AWST-115 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Greek Musical Instruments, Muwashshah, Sufism
8 Jan 2019
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Title: “Music” (Ch.7), Cambridge Companion to Modern Arab Culture
Summary:
This chapter gives us six Arab songs and highlights elements and issues within the Arab World’s
musical realm by focusing on said songs. The song with the oldest documented roots allows us to
look into the past and shows us the influences that helped shape the modern Arab musical world.
Through two other songs, we see the presence of Islam and how it continues to influence musical
traditions. Finally, the last two songs, give us a look at Sufism, which is Islamic mysticism. All
six of the songs demonstrate how forms of mass media have shaped the music of the region.
Main Points:
❖ Arab music has a long history dating to before the advent of Islam
➢ music flourished among Arabian nomadic tribes and also in urban centers
❖ spread of Islam led to the creation of opulent courts, first in Damascus (661–750) and
then in Baghdad (762–1258), and these courts gave patronage for singers, poets,
composers, and instrumentalists, and also scholars who wrote extensive treatises on
music theory
❖ The Arab World’s music was also influenced by Persian and Greek musical instruments,
styles, and theoretical traditions.
❖ Medieval Muslim Spain also contributed a new poetic form, the muwashshah, that spread
throughout the Arab World and has continued to have a major presence even in modern
times.
➢ Muwashshah - a genre that first emerged in medieval Muslim Spain, had by that
time become the dominant form of art song in the eastern Arab World
❖ contemporary Arab music has more immediate roots in 19th and 20th century traditions
❖ There was no tradition of writing down the music of songs so, the oldest surviving
performed repertoire can only be dated for certain to the 19th century
➢ The lyrics of songs, however, have been preserved for centuries in song books
that contain songs’ poetic texts
❖ the modern period of eastern Arab music might best be signaled by Muhammad Shihab
al-Din’s c. 1840 songbook, Safinat al-mulk.
➢ Shihab al-Din’s work offers an view of the poetic component of the music in
Egypt at the time, giving us the texts to over 350 muwashshah songs divided into
30 “performance suites (waslas)”
➢ Each wasla in Shihab al-Din’s collection contains a series of 10-15 muwashshahs,
joined by being set in the same melodic mode (lahn or maqam).
➢ The songs within a given wasla were also organized according to their rhythmic
mode, following a progression from heavy to light rhythms.
➢ Songs in the heaviest, most serious, rhythms – murabbaʿ (a 13 beat rhythm),
muhajjar (14 beats), or mudawwar (12 beats) – were presented first.
➢ These were followed by songs in somewhat lighter rhythms.
➢ Finally, each wasla concluded with songs in the liveliest rhythms, specifically,
samaʿi darij and samaʿi saraband, both versions of 6/8 time.
➢ Shihab al-Din’s volume signaled a new element of modernity when it was printed
in lithograph form in Cairo in 1892
❖ Ya man laʿibat bihi shamulu (O you whom the wine has played with)
➢ by Muhammad Shihab al-Din
➢ Became widely available due to the book
➢ we do not know either the composer or the poet of this song
➢ first four of the song’s 14 verses are in a flowery language common to the
muwashshah genre
➢ Shihab al-Din included the song as the concluding segment of his third wasla-
suite, set in a six-beat rhythm and in the melodic mode called rast, but tells us that
the song was also performed in the sikah mode
➢ he gives the song again as the concluding section of his seventh wasla-suite, a
wasla set in the sikah mode.
➢ A number of the songs in this collection are still performed by singers and groups
who feature muwashshah songs and this is the case with this song.
➢ The version in rast in a 6/8 rhythm is performed widely in the eastern Arab World
➢ The sikah version of the song is not known in the eastern Mediterranean countries
(Egypt up through Lebanon and Syria), however, but is common in Iraq
➢ The fact that the Iraqi version is unknown in the eastern Mediterranean coastal
region speaks to the distinct music regions that have developed across the Arab
World
❖ The wasla tradition changed in the late nineteenth century with the introduction of
Turkish instrumental genres (called saz semai and peşrev; samaʿi and bashraf in Arabic)
and new forms of Arabic song (especially the dawr, qasida, and taqtuqa)
❖ Muwashshah songs remained common, but their number dropped to perhaps two or three
in each wasla-suite
❖ Additional changes occurred with the development of musical theater (late 19th century)
and the spread of recorded music (early 20th century)
➢ musical theater and the recording industry also brought about changes in typical
performance ensembles
➢ the traditional wasla ensemble (takht): a solo singer, 2-3 male chorus members, 2-
4 melodic instruments (a lute, a plucked zither, an end-blown reed flute, and/or
the Western violin), and a single percussion instrument (a tambourine).
➢ the new wasla ensemble (firqa): expanded to include multiple violins and other
Western instruments, including the cello and double bass
❖ development of radio beginning in the 1920s, start of musical films in the 1930s, and new
forms of mass media continued the changes first started by print media and recordings.
➢ Audiences expanded; media stars were born; copyright issues arose; issues of
government control (censorship) arose; and technological restrictions specific to
each medium effected changes in the music
❖ Ghanni li shwayya (Sing to me sweetly)
➢ By Umm Kulthum (Egyptian superstar singer)
➢ Ghanni li shwayya (Sing to me sweetly) was one of nine songs Kulthum sang in
her fifth film, Sallama
➢ Since the birth of Islam, many have considered music to be an unacceptable
distraction from a proper religious life
➢ In Ghanni li shwayya, music is unabashedly celebrated, lauded for its ability to
affect nature, cure illness, soothe the heart, and bring girls to dance
➢ In the film, the song lasts over five minutes
➢ When Umm Kulthum later performed the song in public concerts she often used
improvisation
➢ “eastern Arab art music values the emotional and aesthetic engagement of
performers and audience members alike as a performance unfolds”
➢ many elements of the music are left to be decided at the time of the performance
itself
➢ Umm Kulthum included nationalist songs in her repertoire, singing for royalty
when Egypt was a kingdom and for the post-monarchy Republic of Egypt
➢ she sang songs in response to specific events: the 1952 revolution, the 1956 Suez
Crisis, the 1967 war with Israel, and so on.
➢ She was also active as the head of the musicians’ union and a member of
government committees, all serving to highlight the engagement of music and
musicians with issues of government cultural policies and national and
international politics.
❖ During the mid to late 20th century, eastern Arab art music experienced many changes,
including the start of music education.
➢ Music conservatories were opened in countries throughout the region, teaching
both Western classical and Arab music.
➢ A new music theory was created to teach people and was grounded in Western
staff notation.
➢ A music tradition that had been passed down orally, now had major written
component: students now learned the music by reading staff transcriptions.
❖ Sufi mystics believe in the efficacy of prayer directed to recognized Sufi saints
❖ Saints’ birthdays are celebrated with a variety of festivities; Celebrations include the
singing of a specific song of praise for the saint.
➢ This song, recorded widely in Tunisia by ensembles that perform traditional
repertoire, is understood to be a part of the culture’s historic heritage.
➢ The development of the mass media, however, created the potential for such
locally based songs to travel beyond their usual confines and achieve much wider
notoriety
❖ Sidi Mansur
➢ By Saber el-Robae
➢ Saber el-Robaei’s music video that helped spread the song for Sidi Mansur
➢ The song is light-hearted/upbeat and has no explicit visual references to Sidi
Mansur other than the fact that the singer processes along with his entourage in a
manner reminiscent of pilgrimage to a saint’s shrine
➢ from the video, it is clear that el-Robaei and his managers had another goal: to
place the song in the realm of the sexualized music videos that have dominated
Arab pop music since the 1990s
