project: understanding the music

All;

I find myself completely ignorant of the music of the mid-east
and India. This comes as a surprise to me, since this music
has a place in my heart equal to that of any music I've ever
experienced.

So, I'd like to propose a course-grained survey of the tunings
of North & South India, Persia/Iran/?Iraq?, Armenia/Georgia,
Egypt, and of the Semetic, Kurdish and Ottoman traditions,
wherever they are/were practiced.

One may question the wisdom of a survey grouping such a
diverse set of musical cultures together. But one may do the
same for discussions of "Western" music, which we seem to have
no problem conducting here. Nevertheless, if we conclude that
no such survey is reasonable, I would call it a success.

What I mean by course-grained is: What *scales* are used, How
are they used (polyphonic?, always with a drone?...), What major
systems of scales exist (maqam, sruti, etc.), What (if any)
historical/geographical relationships exists between them?

What I do *NOT* mean is: Do they use Just Intonation, Could
they use JI, How accurately do they tune? I suggest we avoid
as much as possible debates over the validity of their music
theory, and focus on what we know from practice and hear in
recordings.

Anybody interested? Names that come to mind are: Paul Erlich,
Joe Monzo, John Chalmers, Daniel Wolf, Ara Sarkissian, Kraig
Grady, Johnny Reinhard, Haresh Bakshi, Can Akkoc..... plus
those I'm forgetting, and any new voices!!

-Carl