Arabic Tunings

On recommendation I picked up the text, _The Music of the Arabs_, by
Habib Hassan Touma. I must say that with regard to tuning, the book
was a great disappointment. Only 6 pages, p. 17-22, were devoted to
this topict--the amount of material was scant, and the analysis,
anemic.

Just a quick glance at the few intervals presented found errors:

p. 19: 54/49 should be 50/49
p. 21: 19/9 should be 16/9
p. 21 253/243 should be 256/243
p. 21 32/22 should be 32/27

No explanation is given at the derivation of intervals such as
162/149 (p. 19) or how and why the ratios as 18/17 and 50/49 are
deployed.

One cannot even speak of a worthwhile historical analysis here at
all. Conjecture compounds speculation.

I have yet to find a good treatment of Arabic tunings in English. It
appears as though I may have to attempt wading through the
French six volume work of d'Erlanger, _La musique arabe_. Which,
given that I have not studied French, leaves me divining from the
mathematics (which is d'Erlanger usually involves complex fractions,
i.e., 1+1/8 instead of 9/8) and reasoning out French words from Latin
roots.

If anyone knows of a decent treatment of this subject in English, in
particular with regard to Zalzal, Al-Farabi, and Safi ad-Din, it
would be most appreciated.

Regards all,

Polychroni Moniodis


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Subject: Re: Arabic Tunings
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