makes no sense for it to be considered "outside" of the jins. I am basing all of my analyses on the melodic behavior I have seen in the repertory, rather than abstract theoretical categories. In the past, Arab theorists followed ancient greek tetrachord theory too closely and simply called every jins a tetrachord (4 notes) unless it couldn't fit there, like Nikriz. Whereas my approach is to define the size of the jins as between the tonic and the ghammaz.
Salam, Ya Ustad Abu Shumays It's indeed a pleasure connecting with you. I am an Indian classical musician, an ardent admirer of traditional Arabic music and have even studied a bit of Darbuka. I find your videos extremely educative and discovering similarities between Maqamat and Indian Ragas is fascinating. I just had a couple of questions for you and I'll be grateful if you could please enlighten me with some insight. -In Indian Raga music, we have a fixed, pre-determined scale that defines each Raga and is set to a tonic. This scale has a selection of fixed ascending and descending notes which do not change although the tonic could be set to just any key depending on the singer / instrumentalist's pitch. In Maqam music on the other hand, as I understand, there is a principle Jins that goes from the tonic to the ghammaz, that is suggestive of a certain maqam family, and then a selection of other ajnas starting from the ghammaz or other degrees determine what maqam it should be called. Would this be a correct observation? -Is there any set rule that a particular maqam should begin from / be set to only a particular note, like C, B flat, G etc? Or can any of the 12 notes become the tonic for any maqam? -Do the other ajnas in a maqam other than the main jins, have to begin from the ghammaz only or can a certain jins in a particular maqam begin from another degree, like say, the fourth or the sixth? Also, if say, the second jins in a maqam begins from the ghammaz, would the ghammaz then be considered the tonic for that particular jins? -Are there fixed Ajnas combinations that make up a basic maqam form? -Lastly, do you originally hail from Syria? My Darbuka teacher was from Haleb. Looking forward to your responses insha Allah. Thanks again for all your support to Maqam lovers and your efforts to preserve these great old traditions. My very best wishes
1. Your observation comparing maqam to raga is correct. 2. A maqam can start at any note of the scale, usually based on the range of the singer and the capabilities of instruments. There are typical keys that are used, and other keys that tend to be difficult or impossible for certain instruments, but sometimes instruments retune to accommodate singers. If you listen to recordings, you'll hear all different keys used. 3. Other ajnas in a maqam may begin from notes other than the ghammaz, but the ghammaz is the most common place for that to happen. 4. There are a limited number of ajnas that are typical for a given maqam. Some maqamat have more options than others. For a complete description of the ajnas associated with each maqam, see chapter 24 of my book Inside Arabic Music - although I will be eventually covering all of them in this youtube series. In general, the lessons for each maqam for this series cover all the typical ajnas for that maqam. 5. I am Palestinian-American, but I studied music in Egypt and Syria.
Shukran jazeelan ya Ustadh, your responses are truly enlightening as are, your detailed and educative videos. I feel greatly enriched in my understanding of Arabic music which I love passionately.
Thank you for the nice video. Will this help me in improvising a taqsim on the oud? I think at the very least it will help in knowing what to listen for in a taqsim.
Your approach is easy to follow for a novice like me. Thanks a lot! I was wondering if the short phrases that you play throughout the video are notated anywhere. They sound like great building blocks to build solos. Is there a "canonical" set of such phrases?
Thanks so much Karim! You are absolutely on the right track in seeing that these phrases are the building blocks of solos. They are canonical in the way that the words "the words of english" are canonical words but "bla frabgon jajajaja" are not canonical words of English (though they can be made and pronounced using English letters). They are canonical not because I tell you so but because they are SHARED phrases by all experienced musicians in the tradition. They are vocabulary, plain and simple. That being said, the absolute worst thing you could do is either 1. Start to look for them in written form or 2. Write them down yourself. If you do that you will not learn them in the correct way for them to stick in memory and you won't get the feel right. The best thing is to learn them by ear as a child learns words, gradually accumulating and changing your brain and memory as you go along.
And, not just from me. Once you start to learn these phrases from me you will start to recognize them and parse them in the solos of other musicians. That cross-referencing is the best way to build vocabulary. The most common (canonical) of them will automatically rise to the top based on your repeated hearing. But I'm doing my best in these lessons to present the most common, canonical vocabulary.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, and I do appreciate your effort. To be honest, coming from the jazz and western popular music traditions, I find it hard to believe that the best way to learn these phrases is by raw memorization, without the help of a written support. Such "licks" do exist in jazz, for example, and are indeed written down - not meant to be played verbatim, because each player adds their own subtle variations - and one eventually learns to make these licks one's own. Is there a loss of "authenticity" because of that? This would make for a good debate. In any case, thanks again and I will be following your videos with great interest.
Thanks for taking the time to reply again Karim. I say this for you and for all the other musicians out there: I know from personal experience. I was a western trained musician, piano and violin as a child, music theory and composition in college. My first 2-3 years of studying Arabic music was by notation, and growing up in the states, I found it impossible to get the "feel." It was only after I went cold turkey and gave up notation entirely, that I progressed as a musician. Suddenly everything came more easily, after the first hurdle of learning how to learn quickly by ear. In the last two decades I've seen the same among my students and those I work with: those who use notation in any way shape or form are always behind those who don't, in skills, in feeling, in sensibility, in accuracy in intonation, in idiomaticness of ornamentation. So my conclusion is that notation is a crutch, and the sooner the musicians out there want to learn to walk and then run in this music, the sooner you all should give up the idea that notation will help you IN ANY WAY. A word about classical and Jazz pedagogy. First of all, Jazz musicians in the early 20th century did NOT rely on notated crips for learning to improvise, they did it exactly as I suggest here - learning by absorption and by ear. Jazz pedagogy was unfortunately influenced by the inferiority complex imposed by European colonialism, just as Arabic pedagogy was (both in the Arab World and in the west). And frankly anyone with ears can hear the difference in jazz musicians who primarily learned to improvise by ear and those who rely on notes. Imagine a language pedagogy where small children were taught to read before they could speak and had to learn all their speaking from the written word. Nobody would be able to talk any more. The brain just doesn't work that way. Notation puts an obstacle - an extra step - between the hearing and the repeating. That results in both unconscious mental blocks as well as a significant loss of fidelity.
There's a whole world of ideas in your reply! Thank you, I'm convinced and I will keep practicing by ear (and sight) instead of notation for the time being. All the best!
Thank you Sami Very helpful Is there a website or a place that I can get Arabic songs transliterated to English so that I can learn to sing them with proper pronunciation?
Thank you Sami so much! Quick question, in the Um Kulthum Ghannili song I'm hearing her singing something flatter than the E of rast.. maybe Eb or even flatter When you sing it I perfectly hear the E of rast, but when she sings it it does sound flatter to me.. Any thoughts? maybe it's the recording, or my not so used to these notes ears.. or something else perhaps? maybe it's another jins? (right there at the "n" of Ghannili)
Maybe it depends on the music you've been listening to. There is a range of E half flats, and the one used in Syria tends to be higher than that in Egypt. In Ghannili it's lower than, for example, Ya Maal ish-shaam. But frankly I use the ghannili recordings by Umm Kulthum as a definitive representation of mid-20th century Egyptian Rast - so I'd suggest you just keep listening and singing along! Actually the note got a little lower in late 20th century Egypt - but still distinctively higher than the Nahawand 3rd. So the more copying you do the more those distinctions will be come clear to you. Good luck!
Greetings again Ya Ustadh I had a small question that could help a lot of lovers of Arabic music from other, non-Arab countries. When we say 'classical Arabic Music' what exactly would that category include? Which forms would it cover under its wing? In my little understanding, while Mohamed Abdo of Saudi and Awad Dokhi of Kuwait were Sha'abi masters and rendered popular and / or folkloric Gulf music, Umm al Kulthum, Laila Mourad, Abdel Wahab, Sabah Fakhri and Faiza Ahmed were into the more elaborate and ornamented styles one would deem 'classical'. Would I be on the right track? Also, is 'Iraqi Maqam' a different branch altogether? I believe there is also a Maqam Al Iraq in Arabic repertoire? And lastly, would the Maqamat of the Maghreb region differ from those of the Bilaad Sham and Khaleej? Thanks again and my best wishes K
I don't like the term classical for this music, it's not a particularly useful classification and is based on a false analogy between Western and Arabic music. Plus it's classist. Regional and genre distinctions are useful, however. Umm Kulthum, Layla Murad, Abdel Wahab, and Faiza Ahmad are all Egyptian singers, who sang both Tarab as well as film repertory. Sabah Fakhri was a singer of the Aleppan tradition of muwashshahat and qudud. All of the genres from Egypt and Syria are covered in our book Inside Arabic Music, where we also elaborate more on the questions you ask here. Broadly speaking, the Iraqi tradition, the Gulf traditions, and the North African traditions are three major regional traditions that differ both from each other as well as from the Sharqi tradition (which encompasses the Egyptian and Syrian and Levantine traditions). It's the Sharqi Tradition that I myself practice, so the maqamat and the repertory that I present in these lessons come from that tradition. The fact that this tradition has become the most well-known outside of the Arab world has in part to do with political and media dominance, as well as with the popularity of Belly dance. In any case, within these 4 broad regional distinctions there are a myriad of local distinctions, flavors, repertory, and the distinction between urban and rural practices and repertories is particularly salient. There are lots of great books discussing these regional traditions and distinctions, but as I said my book (co-authored with Johnny Farraj) extensively discussed the urban traditions of Egypt and Syria a.k.a. "Sharqi" music.
@@abushumays Your first statement is really thought-provoking and eases my burden of identifying 'classical' streams from 'non-classical' ones to a great extent. In India we differentiate 'pure classical' from 'light classical' and 'semi classical' and all these styles are truly very distinct. Besides,I must mention that you are an amazing teacher and your style of explanation is deeply absorbing, patient, pristine and crystal clear! I had a Darbuka teacher from Aleppo who would play 'Maqam Al Iraq' (not Iraqi Maqam) on his Oud. He said it is among the many Maqamat. Under which of the 9 main Ajnas does it fall? Are, is Sikah and Huzam similar? Below is a link to the Qur'an recitation of Sheikh Al Hudhaifi from Madeena Al Munawwarah. I find his recitation to be very powerful and comforting. But I also wonder what Maqam he employs for his recitation which has followed the same style and melody through the decades. Other imams like Sudais, Afasy, Mu'aiqali to name a few, evidently employ Rast, Sabah, Kurd, Ajam and Bayati. But this one seems simple and a bit out of the Maqam fold, but I maybe wrong: th-cam.com/video/EnvH4lMgeiw/w-d-xo.html Thanks and my very best wishes!
@@KR-ls8ug the recording you shared of Sheikh al Hudhaifi is entirely in Jins Rast. It's not out of the maqam fold, it's just that it doesn't do any modulations outside of the Jins, and a lot of reciters prefer to go more broadly through maqam. Maqam Iraq is a Maqam of the Sikah family where Jins Bayati is the most prominent jins on the third scale degree, rather than Jins Hijaz, which is most prominent in Maqam Huzam. Maqam Sikah emphasizes Jins Rast on the 6th scale degree. Those are the theoretical differences (according to the old theory) but in actual practice all three of those ajnas occur frequently in nearly all songs and improvisation in Maqam Huzam/Sikah/Rahat il-Arwah/Iraq. So making a clear distinction among those maqamat is more complex. I'll be getting into that in my 4th unit of maqam lessons, where I go over maqamat of the Sikah family. Starting with lesson 29 or 30
@@abushumays Many thanks for your reply Ya Ustadh, shukran jazeelan. I am intrigued to learn that Sheikh Hudhaifi's recitation is in Jins Rast. His ascending and descending could have hardly got my guessing about that possibility. Plus, his lower 7th degree below the tonic is half flat as compared to many Rast interpretations ( especially in the Ayahs 'Maaliki Yawmi-d-deen' and 'siraatallazeena' in Al Fatiha) and his 3rd degree above the tonic seems to be a natural rather than half quarter flat. It's a powerful qira'ah indeed! Can we say that the Maqamat you speak about are only confined to the Levant while Iraq, the Maghreb and the Gulf have a completely different or near-to different set of Anjas and Maqamat with different names? I have interacted with Tunisian musicians who play Hijaz as 'Zankoule'. When we say Umm Al Kulthum and Laila Mourad sang 'Tarab', is that the name for the genre or 'Tarab' as in musical ecstasy, or ' an elaborate style embodying or causing musical ecstasy' ? Persians usually use the term 'Art Music' for this type of music which includes Persian Dastgah and Indian Raga etc. Looking forward to your Sikah lessons! Once again, ana mashkoor ya Ustadh Baarak Allahu feeka!
@@KR-ls8ug first of all, the half-flat 7th scale degree under the tonic is the typical tuning for Jins Rast - I even use it in this lesson we're commenting on. And I heard the third scale degree as being a half-flat note, but it might be a little high. Rast definitely has regional variation to the point of getting *almost* but not quite to the major third.
Hi Osama, this lesson teaches the melodies that beginners can use to improvise in the maqams. The way to improvise is to learn the melodies of the maqam, and develop a feeling for how they go from one to another.
@@stayinyourlanepls I don't recite Qur'an myself - at least not publicly - but on my own in private, I have copied many melodic phrases from reciters like Mohamed Rifaat, Mustafa Ismail, Taha al-Fashni, etc. as one of my ways of learning maqam. The melodies are the same ones that Mohamed Abdel-Wahhab or Salih Abdel-Hayy use when they are singing Layali and mawawil.
@Amazigh 1 Yes, I originally learned music by notation - Western music. When I first began to learn Arabic music 24 years ago, I struggled to get the sound right, because I was also learning Arabic music through notation. It was only when I finally gave up on using notation, and began to learn Arabic music by ear, that I finally began to understand the music and get the sound right. It is only when I began to learn the melodic vocabulary by ear - in exactly the way I teach here, from masters in Cairo and Aleppo - that I began to be able to improvise and play in tune. Since that time, I've taught hundreds of students and classes, worked with many musicians, here in the U.S. One thing has been consistent in my observation: the students and musicians who learn from notation are incapable of sounding correct, and those who learn by ear end up as far better musicians. So I teach based on my experience of both notation and learning by ear. And that personal experience, as both a student and a teacher, is that the use of notation is the single biggest obstacle to anyone wishing to learn maqam and Arabic music. So if you wish to follow that path of learning through notation - which I believe to be incorrect and ill advised - you won't find it on my channel. If, on the other hand, you wish to broaden your horizons, give up your crutches, and learn to walk and then run, then keep watching my videos and learn how to learn music by ear. Good luck to you either way.
Do you recommend one to practice a particular jins for some time before moving on to the next lesson? Or is it okay to listen and practice more at a time? Thanks for the lesson!
Either approach will work - I recommend doing what you feel most compelled by. The important thing is to do each lesson more than once. I find in my own learning of maqam that I constantly go back to things I studied previously in order to deepen them and in order to deepen the connections. If I were advising you on what I think could be most effective, it would be: study all of the ajnas in a particular maqam. Then study the maqam. Then go back to the ajnas in that maqam. Then go back to the maqam. Then the interrelationships among them will become instinctual for you, which is the goal. But more important than pursuing it in any particular direction, is following your attraction and interest, so that you are drawn in by your emotions and your subconscious, and that will make your memory of each maqam or jins deeper and stronger.
It depends on the region, the time period, and the musician. I know about 25 well and another 10 ok; those are all the maqamat we documented as existing in 20th century repertory from Egypt and Syria, and included in the book Inside Arabic Music and on the website www.maqamworld.com. I hope to document all of them in this series by the time I finish. However, about 10-12 maqamat account for probably 95% of the repertory, while the other 20+ maqamat are much more rare and account for about 5% of the repertory. The Iraqi Maqam is a related but different tradition, and it includes 55 Maqamat, but only one person alive (Hamid al-Saadi) knows all 55. North Africa and the Arab Gulf have many of the same maqamat, but other different ones, but I don't know those traditions well enough to speak about them. The Turkish tradition probably has between 30-50 makams in active use, but more available theoretically. Some of them are the same as the Arab maqamat and some are different. The Iranian maqam system, known as Dastgah, has 12 officially... but there may be more in regional folk traditions.
Can you do a series like this for cello? I have wanted to play in this style for such along time and find it frustrating because there is only so much I can gather from listening alone.
Hi Dylan, thanks so much for watching and commenting! You're absolutely right that there's only so much you can get from listening along - you can get much more if you actually sing along actively, and then try to imitate the same phrases on your cello, just like I'm doing with my violin. I personally have learned a huge percentage of my violin skills by imitating the voice, the oud, the qanun, the nay with my violin. You can learn from anything that provides melody. Good luck!
even though music should be taught using ear but l think there is need to teach the Arabic Maqamat just like arab youtubers do , step by step teaching the notations of all maqamat , for instance BAYATI from note D3 until back to D4 I DON`T MEAN TO OFFEND ANYONE BUT IS JUST A SUGGESTION SINCE MOST ARABIC VIOLINISTS SUCH AS ANWAR HARIR TEACH ARABIC MAQAMS USING ARABIC LANGUAGE WHICH MOST PEOPLE OUT OF MIDDLE EAST DON`T KNOW THE ARABIC LANGUAGE
We all have different ways of teaching; I try not to teach exactly the way others do, so that people have the opportunity to learn from different perspectives. As a student, I learned from different teachers in different ways, and I found that I benefitted a lot from that. Good luck with your studies!
![Layth Sidiq Explains the Basics of Maqam [Highlight]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RxQdVxTSO3Y/mqdefault.jpg)
This is how all music should be taught. Ear training with melody.
Thank you so much! I couldn't agree more (obviously lol). Check out Lesson #12 as well to get deeper into my perspective on this
I think this series is going to be my introduction to understanding this world of music. Have long wanted to get my ears around the maqam system. Thanks so much for the videos!
Thank you and enjoy!
Thank youuuuuuu for all your videos, you are the best teacher in the world.
I am a Kurd from Duhok city but I speak Arabic fluently and I watched hundreds of music videos in Arabic language no one has your ability to simplify the Maqams.
Many thanks for the memory techniques.
My sincere thanks for these lessons. I am practicing the kaval and got entranced by arabic music and its makam system, so your channel and lessons are of a great help.
I'm introducing myself to makam music with these amazing lessons. Thank you very much for your brilliant work and generosity!
Many thanks, this 22 minutes was a whole different experience for me , I do sing as a hobby, but I never realized what exactly I’m singing . I think your way of explaining and teaching makes me feel connected to sound more . Many thanks again .
Thanks!
Wow !!! Thank you for this !!!!!!!! Love from Israel
Amazing pedagogy, thank you for sharing this valuable information.
Reading the amazing book you authored with Johnny Farraj, I am already hearing new things in familiar recordings. Inside Arabic Music is beautifully organized and written, and I expect to hear (and sing!) a lot more as I study it. These lessons are great for hearing and producing the proper intonation. I have waited a long time to study the music of my grandfather, having never before found a clear path. Thank you!
First day of learning Arabic singing method, Wish me good luck 🙏🏻❤️
these videos are such an incredible resource. thank you so much.
Thank you so much sir, you are indeed a gem for teaching the various Jins of Maqam
Maqam! Gonna get that third into my brain! The singing is a key element, I think!
I cant believe I just found instruction for playing jins and ajnas. I’m excited about this.
Thank you So much for these series! I enjoy them so much and Grateful you are still making them!
Thank you so much Sami for making this series!!!
Thank you for watching!
Wow thank you so much for making this series! This video format is fantastic for learning all the subtleties of the melodic vocabulary.
Love from Brazil 😊
These classes are amazing, how did I live before finding this. It's like learning to speak again for the first time.
Thank you so much for your kind words!
Excelente tutorial maestro! saludos desde Ecuador
Love from Indonesia ❤️
Susbcribed! And going to get your book! Amazing work thank you! Greetings and love from Morocco
Just bought the book! Can't wait to start it!
Nice Sami. Great work. I’m gleaning some good pedagogical approaches for my students too. much appreciated
Love from Arizona 🌵❤️
OOOH this is wonderful! thank you!
I've been repeating lesson 1 for maybe two months now. But the issue is that I don't know when it is the time that I should move to another one. Is it until I totally internalize each lesson and after that I can move to another one, or can I move between multiple of them at the same time even though I didn't memorize/internalize what is in each one of them completely ?
I am using the same approach as you - repeating the same lesson a lot of times. I decided not to move on until I master the first lesson.
Thank you so much, this is so helpful
Thanks for checking it out!
THIS IS FANTASTIC!
Thank you!
Thank you very much! What are the names of the songs in the repertory part?
Magnifique, bravo,
Hello!
How you tune the violin ?
cello must be tuned the same way if you play maqam right?
I like the way you are teaching here. I have recently decided to learn playing violin. I like Arabic violin style. Can you suggest which violin I should purchase to start learning. I am absolutely new to violin playing but I am a singer. I sing light Indian classical and old Italian. Many thanks
Any violin will do!
Thank you so much mr sami, what an amazing lesson
Thanks for watching!
Can I still do it on viola
Getting loads from this lesson over the past two weeks. I can't seem to find the first qudud you mention around 15:50 in your Rast playlist you shared below. Not being able to read Arabic isn't helping but I did give each track a quick listen and still didn't not find it. Would you be able to provide a direct link?
There's one version of that song ("Sayyid il-asaari") halfway through track 9 in the Maqam Rast /Suznak/Kirdan playlist, and another version as track 11
I am so excited to take these classes! Thank you already for posting
Thank you for trying them! 🙂
Thank you so much for this.
The songs in here are Ghanilli ( shwaya, shwaaya )-and which others? We will be listening to these for the next two weeks ( at least!). Making playlist.
Sorry I didn't catch this comment previously but I've created a Maqam Rast Playlist on my channel. Check it out
Hi Sami, thanks you so much for this amazing videos...
I would like to ask about the qudud in rast that you play from 15:55 , its beautiful. I want to listen to it.. what is the name of the two qudud exactly? do you have a link to this songs in youtube?
Thanks you so much!!!! Have a great day!
Myriam
I just made this playlist. The qudud are included: th-cam.com/play/PLcfDkfaWrWRT9vjbdBK8XQ_hMfY9h-m-q.html
Great work, Sami!
Thank you!!!
Thanks for your lessons, they are great. I read on other sites that Jins Rast was composed on only 4 notes (intervals : 1, 3/4, 3/4), here it's 5 notes. I'm confused, is there something that can explain this difference?
If you want a detailed explanation you can read either my book Inside Arabic Music, or my article "Maqam Analysis: A Primer" which you can find on my website maqamlessons.com
The short answer is what I explain in the video itself- the melodic behavior of Jins Rast leans toward its 5th scale degree as a note of emphasis as well as a note of modulation - what we call thr "ghammaz." So since that 5th scale degree is essential to the melodies of Rast, it makes no sense for it to be considered "outside" of the jins.
I am basing all of my analyses on the melodic behavior I have seen in the repertory, rather than abstract theoretical categories. In the past, Arab theorists followed ancient greek tetrachord theory too closely and simply called every jins a tetrachord (4 notes) unless it couldn't fit there, like Nikriz. Whereas my approach is to define the size of the jins as between the tonic and the ghammaz.
you are incredible.
Salam, Ya Ustad Abu Shumays
It's indeed a pleasure connecting with you. I am an Indian classical musician, an ardent admirer of traditional Arabic music and have even studied a bit of Darbuka. I find your videos extremely educative and discovering similarities between Maqamat and Indian Ragas is fascinating. I just had a couple of questions for you and I'll be grateful if you could please enlighten me with some insight.
-In Indian Raga music, we have a fixed, pre-determined scale that defines each Raga and is set to a tonic. This scale has a selection of fixed ascending and descending notes which do not change although the tonic could be set to just any key depending on the singer / instrumentalist's pitch. In Maqam music on the other hand, as I understand, there is a principle Jins that goes from the tonic to the ghammaz, that is suggestive of a certain maqam family, and then a selection of other ajnas starting from the ghammaz or other degrees determine what maqam it should be called. Would this be a correct observation?
-Is there any set rule that a particular maqam should begin from / be set to only a particular note, like C, B flat, G etc? Or can any of the 12 notes become the tonic for any maqam?
-Do the other ajnas in a maqam other than the main jins, have to begin from the ghammaz only or can a certain jins in a particular maqam begin from another degree, like say, the fourth or the sixth? Also, if say, the second jins in a maqam begins from the ghammaz, would the ghammaz then be considered the tonic for that particular jins?
-Are there fixed Ajnas combinations that make up a basic maqam form?
-Lastly, do you originally hail from Syria? My Darbuka teacher was from Haleb.
Looking forward to your responses insha Allah. Thanks again for all your support to Maqam lovers and your efforts to preserve these great old traditions.
My very best wishes
1. Your observation comparing maqam to raga is correct.
2. A maqam can start at any note of the scale, usually based on the range of the singer and the capabilities of instruments. There are typical keys that are used, and other keys that tend to be difficult or impossible for certain instruments, but sometimes instruments retune to accommodate singers. If you listen to recordings, you'll hear all different keys used.
3. Other ajnas in a maqam may begin from notes other than the ghammaz, but the ghammaz is the most common place for that to happen.
4. There are a limited number of ajnas that are typical for a given maqam. Some maqamat have more options than others. For a complete description of the ajnas associated with each maqam, see chapter 24 of my book Inside Arabic Music - although I will be eventually covering all of them in this youtube series. In general, the lessons for each maqam for this series cover all the typical ajnas for that maqam.
5. I am Palestinian-American, but I studied music in Egypt and Syria.
Shukran jazeelan ya Ustadh, your responses are truly enlightening as are, your detailed and educative videos. I feel greatly enriched in my understanding of Arabic music which I love passionately.
Thanks!
Thanks for doing it!
Thank you for the nice video. Will this help me in improvising a taqsim on the oud? I think at the very least it will help in knowing what to listen for in a taqsim.
Your approach is easy to follow for a novice like me. Thanks a lot! I was wondering if the short phrases that you play throughout the video are notated anywhere. They sound like great building blocks to build solos. Is there a "canonical" set of such phrases?
Thanks so much Karim! You are absolutely on the right track in seeing that these phrases are the building blocks of solos. They are canonical in the way that the words "the words of english" are canonical words but "bla frabgon jajajaja" are not canonical words of English (though they can be made and pronounced using English letters). They are canonical not because I tell you so but because they are SHARED phrases by all experienced musicians in the tradition. They are vocabulary, plain and simple.
That being said, the absolute worst thing you could do is either 1. Start to look for them in written form or 2. Write them down yourself. If you do that you will not learn them in the correct way for them to stick in memory and you won't get the feel right. The best thing is to learn them by ear as a child learns words, gradually accumulating and changing your brain and memory as you go along.
And, not just from me. Once you start to learn these phrases from me you will start to recognize them and parse them in the solos of other musicians. That cross-referencing is the best way to build vocabulary. The most common (canonical) of them will automatically rise to the top based on your repeated hearing.
But I'm doing my best in these lessons to present the most common, canonical vocabulary.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, and I do appreciate your effort. To be honest, coming from the jazz and western popular music traditions, I find it hard to believe that the best way to learn these phrases is by raw memorization, without the help of a written support. Such "licks" do exist in jazz, for example, and are indeed written down - not meant to be played verbatim, because each player adds their own subtle variations - and one eventually learns to make these licks one's own. Is there a loss of "authenticity" because of that? This would make for a good debate. In any case, thanks again and I will be following your videos with great interest.
Thanks for taking the time to reply again Karim. I say this for you and for all the other musicians out there: I know from personal experience. I was a western trained musician, piano and violin as a child, music theory and composition in college. My first 2-3 years of studying Arabic music was by notation, and growing up in the states, I found it impossible to get the "feel." It was only after I went cold turkey and gave up notation entirely, that I progressed as a musician. Suddenly everything came more easily, after the first hurdle of learning how to learn quickly by ear. In the last two decades I've seen the same among my students and those I work with: those who use notation in any way shape or form are always behind those who don't, in skills, in feeling, in sensibility, in accuracy in intonation, in idiomaticness of ornamentation.
So my conclusion is that notation is a crutch, and the sooner the musicians out there want to learn to walk and then run in this music, the sooner you all should give up the idea that notation will help you IN ANY WAY.
A word about classical and Jazz pedagogy. First of all, Jazz musicians in the early 20th century did NOT rely on notated crips for learning to improvise, they did it exactly as I suggest here - learning by absorption and by ear.
Jazz pedagogy was unfortunately influenced by the inferiority complex imposed by European colonialism, just as Arabic pedagogy was (both in the Arab World and in the west). And frankly anyone with ears can hear the difference in jazz musicians who primarily learned to improvise by ear and those who rely on notes.
Imagine a language pedagogy where small children were taught to read before they could speak and had to learn all their speaking from the written word. Nobody would be able to talk any more.
The brain just doesn't work that way. Notation puts an obstacle - an extra step - between the hearing and the repeating. That results in both unconscious mental blocks as well as a significant loss of fidelity.
There's a whole world of ideas in your reply! Thank you, I'm convinced and I will keep practicing by ear (and sight) instead of notation for the time being. All the best!
Do you use traditional Arabic or western tuning?
Omg, I needed it so much!
Amazing. I love it.
Thank you!
Thank you Sami
Very helpful
Is there a website or a place that I can get Arabic songs transliterated to English so that I can learn to sing them with proper pronunciation?
Amazing. Keep it coming Sami
Thank you so much!
Thank you Sami so much!
Quick question, in the Um Kulthum Ghannili song I'm hearing her singing something flatter than the E of rast.. maybe Eb or even flatter
When you sing it I perfectly hear the E of rast, but when she sings it it does sound flatter to me..
Any thoughts? maybe it's the recording, or my not so used to these notes ears.. or something else perhaps? maybe it's another jins?
(right there at the "n" of Ghannili)
Maybe it depends on the music you've been listening to. There is a range of E half flats, and the one used in Syria tends to be higher than that in Egypt. In Ghannili it's lower than, for example, Ya Maal ish-shaam. But frankly I use the ghannili recordings by Umm Kulthum as a definitive representation of mid-20th century Egyptian Rast - so I'd suggest you just keep listening and singing along! Actually the note got a little lower in late 20th century Egypt - but still distinctively higher than the Nahawand 3rd. So the more copying you do the more those distinctions will be come clear to you. Good luck!
Sir this is a viola or a violin ? How I can tune it? Thank you for the video
It's a violin, tuned G D G C
@@abushumays this is interesting because the sound that emits is Arabian and beautiful or it has something special?
@@abushumays it is G3 D3 G4 G5?
@@abushumays Excuse me how I can tune my violín without breaking the strings?
@@giovanniluisbarrantesl9563 as i mentioned in the other comment the bottom two (G and D) are same as western tuning. It is G3 D4 G4 C5
This was the best! Great lesson.
Thank you so much!
Thanks
Great job Sami. 👏
Thank you so much Nikolai!!!
Thank you 😊
Thank you!
Hi is there any notes we can get for the maqams?
Love from Mozambique. Is the violin in the Mi, Re, La, Sol tuning?
I tune G D G C (sol re sol do) but most arab violinists tune G D G D (sol re sol re)
@@abushumays Sorry is G4 D4 G4 C5 octaves?
@@giovanniluisbarrantesl9563 the bottom two strings are the same as western tuning. It's G3 D4 G4 C5
Brasil :) shukraan
Greetings again Ya Ustadh
I had a small question that could help a lot of lovers of Arabic music from other, non-Arab countries. When we say 'classical Arabic Music' what exactly would that category include? Which forms would it cover under its wing?
In my little understanding, while Mohamed Abdo of Saudi and Awad Dokhi of Kuwait were Sha'abi masters and rendered popular and / or folkloric Gulf music, Umm al Kulthum, Laila Mourad, Abdel Wahab, Sabah Fakhri and Faiza Ahmed were into the more elaborate and ornamented styles one would deem 'classical'. Would I be on the right track?
Also, is 'Iraqi Maqam' a different branch altogether? I believe there is also a Maqam Al Iraq in Arabic repertoire?
And lastly, would the Maqamat of the Maghreb region differ from those of the Bilaad Sham and Khaleej?
Thanks again and my best wishes
K
I don't like the term classical for this music, it's not a particularly useful classification and is based on a false analogy between Western and Arabic music. Plus it's classist.
Regional and genre distinctions are useful, however. Umm Kulthum, Layla Murad, Abdel Wahab, and Faiza Ahmad are all Egyptian singers, who sang both Tarab as well as film repertory. Sabah Fakhri was a singer of the Aleppan tradition of muwashshahat and qudud.
All of the genres from Egypt and Syria are covered in our book Inside Arabic Music, where we also elaborate more on the questions you ask here.
Broadly speaking, the Iraqi tradition, the Gulf traditions, and the North African traditions are three major regional traditions that differ both from each other as well as from the Sharqi tradition (which encompasses the Egyptian and Syrian and Levantine traditions). It's the Sharqi Tradition that I myself practice, so the maqamat and the repertory that I present in these lessons come from that tradition. The fact that this tradition has become the most well-known outside of the Arab world has in part to do with political and media dominance, as well as with the popularity of Belly dance.
In any case, within these 4 broad regional distinctions there are a myriad of local distinctions, flavors, repertory, and the distinction between urban and rural practices and repertories is particularly salient. There are lots of great books discussing these regional traditions and distinctions, but as I said my book (co-authored with Johnny Farraj) extensively discussed the urban traditions of Egypt and Syria a.k.a. "Sharqi" music.
@@abushumays Your first statement is really thought-provoking and eases my burden of identifying 'classical' streams from 'non-classical' ones to a great extent. In India we differentiate 'pure classical' from 'light classical' and 'semi classical' and all these styles are truly very distinct. Besides,I must mention that you are an amazing teacher and your style of explanation is deeply absorbing, patient, pristine and crystal clear!
I had a Darbuka teacher from Aleppo who would play 'Maqam Al Iraq' (not Iraqi Maqam) on his Oud. He said it is among the many Maqamat. Under which of the 9 main Ajnas does it fall? Are, is Sikah and Huzam similar?
Below is a link to the Qur'an recitation of Sheikh Al Hudhaifi from Madeena Al Munawwarah. I find his recitation to be very powerful and comforting. But I also wonder what Maqam he employs for his recitation which has followed the same style and melody through the decades. Other imams like Sudais, Afasy, Mu'aiqali to name a few, evidently employ Rast, Sabah, Kurd, Ajam and Bayati. But this one seems simple and a bit out of the Maqam fold, but I maybe wrong:
th-cam.com/video/EnvH4lMgeiw/w-d-xo.html
Thanks and my very best wishes!
@@KR-ls8ug the recording you shared of Sheikh al Hudhaifi is entirely in Jins Rast. It's not out of the maqam fold, it's just that it doesn't do any modulations outside of the Jins, and a lot of reciters prefer to go more broadly through maqam.
Maqam Iraq is a Maqam of the Sikah family where Jins Bayati is the most prominent jins on the third scale degree, rather than Jins Hijaz, which is most prominent in Maqam Huzam. Maqam Sikah emphasizes Jins Rast on the 6th scale degree. Those are the theoretical differences (according to the old theory) but in actual practice all three of those ajnas occur frequently in nearly all songs and improvisation in Maqam Huzam/Sikah/Rahat il-Arwah/Iraq. So making a clear distinction among those maqamat is more complex. I'll be getting into that in my 4th unit of maqam lessons, where I go over maqamat of the Sikah family. Starting with lesson 29 or 30
@@abushumays Many thanks for your reply Ya Ustadh, shukran jazeelan. I am intrigued to learn that Sheikh Hudhaifi's recitation is in Jins Rast. His ascending and descending could have hardly got my guessing about that possibility. Plus, his lower 7th degree below the tonic is half flat as compared to many Rast interpretations ( especially in the Ayahs 'Maaliki Yawmi-d-deen' and 'siraatallazeena' in Al Fatiha) and his 3rd degree above the tonic seems to be a natural rather than half quarter flat. It's a powerful qira'ah indeed!
Can we say that the Maqamat you speak about are only confined to the Levant while Iraq, the Maghreb and the Gulf have a completely different or near-to different set of Anjas and Maqamat with different names? I have interacted with Tunisian musicians who play Hijaz as 'Zankoule'.
When we say Umm Al Kulthum and Laila Mourad sang 'Tarab', is that the name for the genre or 'Tarab' as in musical ecstasy, or ' an elaborate style embodying or causing musical ecstasy' ? Persians usually use the term 'Art Music' for this type of music which includes Persian Dastgah and Indian Raga etc.
Looking forward to your Sikah lessons! Once again, ana mashkoor ya Ustadh Baarak Allahu feeka!
@@KR-ls8ug first of all, the half-flat 7th scale degree under the tonic is the typical tuning for Jins Rast - I even use it in this lesson we're commenting on. And I heard the third scale degree as being a half-flat note, but it might be a little high. Rast definitely has regional variation to the point of getting *almost* but not quite to the major third.
AS IN LET BEGINNERS ALSO LEARN HOW TO IMPROVISE ON THE MAQAMS
Hi Osama, this lesson teaches the melodies that beginners can use to improvise in the maqams. The way to improvise is to learn the melodies of the maqam, and develop a feeling for how they go from one to another.
Can this apply to Quran recitation
Yes it is the same melodies in these lessons that are used in qur'an
@@abushumays jazakallah brother have you personally used these when reciting Quran
@@stayinyourlanepls I don't recite Qur'an myself - at least not publicly - but on my own in private, I have copied many melodic phrases from reciters like Mohamed Rifaat, Mustafa Ismail, Taha al-Fashni, etc. as one of my ways of learning maqam. The melodies are the same ones that Mohamed Abdel-Wahhab or Salih Abdel-Hayy use when they are singing Layali and mawawil.
@@abushumays Jazakallah brother for you advice I listen to shahat Muhammad anwar as he was a master in maqamat
could you put it together in notes ?? Thank you .
The whole point is to avoid notation. Notation is an obstacle to learning - the point of these lessons is to learn by ear. Good luck!
@@abushumaysI dont agree .. I dont think u learnt by ear..I play violin and its best to have both ..
@Amazigh 1 Yes, I originally learned music by notation - Western music. When I first began to learn Arabic music 24 years ago, I struggled to get the sound right, because I was also learning Arabic music through notation. It was only when I finally gave up on using notation, and began to learn Arabic music by ear, that I finally began to understand the music and get the sound right.
It is only when I began to learn the melodic vocabulary by ear - in exactly the way I teach here, from masters in Cairo and Aleppo - that I began to be able to improvise and play in tune.
Since that time, I've taught hundreds of students and classes, worked with many musicians, here in the U.S. One thing has been consistent in my observation: the students and musicians who learn from notation are incapable of sounding correct, and those who learn by ear end up as far better musicians.
So I teach based on my experience of both notation and learning by ear. And that personal experience, as both a student and a teacher, is that the use of notation is the single biggest obstacle to anyone wishing to learn maqam and Arabic music.
So if you wish to follow that path of learning through notation - which I believe to be incorrect and ill advised - you won't find it on my channel.
If, on the other hand, you wish to broaden your horizons, give up your crutches, and learn to walk and then run, then keep watching my videos and learn how to learn music by ear.
Good luck to you either way.
Do you recommend one to practice a particular jins for some time before moving on to the next lesson? Or is it okay to listen and practice more at a time? Thanks for the lesson!
Either approach will work - I recommend doing what you feel most compelled by. The important thing is to do each lesson more than once. I find in my own learning of maqam that I constantly go back to things I studied previously in order to deepen them and in order to deepen the connections.
If I were advising you on what I think could be most effective, it would be: study all of the ajnas in a particular maqam. Then study the maqam. Then go back to the ajnas in that maqam. Then go back to the maqam. Then the interrelationships among them will become instinctual for you, which is the goal.
But more important than pursuing it in any particular direction, is following your attraction and interest, so that you are drawn in by your emotions and your subconscious, and that will make your memory of each maqam or jins deeper and stronger.
Cool this is nice to hear! Hope your well Sammi
Thanks man!
How many maqams are there all together?
It depends on the region, the time period, and the musician. I know about 25 well and another 10 ok; those are all the maqamat we documented as existing in 20th century repertory from Egypt and Syria, and included in the book Inside Arabic Music and on the website www.maqamworld.com. I hope to document all of them in this series by the time I finish.
However, about 10-12 maqamat account for probably 95% of the repertory, while the other 20+ maqamat are much more rare and account for about 5% of the repertory.
The Iraqi Maqam is a related but different tradition, and it includes 55 Maqamat, but only one person alive (Hamid al-Saadi) knows all 55.
North Africa and the Arab Gulf have many of the same maqamat, but other different ones, but I don't know those traditions well enough to speak about them. The Turkish tradition probably has between 30-50 makams in active use, but more available theoretically. Some of them are the same as the Arab maqamat and some are different. The Iranian maqam system, known as Dastgah, has 12 officially... but there may be more in regional folk traditions.
Very nice lesson thanks much.
If you can start the lesson with more actual song clips of Rast, that would have been great, to excite us.
I did more of that in the Jins Bayati lesson, thanks for asking!
Getting microtones with saxophone is a challenge but i'm slowly managing it. Thank you. 🦆
Amazing content! Thank you.
Thanks for checking it out!
Can you do a series like this for cello? I have wanted to play in this style for such along time and find it frustrating because there is only so much I can gather from listening alone.
Hi Dylan, thanks so much for watching and commenting! You're absolutely right that there's only so much you can get from listening along - you can get much more if you actually sing along actively, and then try to imitate the same phrases on your cello, just like I'm doing with my violin.
I personally have learned a huge percentage of my violin skills by imitating the voice, the oud, the qanun, the nay with my violin. You can learn from anything that provides melody. Good luck!
👟🔙💄💄💄
صيغة جيدة
even though music should be taught using ear but l think there is need to teach the Arabic Maqamat just like arab youtubers do , step by step teaching the notations of all maqamat , for instance BAYATI from note D3 until back to D4
I DON`T MEAN TO OFFEND ANYONE BUT IS JUST A SUGGESTION SINCE MOST ARABIC VIOLINISTS SUCH AS ANWAR HARIR TEACH ARABIC MAQAMS USING ARABIC LANGUAGE WHICH MOST PEOPLE OUT OF MIDDLE EAST DON`T KNOW THE ARABIC LANGUAGE
We all have different ways of teaching; I try not to teach exactly the way others do, so that people have the opportunity to learn from different perspectives. As a student, I learned from different teachers in different ways, and I found that I benefitted a lot from that. Good luck with your studies!
Indonesian like
Furchtbar dieses Musik
Sería maravilloso que los vídeos contarán con subtítulos en español para la comunidad hispanohablante
Puedes usar la opción subtítulos Althea.