Arab music update

I've really got the bug now. I had a look through the New Grove entry on
Arabic music. Some interesting details, like rast was first called rast
in the 13th century. They give it in quartertone notation, but insist
that Safi ud-Din al-Urmawi was getting quartertones from his Pythagorean
chain anyway.

Arabic scales in staff notation used to be standardised on a first note of
G, but then changed to C which is pitched around D. That may be something
to think about as regards the Blackjack standardisation. Including
C-E[-G-B[-D-F]-A should work fine.

I found this in Manuel's bibliograhy:

Touma, Habib Hassan. "Basics of Ratio in Arab Music. The schismatic
Permutation of Safiyyuddin al-Urmawi", Lux Oriente. Festschrift Robert
G�nther zum 65. Geburtstag, Gustav Bosse-Verlag, Kassel, 1995.

Looks spot on, and more recent than the original German of Die Musik der
Araber. The first hint I've seen that the schism[at]ic connection for
al-Urmawi is more than an artifact of my fevered imagination. I'll see if
the library can find it.

I'd also like to buy the translations of al-Farabi and al-Urmawi. I found
them at www.orient-lib.com as two volumes, but it's a horrible site.
After an hour of working it out, I have the immortal "Server Error". So
if anybody can recommend an online French bookshop, please do.

John Chalmers gives the schismic tetrachord as coming from the Anonymous
treatise translated by d'Erlanger. So is that worth getting as well?

Graham