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Relations between Aesthetics and Improvisation in Arab Music


Author(s): HABIB HASSAN TOUMA
Source: The World of Music, Vol. 18, No. 2 (1976), pp. 33-36
Published by: Schott Music GmbH & Co. KG
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43563520
Accessed: 14-05-2017 12:22 UTC

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HABIB HASSAN TOUMA

Relations between
Aesthetics and Improvisation in Arab Music
From the old Arabic treatises on music we know a famous anecdote in which
the protagonist is sometimes the great Farabi of the 10th century and some
the great Safiuddin of the 14th century, both of whom were well-known
formers and theorists of music. The distinguished musician appears before t
caliph and his courtiers and begins to play. The first piece makes his listen
laugh, the second brings tears to their eyes and the third sends them all to s
whereupon the musician leaves the hall and goes home. There is no way of
knowing whether this anecdote is based on fact, but the action and circumstances
it depicts throw light on a significant aspect of Arabian music, or more exactly
of improvisation and the aesthetic value inherent in the creation of an emotional
climate when making music. The texts do not tell us whether Farabi or Safiuddin
improvised during the performance in the presence of the caliph, but we can be
quite sure that the musician concerned did improvise, for the intended emotional
climate can be brought about only by a sufficiently long improvisation. The
authentic traditional Arab musician of today still employs improvisation in order
to create the mood from which the aesthetic value of this music results. Improvisa-
tion, an emotional climate, and aesthetic values are thus closely interwoven in
this musical tradition.
The Arab musician has at his disposal an orally transmitted, non-tempered
tonal system which exhibits semitones and three-quarter tones, major and mino
whole tones, and sesquitones. From this tonal system are derived various modes
which are characterized by different dispositions of the intervals. In order to
bring about the desired emotional climate in a given piece, the size of the intervals
is altered within one and the same mode, fluctuating slightly in an upward or a
downward direction. Like the tonal system, the modes, which in Arabian music
represent a second principle of organization, also correspond to the aesthetic
sensibility of the Arabs. Using this raw material, the Arab musician creates
emotional climates within a time-span: his task is to give a temporal organization
to the traditional tonal material in such a way as to produce a mood which will
be recognized as Arabian both by the Arabs and by their neighbours. The mood
is created by means of an improvisation in which certain notes of the mode that
has been chosen are stressed in a manner which leads to the establishing of tonal
centres. The sum of all these central notes resembles an arch which rests first

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on the initial and then on other notes of the mode, and finally climbs higher and
higher until the climax is reached. The ascent to this highest note proceeds not
in a straight line but in zigzag fashion, the tonal centres, the pillars of the arch,
being combined with one another or repeated for their own sake. This means
that a particular central note can occur several times. With the establishment of
a tonal centre a phase in the presentation of the emotional climate is also'
developed. After one or more phases there usually comes a short pause of one
to four seconds which puts the listener in a state of tension, for he does not know
what is going to happen after the pause. At a concert of secular music an Arab
audience will release the tension during these short pauses by uttering words of
praise or loud shouts, while at a religious ceremony it is the name of Allah or of
the Prophet Muhammad that is called out.
The instrumentalist or the singer controls the intensity of the tension created
during his improvised performance. The following three structural elements are
the chief factors which arouse enthusiasm in an Arab audience. The first is the
sudden dying away of a melodic sequence after the realization of a phase or
after the elaboration of a tonal centre. The singer or the instrumentalist dw
on the "leading note" or, more correctly, on the penultimate concluding note
of the mode for some time, employs a vibrato or gravitates around the note, an
then introduces an unexpected cadence on the concluding note, but only very
briefly and in a fleeting manner. Sometimes the instrumentalist rapidly insert
passage with a range varying from a sixth to an octave, especially between th
"leading note" and the concluding note. The second structural element, which
consists of a sudden change of register, usually a leap to the octave above
during a performance, transports the devout Muhammadan listening in t
mosque to a Qoran recitation into a state of great excitation and "divine" raptur
so that when the melodic sequence sung in the upper octave has died away he
utters loud cries and begins to move his body or his hands to release the tensi
generated in him. The third element takes the form of a sudden modulation which
also serves to create tension, although it is not allowed by the traditional theo
This modulation arouses the listener's enthusiasm only when the concluding no
of the final mode is the same as that of the initial mode, as is the case, f
example, when the third or the sixth of the initial mode is suddenly lowered by
semitone or a quarter-tone, thus giving rise to a new mode.
By employing these three elements the musician at the same time establish
communication with his audience. If the musician succeeds in inspiring h
audience with enthusiasm, one speaks of what is called tarab, a term signifyi
the standard for assessing the creation of an emotional climate in music. Wh
listening to Arabian music, tarab is the great musical experience par excellen
Furthermore, the intensity of the tarab depends on the singer's or the instr
mentalist's style of performing, provided of course that the artist is a fi
musician. In this connection mention ought to be made of Um Kulthum, t
primadonna of twentieth-century Arabian vocal music, for her way of interpreting
a piece of music already composed plays a large part in reinforcing the emotion
content of a song and therefore also of the tarab felt by her audience. F
example, she pays little attention to the rhythmically and temporally rigidly
organized melody and frees many a melodic passage from its strict rhythmic

Qanun player, Tunisia

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Whirling dervish at a zikr ceremony in Aleppo, Syria

groupings in order to improvise repetitions of these sections by altering or


paraphrasing them, or even by transforming the given material within the limits
of the rules prescribed by the modal structure. The result of this is a form of
musical composition which lies between the setting of words to music and impro-
visation. The transition from a fixed melodic outline to one which is transformed
although still familiar, both of which belong to one and the same passage, creates
in the Arab listener a tension which, as it increases and diminishes, arouses the
so-called tarab. The interrelation between the rigid structure of the sung melody
and its free rhythmic-temporal flow is one of the characteristic aesthetic features
of the "composed" songs in Arabian music. A good Arab singer never sings a
setting of a poem in the way the composer has written it. He is expected to vary
the melody and even to paraphrase it. He is a creative singer who has a large
share in the shaping of the song itself.
To sum up it can be said that the elements of Arabian musical aesthetics here
described belong to the tonal-spatial parameter of the music, while the rhythmic-
temporal parameter is handled with greater freedom. Since Arabian music is
modal music, the musician thinks in terms of "notes" which he arranges in a
free temporal organization in such a way that an emotional climate - the tarab -
is created. |

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