Arabic Music and Its Development

An Overview
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Arabic music can, broadly speaking, be divided into two styles, which can be clearly
differentiated from one another: popular music, and so-called classical music. The
following article is a simple introduction to the basics of Arabic music.
In the ninth century Arabic music was already highly developed. At that time the Arabs
already had an extensive musical repertoire, a musical history recorded in writing, and
well-trained musicians and singers who stimulated the musical life of the courts.
In Arabic music the scale, like that in the West, consists of tones and semitones, but can
also move in quartertones. Whereas in European music the smallest interval is the
semitone, it is therefore possible in Arabic music to make far smaller tonal steps. This is
what characterises the typical sound of Arabic music: it repeatedly plays around the
notes in slight variations, without the musician losing sight of the keynote.
Two of the most important things all Arabic music has in common are a delight in
improvisation, and the predominance of melodic forms. A melody is usually sung by a
solo voice, which may also be accompanied by a choir. Polyphony, such as we are
accustomed to in Western orchestral music, does not exist in classical Arabic music.
The basis of Arabic music is the maqam or mode. The term maqam originally means
pedestal, step, or simply location. It was also used to designate a gathering in
which poems were recited; later, a musical gathering was also called a maqam. In
classical Arabic music theory, the maqam indicates the pitch of an Arabic scale,
comparable with the ancient ecclesiastical modes, or the two modes of flat and sharp in
European music, although the individual shifts in tone can, as mentioned above, be
smaller than a semitone. Arabic music, however, has more than ten different modes.
Furthermore, as a complete piece of music, what differentiates the maqam entirely from
its European counterparts is that the musician has complete freedom with regard to the
rhythm and the potential for introducing variations. This is hardly possible in European
music. Here a particular rhythm is prescribed, the melody for which can be modified
freely.
The maqamat
Many musicians and music theorists of the Arab world ascribe specific states of feeling
to particular maqamat. Thus, for example, mourning is often expressed by the maqamat
hijaz and saba. The mesmerising beauty of the beloved and all her charms are
usually dwelt on in the maqam bayati.
Arabic music does not measure itself in terms of technical perfection, but by the degree
of intensity and emotion in the tone, feeling, ornamentation, performance and singing.
The Western musician repeatedly practises a piece as it is written in the sheet music
until he is able to play and interpret it perfectly. The classical Arabic musician, on the
other hand, is only able to access the music through its soul and what it stimulates
within him. If he touches this soul, he surmounts all other difficulties. Here, then, a
great deal of personal initiative is required from the interpreter. He improvises, not
sticking to the basic form of the piece of music but varying it according to the time of

day or the occasion - for the same piece can sound quite different played at midday or at
night, as it is being performed in a completely different atmosphere.
This has far-reaching consequences. Classical European music was written down in
notes, which to this day is not the case for classical Arabic music, as the same maqam is
always improvised and performed in a different way.
One of the most important classical music forms in the east of the Arab world is the
waslat. It consists of a series of compositions and improvised instrumental and vocal
pieces, which are all played in one and the same maqam series. The waslat always
begins with an instrumental piece, which may be a sama'i or a bashraf. Both forms are
played by the entire orchestra and are similar in form, but differ in rhythm. They could,
however, be compared with the overture in a European suite. Between the individual
songs of the waslat, taqsim are played: these are solo pieces for one instrument only,
which enable individual soloists to demonstrate the range of their improvisational skill.
This is followed by a group of up to eight vocal pieces with instrumental
accompaniment. The texts of the songs are mostly ancient poems, generally from the
Middle Ages, which were written to go with a particular melody.
In northern African countries another form of classical music has established itself: the
nouba. This is a specific, large-scale musical form of Arabic-Andalusian music. In the
cities of the Maghreb countries Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, the nouba has
retained its characteristic form to this day. The nouba is an important large-scale
musical form comparable with the European suite. It usually consists of five parts,
called mizan, which are each characterised by a particular fundamental rhythmic
pattern. The individual sections are named after these rhythmic patterns. The nouba
consists of different musical themes, which are not woven together as is often the case
in European music; however, stylistically and melodically, as in the European suite,
they create a whole.
Song and poetry
The key starting point for Arabic music is song. In Arabic musical tradition there is
hardly any music without song. Music and poetry are so closely woven together that to
this day it is difficult to discover the names of the composers of classical Arabic music.
We often only know the names of the singers and poets. If purely instrumental pieces
are played at all, it is usually as an introduction to a song. Polyphonic elements, like
those typical in European music, have therefore scarcely been able to establish
themselves.
The figure of the singer is central to any musical group, and bears a huge responsibility.
She (or he) must not only be a talented singer; she must also have a strong, beautiful
voice that is capable of representing a counterpart to the orchestra. In the Arab world the
musical experience a singer, with her ensemble, conveys to her audience is referred to
as tarab. The term signifies exhilaration, ecstasy, or euphoria. It is a mood created by
the song and the music, which culminates in a feeling of happiness bordering on
intoxication. The tarab can transport the entire audience; sometimes people weep or
groan in pain when the singer sings of her lost love. Other listeners jump up and loudly
cheer on the performers. The degree of intensity of the tarab depends primarily on the

voice and manner of performance of the singer. According to temperament, mood, and
occasion, the singer not only allows herself the freedom of creative artistic
interpretation but does in fact improvise.
A singers career is usually characterised by a thorough training in Koran recitation
according to the traditional rules of song. There are hardly any singers who have
subsequently become famous who have not undergone the hard schooling of Koran
recitation; for the musically modulated performance of the suras is part of the cultural
heritage of classical Arabic music. Just as many European singers who want to
specialise in baroque music make a thorough study of Renaissance and baroque choral
music, many Arab classical music singers choose the route of Koran recitation. This is
why until the 1950s almost all well-known singers and musicians bore the title Sheikh,
which in this case designates a religious dignitary.
The traditional orchestra for classical music, called al tacht, consists of three main
instruments: the oud, the qanoun and the nay, to which was later added the Arab violin,
the kamanija. The oud, the Arab short-necked lute, provides both the rhythm and the
melody in Arabic music. It has been celebrated by many Arab poets, and is the
foundation of Arabic music theory.
This is complemented by the qanoun. It is similar to a zither but has movable bridges,
which enable it to produce numerous micro-intervals. It has 78 strings, and its name
essentially means the law an expression of Pythagorean thought, which establishes a
connection between the relations between intervals in general, particularly in music, and
the composition of the cosmos.
The nay is a wind instrument used in classical Arabic music. To the European ear, its
sound is similar to that of the panpipes. The nay was originally a wooden pipe with a
total of seven holes. It is thus able to play the pure Oriental tonal sequence, unlike, for
example, the piano or the organ, which cannot play quartertones. The ensemble also
includes a variety of rhythm instruments such as the daf, the darbouka and the riq.
The encounter with Western music
Classical Arabic music was nurtured and handed down for centuries in Persian culture
and in the Arab and Ottoman Islamic empires. From the mid-nineteenth century
onwards it was confronted with Western music primarily by way of British colonial
policy and absorbed new elements as a result. However, during the First World War
and the resulting rise in nationalist sentiment, people began to turn again more strongly
to their own musical roots. The Egyptians in particular took the opportunity to develop
from the Arabic tradition a new kind of music.
In 1932 the first international Congress of Arab Music was held in Cairo. Arabic music
experienced a kind of rebirth. The congress is regarded to this day as one of the most
important stages in the development of recent Arabic music history. Numerous
musicians and musicologists from all over the Arab world as well as from Turkey,
Persia and Western Europe met here for the first time to consider in detail the subject of
Arabic music and engage in intercultural dialogue and exchange.

Important personalities from all over the world were invited: well-known music critics
and composers like Bla Bartk, Paul Hindemith or Henri Rabaud; musicologists such
as Erich Moritz von Hornbostel, Robert Lachmann or Curt Sachs, Orientalists like
Henry George Farmer or Alexis Chottin. Renowned Arab classical musicians also came,
such as Sami Shawwa from Aleppo, or Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab from Egypt.
Famous poets were invited, too. And of course there were performances from the bestknown Arabic classical music groups of the time, who came from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon,
Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.
The congress cleared the way for a new type of Arabic music. It was anchored firmly in
its indigenous traditions, and had rediscovered its own foundations. At the same time,
Arab musicians and composers had gained considerable freedom of movement. Their
orientation towards the modern age, very soon integrating new methods and techniques,
was seen by many as an expansion of musical possibilities. Modern European music, for
its part, adopted from the Orient not only the ancient art of the quartertone but also its
variety of rhythms and timbres.
The most important subject addressed at the congress was the introduction of Western
instruments into Arabic music. The subject occasioned a great deal of discussion,
because it would mean having to alter the Arabic scale. There were those in favour, who
saw it as an opportunity to renew Arabic music, to introduce more harmony and
polyphony, as well as extending the orchestra.
But there were also those who opposed the idea. They feared that Arabic music would
lose its identity as a result. They argued that Western instruments were not suited to the
reproduction of the quartertone so typical for Arabic music. Time, however, has shown
that a fusion of these instruments was possible. There were even musicians who built a
special piano capable of playing a quartertone.
Those in favour argued that many ideas and instruments later developed in Europe had
actually originated in the Orient. They had come to Europe centuries earlier, and were
now returning to Arab culture in a different form.
The rabab, a precursor of the violin, for example, came from the Arab cultural realm to
Europe, where its register and quality of sound were considerably improved upon. As
early as the seventeenth century, Arab musicians and composers began to introduce the
European violin in Arabic music ensembles to accompany the rabab. In the nineteenth
century the rabab was largely replaced by the violin, which produced an audibly better
tone. Modern Arab musicians were already using it in the twentieth century as a matter
of course. The violin was thus the first European instrument to be incorporated into
Arabic classical music.
Nonetheless, composers were happy to include Western harmonies and Western
instruments, such as the violin, cello, and double bass, in their repertoire, and this was
the start of the modern Arabic music we have today.
Influential singers
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One musician who has contributed a great deal to the renewal of Arabic music
is the Egyptian Sayyed Darwish. Born in Alexandria in 1892, he was the first

Egyptian musician to avoid wherever possible the company of political rulers. In the
Egypt of his day the Ottoman pashas were still the ruling class. As a result, people
followed the Turkish musical style, and Turkish elements also found their way into the
texts of songs. Darwish, however, did not use one single Turkish word in his songs. He
is universally regarded as the father of quasi-classical modern music. The majority of
the songs he sang were taktuka, mostly short songs played for the amusement and
entertainment of the audience.
With Darwish, Arabic music began to concentrate on the expression of something
substantial in terms of content. He is credited with revolutionising Arabic music at the
start of the last century. In particular, he changed the traditional musical forms. Before
him Arabic music was very soft and monotonous, and had almost no recognisable
rhythmical structures. By contrast, Darwishs songs are clearly modulated, with a
catchy rhythm. It is therefore not surprising that his melodies are still well known and
loved by a wide audience.
During this period new song forms also developed, influenced in part by European
musical theatre and film. In the 1930s and 40s songs in dialogue form were very
popular. A more monologic song form developed under the influence of the opera aria,
to which the Egyptians had been introduced by the Italian opera performed at the opera
house in Cairo.
Another musical form, developed early as the nineteenth century and still often
performed, is the dor. The dor is sung by a soloist and a choir and is always written in
Egyptian dialect. One of the famous composers of the dor in Egypt at the beginning of
the twentieth century was Zakaria Ahmed. He wrote many dors for singers including
Umm Kulthum, the grande dame of Arab song. In the Arab world she was called
Kaukab al-Sharq, or Bright Star of the Orient.
From the 1940s onwards the huge film and music industry in Cairo became a magnet
for artists, musicians and composers from all over the world. Cairo became known as
the music capital, and from there new, important musical impulses have since
emerged.
Even prior to this, the greats of Arabic music such as Mohammad Abdel Wahab, Umm
Kulthum, Abdel Halim Hafex and many others had come from Egypt. Their names and
their music influenced the Cairo music scene until well into the 1970s. At the same time
there had also, since the 1950s, been the so-called Beirut school. The citys exposed
situation created a particularly liberal climate, which turned it into a cultural meeting
point for many intellectuals and artists. For music, too, this was, of course, an unusually
positive starting point, and Lebanons cultural variety is indeed still reflected in its
music today. Lebanese songs are altogether faster and shorter, and are characterised by
the diversity of their sounds. The Beirut school was regarded as particularly captivating
because of its rich tradition of Lebanese folk music.
Then, in the 1950s, the phase of appropriating European melodies and traditions began.
European harmonies and melodies from concerts and operas were thus integrated into
Arabic compositions.

People began to develop a new kind of music, after some musicians went abroad to
study Western instruments and the theory of harmony. Once again, this took place
primarily in Egypt, but also in Syria and in Lebanon. The large-scale orchestra opened
up the possibility of extending the musical repertoire. Instead of the small ensemble
with which classical musicians had, until this point, been familiar, they now founded
symphony orchestras. Instead of melodic elements they used harmonic idioms.
Sometimes they extended the ensemble with traditional Oriental instruments like the
rabab, lute, and flute. This created a new, unusual tone; for the Western instruments
have their own tonal colour. The combination of the various elements from Orient and
Occident also influenced this music. Relatively quickly, Arab ears became accustomed
to the new music.
The musicians saw the new-found freedom of West-Eastern creativity as an opportunity,
and orientated themselves towards this modern artistic development. In their works they
have created a musical synthesis that links European compositional styles with the
traditional music worlds of their respective countries. Their work is already leading the
way for coming generations of Arab musicians and composers.
Suleman Taufiq
is originally from Syria, and has lived in Germany since the late 1960s. He is a
freelance writer and regularly presents radio programmes on Oriental music for German
listeners on Westdeutscher Rundfunk.
Translated by Charlotte Collins
Copyright: Goethe-Institut e. V., Fikrun wa Fann

Music, Medicine, Healing, and the Genome Project

Assad Meymandi, MD, PhD, DLFAPA
Author information Copyright and License information

This column is devoted to bridging the gap between basic sciences, medicine, the arts,
and humanities.
Music existed way before there was a Neolithic man to discover, enjoy, and finally
describe it in musical notes and terms. The winds blowing through the trees eons ago
was music. The rhythmic undulation of grass and the mesmerizing sound of Brownian
motion of cytoplasm and protoplasm produced music billions of years ago. As for manmade music, archeologists and anthropologists have deciphered communications of
Sumerians on the walls of their caves to have special sings (accents) similar to musical
notes to introduce modification and modulation of sounds. Thus, in French, we have
accent aigue, accent grave, and accent circumflexguides to phonetic enunciation of
vowels that may be traced back to Sumerians.
The ancient man perceived the sound of the wind, rustling of leaves, and undulating tall
grass as desirable, appealing sensations. Persuasive theories suggest that the early mans
speech, like the natural occurring sounds, was sung. Childrens conversation and
communication is in rhythmic sing-song syllabic mode. Children are our best opera
composers! We know that Moses, the author of Pentateuch (although some scholars

argue he was not), knew of and enjoyed music, especially the singing of the shepherds
on the outskirt of Mount Sinai, his regular hangout.
We literally have hundreds of references to music in the 39 books of the Old Testament
and 27 books of the New Testament. The story of Orpheus, son of Apollo who gained
access to Hades because of his beautiful and mesmerizing voice, has been dished out as
folklore, musicals, and operas by numerous composers. The first Western opera,
composed by Jacobo Peri and performed at 8:00pm, October 6, 1600, at Piti Palace in
Florence, Italy, was Orpheus and Eurydice. Seven years later, in 1607, Monteverdi
composed the first true opera by the same name. He introduced the formal architecture
of opera, aria and recitative, in his version. We have enjoyed opera for more than 400
years.
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Therapeutic Effect of Music

Since ancient times, music has been recognized for its therapeutic value. Greek
physicians used flutes, lyres, and zitters to heal their patients. They used vibration to aid
in digestion, treat mental disturbance, and induce sleep. Aristotle (323373 BCE), in his
famous book De Anima, wrote that flute music could arouse strong emotions and purify
the soul. Ancient Egyptians describe musical incantations for healing the sick.
We know of the protoplasmic movements of single cells, described by botanist Robert
Brown (17731858), as Brownian movement/motion, and although random, the
movements are rhythmic and produce music. In one of his romantic dissertations,
Brown said the motions are so musical
Researchers began to systemically study the application of music in medicine and
healing near the end of the 19th century. Studies reporting the effects of music on
physiological responses, such as cardiac output, respiratory rate, pulse rate, and blood
pressure (BP), were originally reported by Diogel (late 1700s) of Salpetriere Hospital in
Paris (the same hospital in which Princess Diana died 11 years ago). Diogel had sootcoated drums with a stylus to measure BP and pulse rate of his patients. Diogel would
bring live musicians in his laboratory by his patients bedsides to conduct his
experiments and record his findings. (Remember! There was no recorded music at this
time.) His first paper, a seminal scientific work, was published in 1880. Diogel showed
that music lowers BP, increases cardiac output, decreases pulse rate and, in general,
assists the work of the parasympathetic system. This work was replicated by Corning of
America in 1880 and later by Tarchanoff (18461908) of Russia. Tarchanoff, a
professor of medicine at the University of Moscow, often called on his colleague, Dr.
Alexander Borodin (18331887), a professor of medicine and chemistry and also a
musician and composer, to play for Tarchanoffs patients while he recorded the effect of
music on their vital functions. Tarchanoff published his paper in 1903 and dedicated it
to Borodin.
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Why do We Like Music?

Music is a part of the cycle of natural life. Music is based on rhythm and harmony.
Human life is based on rhythm. Day and night, seasonal changes, and all physiological
and biological functions are rhythmic. We inhale and exhale, our hearts beat in systole
(contraction) and diastole (expansion or relaxation.) Sleeping, eating, menstrual cycles,
walking, talking, and other, if not all, functions of life are rhythmic.
We admire oratory eloquence because its rhythm and cadence, along with the words
carefully chosen to awaken, inform, or appeal to our inner desires and thoughts, are
harmonic and orderly. One might conclude that man is really made of rhythm; so is
nature, and so is music. Man, nature, and music are made of the same ingredients.
Bernstein in his 1973 Harvard lecture series on music forwards the theory of
monogenesis, denoting that all languages spring from a single source. The prehistoric
baby in the arms of his mother started to babble in rhythm and tone. The baby got
hungry and exploded the word MMMm calling his mothers attention to his hunger. This
word, or sound really, is the origin of the word mom or mother, and is shared by some
300 different languages, variations of which all start with letter M. This is a credible
argument, for listening to tonal music does rekindle the warmth of the mother-baby
relationship. It stands to reason then that music makes us feel good because it reminds
us of the warmth of our mothers arms.
A UC Davis neuroscientist, Petr Janata, in a recent paper The Neural Architecture of
Music-Evoked Autobiographical Memories, (published in 2009 in Cerebral Cortex)
linked medial memory to music. He discovered that the region of the brain where
memories of our past are supported and retrieved also serves as a hub that links familiar
music, memories, and emotions.
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Music: A Message and a Messenger

The overworked clich music is the universal language of mankind begins to take
meaning by looking at the word universal itself. Universal is a big word and a
dangerous word. At the same time that it implies likeness, it also implies diversity.
Michelle de Montaigne (15331592) remarked that the most universal quality of mans
universality underlies his diversity. Besides psychoanalysis, studying history, theater,
music, and opera are powerful instruments of introspection and learning about ones
self. For millennia, man has composed and enjoyed music without knowing the
scientific reasons why he would do so. We have used music to enhance spirituality, to
get closer to our maker, to unite us for a cause, to marshal us in wars, to swell us with
pride, and to mourn and resolve sadness and grief. Additional data-driven discoveries in
the past 60 years show us the promise of music in healing.
We have learned about the neuroanatomy of the limbic system. In the 1950s, when
psychosurgery was legal in the US, experiments on the brain of death row inmates
showed that stimulation of the ventral nucleus of hypothalamus by 70 millivolts of
electricity would throw the subject into rage. If one played soothing classical music
while stimulating this region, the patient would not show anger. Clinical experiments at

Columbia Hospital in the 1950s and early 1960s showed that patients with a propensity
to religious orientation and enjoyment of classical music were a third faster to respond
and heal postoperative retinal detachment than those who were not. Manfred Clynes
(born 1925), a neurophysiologist whose family fled from Austria to Australia, published
extensive data documenting the relationship between music, brain, and mind. His
classical textbook Music, Mind, and Brain, published in 1982, is the benchmark of
excellence in the field. The limbic system, consisting of thalamus, hypothalamus,
amygdala, hippocampus, mammary bodies, and fornix, all subcortical structures in the
brain, comprise the anatomy of emotions. They are responsible for the autonomic or
the vegetative functions, such as breathing, appetite, body temperature, and moods (e.g.,
anger, sorrow, love, hatred, violence, compassion, sadness). Music brings about the
excitation of the limbic system with corresponding changes in neurotransmitters, such
as catecholamine, indolamine, dopamine, endorphin, and the latest, neuron growth
hormone.
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Genomes and Music

The most exciting discoveries of the effect of music on brain comes with the discovery
of the Genome Project and the work of Venter et al published in 2001 in the journal
Science. A Japanese geneticist and musician, Susumu Ohno (19292000), author of the
seminal work Evolution by Gene Duplication (1970), was the first to propose the
hypotheses of the Barr body and human paleopolyploidy and also contributed articles to
the journal Immunogenetics. Ohno observed that music is like deoxyribonucleic acid
(DNA) in repetition and development. For example, each organisms genes are
composed of strands of DNA, which are made up of four nucleotides containing the
four amino acidsadenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. The order of these bases of
repeated four is far from random. Indeed, within a gene, certain oligomers, which are
short chains of bases arranged in a set sequence, frequently occur in a predictable
manner. Ohno stated that this is hardly surprising because recurrence is rampant in
nature. According to Ohno in his classical paper Genomes and Music, evolution relies
on gene duplication; very much like music, it requires changes in variations on themes.
All and all, truly new coding sequences generated by modern organisms recapitulate the
first prehistoric coding sequence of eons ago When Ohno assigned notes to each of
the four basescystine for do, adenine for re and mi, guanine for fa and sol, thymine
for la and ti, and cytosine again for do, the genes made music. And that music wasnt
just melodies repeating endlessly, because in genes, wrote Ohno, the monotony created
by the endless recurrence of these decamers, hexamers, and their derivatives is broken
by refreshing appearances of tandomly recurring base oligomers that are not directly
related. For example, a section of the ribonucleic acid mouse gene for polymerase II
sounds like music from genes that encode cell adhesion molecules, which sound like a
musical score Debussy would have written. And the sequence of human X-linked
phosphoglycerate kinase (the enzyme for breakdown of glucose) played on violin is
hauntingly melancholy, as though reflecting the Weltschmerz of the gene that
persevered for hundreds of millions year ago.
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Final Word
Music makes us feel like we are back in the arms of our mother, the ultimate source of
love and security. When all is said and done, it is Socratic elenchus of self examination
and self acceptance (how we feel internally about ourselves) and external love; mom,
music, warmth, fresh air, and support of the family bring us security and fulfillment of
our maximum potential. I, for one, am grateful for the gift of music.

Articles from Psychiatry (Edgmont) are provided here courtesy of Matrix Medical
Communications