newlife_ks
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Maqam Anthology - Saba Sirto
Hello everybody!
I'm just flipping the pages of the Maqam Anthology Part 1 downloaded from some link here in the forum. Now there's a strange maqam I can't make sense
of. On page 93 there's "Saba Sirto", which features B flat, G flat and E half flat. Does anybody know which maqam and root it is?
Greetings from Klaus in Germany!
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Brian Prunka
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It's maqam Saba. (C) D E/b F Gb A Bb C (Db E F)
Tonic is D, it's introduced around F though.
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newlife_ks
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Thanks a lot, Brian! That seems a rarely played maqam to me, I never heard of it. Well, I'm a beginner, and maqam world is still a mystery to me.
Greetings from Klaus in Germany!
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John Erlich
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My suggestion when learning to play a new maqam is to start with a simple song, if you can find one, rather than a classical piece (samai, peshrev,
etc.). I'm pretty sure I have a relatively simple song or 2 in saba; will post if I can find.
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John Erlich
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Here is a song by George Wassouf in saba.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjUwgZCFrDM
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newlife_ks
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Hello John!
Thanks for your song! That really looks playable to me, not a too complicated rhythm. I'm just curious where you got it from, because I never saw
arabian songs with chords added. At least I only know them from pop songs, not from classical oriental stuff.
and I'm happy to see it is in 4/4 measure. The Maqam Collection mostly features music in odd rhythms like 10/8 which makes them difficult to play for
me without having an oriental drummachine. I wish there was something like that on the web somewhere, but I've been looking without success. My
metronome can play many odd rhythms but that does not give the right feeling for accompanyment.
Has your collection been online for dl somewhere?
Greetings from Klaus in Germany!
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John Erlich
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Quote: Originally posted by newlife_ks  | Hello John!
Thanks for your song! That really looks playable to me, not a too complicated rhythm. I'm just curious where you got it from, because I never saw
arabian songs with chords added. At least I only know them from pop songs, not from classical oriental stuff.
and I'm happy to see it is in 4/4 measure. The Maqam Collection mostly features music in odd rhythms like 10/8 which makes them difficult to play for
me without having an oriental drummachine. I wish there was something like that on the web somewhere, but I've been looking without success. My
metronome can play many odd rhythms but that does not give the right feeling for accompanyment.
Has your collection been online for dl somewhere? |
Hi,
Most of my Arabic music sheet collection I found over a long period of time on web sites and Facebook. Forum member Navid Goldrick has put together a
partial list of M.E. music sheet sources: http://www.oudforguitarists.com/sheet-music/
I am not fluent in Arabic or Farsi or Turkish or Greek, but I have enough familiarity with these languages to navigate the Internet. For finding
Arabic music, it helps to know the Arabic alphabet and to be able to figure out at least musical terms.
If I know what you are looking for, I could share some sheets with you, but I really recommend the "Ah Ya Salam" site as an excellent resource.
And, yes, harmony is NOT traditional in M.E./N.A. music, but is sometimes found in modern popular music. I probably have a couple dozen songs in my
collection that have chord changes. There are more out there, but, when it comes to ME/NA music, I am a traditionalist.
All the best,
"Udi" John
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John Erlich
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I was poking around Arabic music Facebook pages this evening, and found an even simpler song in maqam Saba. (I may have botched the Arabic name
slightly -- I have trouble with certain Arabic fonts.)
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newlife_ks
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Hello John!
Seems to be one of those maqamat I won't get to play too soon. It seems to my european ears it should sound similar to the aeolian scale with a half
flat quartertone G. I'm still working on those strange maqamat, but to my well-tempered ears they all still sound strange, even more with a half flat
fourth. Still being a beginner I'd better stick to more comfortable maqamat without half flats, hard to decide which one to start with to make it
easier for me. Sometimes I believe it would be easier to have a teacher.
After all it still does not make sense to me playing those half flats because - no, them hurting my ears would not be correct, but having grown up
differently in a way does not not let me hear those quartertones as they should be. Or, in other words - even reading Muallem's book of maqamat does
not give me an explanation why those quartertones occurred in eastern music and what they're good for.
Sometimes I just say, well, someone made a flute of bone or bamboo and making some holes missed the right spots for the notes and thus all this
maqamat misunderstanding happened. Some decades I was in Yugoslavia on a beach with my friend on a motorbike, and not having a guitar with me I built
a simple kind of panpipes from materials I found on the beach. But it would never had happened that I build a panpipe including quartertones because I
did not know they existed and also could not hear them or notice them as faulty tones.
I still wonder how it came to those quartertones and what they mean to the oriental world, because, well, I can do without them! There are lots of
maqamat which are nearly the same as european modes, like I said before, Saba sounding to me like aeolian with a strange half flat fourth, which is
hard to understand in western music. Fourths and fifths are fixpoints in european music, so why alter them? What does the oriental ear hear that I do
not?
Sometimes I feel I chose the wrong instrument, but having played cello in my youth I thought everything would be easier, which in some way it is,
because - apart from being a guitar player - I don't have difficulties to find the notes for sure. And the sound of the oud is totally overwhelming
and spiritual to me, and - I have to say that! - overwhelming too by playing western scales only!
I would not dare to say that oriental music is on a one way road, rather that I am maybe with my approach to the oud. On the other hand I hear lots of
oud players from all over the world including chardal playing now. Hard to to with maqamat, there's something new going on, wonder whre it will lead
to.
So I believe I'm not totally wrong when I say, well, I'd better stick to what my ears tell me is right than struggling with "wrong" notes I do not
know which origin or sense they have!?
Well, I'm still on my way learning, hopefully time will tell me what to do and how to integrate maqamat in my playing. But somehow I doubt I can
accept playing quarter tone maqamat without somebody telling me what it is all about recondition my ears from just hearing what I am used to.
Greetings from Klaus in Germany!
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John Erlich
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Last night, I came across some even simpler Arabic songs in maqam Saba. This sheet has 4 folk songs 8 - 22 bars long.
Enjoy! Learn! Memorize! Embellish!
Peace,
"Udi" John
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Jaffa Road
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I like brief modulations into Saba when improvising in Kurd. Very dramatic.
I am not sure if this is an established traditional practice but I dig it!
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