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Possible maqamat???

fernandoamartin - 11-27-2016 at 02:12 PM

While I was researching to create the collection I mentioned in this thread, I went through some curiosity.
There are many similar maqamat with only small differences, compound maqamat that overlap different ajnas and so on. The possibilities to create new maqamat seem to be endless and many sources say that nobody knows how many maqamat exist.
However, there are some obvious possibilities that I never saw in any source of Arabic or Turkish music. I wonder why such possibilities are not used. Were they used in the past and abandoned? Do they sound bad to the ears? Do they exist today but few people mention them?

Please, look at some (not all) possible maqamat that I imagined, in the list below and tell me if you know some maqam like this? What is its name? Where can we find information about it? Or if it doesn't exist what do you think about playing it?
(I'll give examples in a key but if you know any of them transposed it's worth mentioning.)

Sikah + Kurd
B1/2b C D Eb F G A B1/2b

Sikah + Nikriz (or Hisar)
B1/2b C D E F G# A B1/2b

Nahawand + Ajam (on the 4th or on the 5th)
C D Eb F G A B C (or) C D Eb F G A Bb C

Nahawand + Bayati
C D Eb F G A1/2b Bb C

Nikriz + Bayati
C D Eb F# G A1/2b Bb C

Hijaz + Bayati (on 4th)
D Eb F# G A1/2b Bb C D

Kurd + Rast
D Eb F G A B1/2b C D

Kurd + Bayati
D Eb F G A1/2b Bb C D

These are only some few examples, but the possibilities might go endlessly.
What do you think or know about it?

Brian Prunka - 11-27-2016 at 05:32 PM

One thing that needs to be considered is that each jins actually has some notes below it that are an implicit part of its sound. Many of these combinations occur as modulations but not as a primary maqam because they don't match in this way.
For example:

Nahawand + Bayati: this is very common in pieces, but since bayati requires the 3rd below to be a quarter tone (E /b in this case), it doesn't really work as a maqam in this configuration. The Eb takes you out of bayati on G.

Kurd + Rast: Rast on G would require F+ below at least, and generally E natural as well. So the Eb and F take you out of Rast.

Kurd + Bayati: This has the same problem as Nahawand + Bayati

Nahawand + Ajam occurs frequently as a modulation, or as leading to the upper octave (i.e., G A B C D Eb). But the F takes you out of Ajam, since Ajam on G should have F#. This one is a little more flexible, possibly due to Western influence.

fernandoamartin - 11-28-2016 at 03:02 AM

Amazing answer! Thank you again Brian.
Back in 2004/2005 I read 3 web pages where you explained Arabic music and they had an important influence on my music. There I learned about qaflah as a kind of final cadence and the leading tones. If you listen to my tracks you'll hear that at almost all of them I use a final cadence and touch the leading tone before finishing in the tonic.
But I always thought about ajnas as isolated structures that could be simply attached to each other, resulting in the doubts above. Thinking that each jins carries implicit notes below it explains many things, such as why after a hijaz in the second jins it's common to use a nahawand instead of repeating the first jins, why most maqamat ending in low G or A have a low nahawand in G or a low bayati in A and so on.
Thank you very much.

adamgood - 11-28-2016 at 08:20 AM

One of the suggestions was "Kurd + Rast". There's a (not very commonly used) makam Neva Kurdi, obviously a combination of Neva and Kurdi

Neva itself is a combination of Ussak+Rast:
D E1/2b F G A B1/2b C D

so you're just one quick switch away to Kurdi.

Here's a piece in Turkish notation:
http://www.neyzen.com/nota_arsivi/02_klasik_eserler/063_neva_kurdi/...

Starts out very much like Neva (hitting hard on Rast from D) and already by the DS sign on the 4th line, it's shown you kurdi.

DavidJE - 11-28-2016 at 12:40 PM

One of my favorite non/new-makams to play around with is a kurdi pentachord followed by a buselik tetrachord...kurdi starting on dugah, the dominant on huseyni, and then a buselik tetrachord starting at huseyni. I'm not aware of this being any standard makam, but to me is sounds very nice.

fernandoamartin - 11-29-2016 at 01:45 PM

Quote: Originally posted by DavidJE

One of my favorite non/new-makams to play around with is a kurdi pentachord followed by a buselik tetrachord...kurdi starting on dugah, the dominant on huseyni, and then a buselik tetrachord starting at huseyni. I'm not aware of this being any standard makam, but to me is sounds very nice.

Hey, nice point. If we think of what Brian said, Bayati has a low B1/2b below it. But turks call uşşak (bayati) and huseyni by different names. And it seems that huseyni fits exactly, as a second jins, where you need to have two whole tones below it. So your idea seem to make sense.

Then I still wonder: Are there possible maqamat or forgotten ones that we can discover or create out of curiosity and still follow the logical intonations of arabic music?

DavidJE - 11-29-2016 at 02:02 PM

Actually (maybe you know this already) in Turkish makam theory there is also a Bayati. There is Ussak, Bayati, Huseyni, and even Muhayyer. There are pros and cons, but I like that in Turkish makam theory they separate the idea of these makams, because Ussak with the tonal center starting on dugah and Beyati with the tonal center starting on neva actually do have a different feel. I think the bottom heavy feeling of Ussak has a very different character from Beyati. In Arabic theory, as far as I know, you can create any of these feelings in the makam Bayati (although maybe not Hüseyni and Muhayyer since they have a different upper jins), but they aren't names specifically. In Turkish theory you could do the same thing, but you would identify a particular focus with each particular makam. Pretty cool.

With the kurdi pentachord + buselik tetrachord, it could also as easily be a kurdi pentachord + ussak tetrachord, which is actually how I think I play it...with the second note of the upper tetrachord flattened...come to think of it. I made up a longa in this "makam". It could also LOOK like it was a kurdi tetrachord + a rast pentachord, but if the dominant is on the 5th/hüseyni, as I like it...then it has to be stated as a kurdi pentachord + buselik or ussak tetrachord.

I have no idea if this might have been a makam in the past, but I do have lots of old text sources, including Cantemir's books, and I've never seen this. Surely other people have played it before though...maybe just as a temporary jins modulation... The cool thing to me is that we can experiment with any of these combinations. We can use the basic theory to create anything we want/like.

fernandoamartin - 11-29-2016 at 03:51 PM

As for your maqam in kurd, if you look at the taqasim scores of Erlanger at La musique arabe you'll see that there are many arabic maqamat where the jins rast in G overlaps
the jins bayati in A. They can overlap perfectly in written score. But almost everyone knows that the half flat of rast is higher than in bayati. So in my site mentioned above, everytime it happens I play B1/2b one comma higher emphasizing G to make it clear I'm on a rast jins and then B1/2b one comma lower emphasizing A to make it clear that I'm on a bayati jins. (E.G. Nishaburek, Zirgule...)
So if you allow me, I'd suggest that to add color to your maqam you could play it ascending with Kurd in D, Rast in G, Bayati in A and descending with Kurd in A, Buselik in G and Kurd in D. (I'll try it too and I guess it'll sound fine.)

Rauf Yekta in Encyclopépdie de la musique compares the tetrachords and pentachords to a pallete of colors, saying that as for painter the possibilities of combinations of colors are endless so are the possibilities of combinations of tetrachords and pentachords to create new modes.
His reasoning seem to make sense. In some periods of turkish music it seems to there have been a rush to create new makamlar. They seem to have gone beyond the basics that arabs use.
Look at this list in Wikipedia. Here we have 590 turkish makamlar. Some of them I never saw named in arabic. Other are on the list but I never ever found any little information about them online.

The ultimate question may be: What are the guidelines when one wants to create a new maqam / makam?

majnuunNavid - 11-29-2016 at 08:55 PM

I do believe the creation of different maqamat is possible, but I think it takes a more sophisticated approach rather than simply combining two random ajnas.

A good example of new maqam is Maqam Daad-o-Bidad in Persian music created by Hossein Alizadeh. This is a fascinating subject and this new maqam fascinated me for some time. I wrote a blog post about it, which goes into a lot of detail about where the bridge is that creates this new maqam and how and where melody is created.

http://www.majnuunmusicanddance.com/maqam-daad-o-bidaad-understand-...

fernandoamartin - 11-30-2016 at 01:48 PM

Very nice and well explained example.

Marcus Scott, in his Arabic Music Theory book, says that Turkish and Persian music have traditional repertoires that one must learn to play that kinds of music but Arabic music has not.
If so, we have pros and cons in arabic Music.
Pros: We have more freedom and less rules to create new maqamat.
Cons: The boundaries are not very clear and it's hard to know when we violate them.

Does anyone else have more ideas about how to create new maqamat?

stos - 11-30-2016 at 03:11 PM

hello!

to add something to what were saying navid : to say that a new makam is invented its when a new seyir/phraseology is invented

thats why the creators of new makam composed basic pieces on their discovery (saz semai, pesrev ...) to show that it is not only a new combination of pentachord or tetrachords, but a new thing

you can even imagine taking the combination of tetra or pentachords of an existing makam and by doing another seyir, invent a new makam

fernandoamartin - 11-30-2016 at 05:28 PM

I wrote only 100 pieces using 100 different maqamat. I know there are many more. But probably if I would explore all the possibilities that I imagine but didn't found documented during my research I'd have to write other 100 pieces or more. (I don't know if I'd have enough disposition to start it all over again.

)
By now, I feel that I'm on a crossroad: Do I use what I studied and learned to create very traditional music, following closely the principles of seyr, ajnas etc of each maqam or do I use what I learned as a basis to create music with more freedom, following just basic ideas and creating new modes, new developments etc?
"To be or not be? That's the question."

stos - 12-1-2016 at 02:15 AM

why not doing what inspires you more at the moment you play? or with the people you play? this sound to be the more easy way to deal with it

fernandoamartin - 12-1-2016 at 06:48 AM

Quote: Originally posted by stos

why not doing what inspires you more at the moment you play? or with the people you play? this sound to be the more easy way to deal with it

Very nice advice.

I just forgot to tell that I don't have microtonal instruments nor I play live.

I compose original music sequenced in the computer. So I need to have a plan in my mind to write in the score and hear how it sounds. So I loose that feeling of the live improvisation for a more mechanical studio-like music.

But I'll keep on trying and experimenting.