Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning a bit political perhaps, but what the heck?

Dear Margo,

Please forgive me for not having found the state of mind in order to
reply to your series of deeply informative and knowledged messages,
for I felt quite overwhelmed these past weeks both physically and
pshycologically due to a mental fatigue owing to sleepless days of
mind-numbing mathematical calculations and cross-checkings that I was
obsessed on solving which yielded results for several 12-tone Well-
Temperaments as you have witnessed - and also due to my lack of focus
to the matters at hand arising from the haste and toil I had to
undertake in April.

I still need to compose something for the Ethno2 competition, a task
which eluded me at a period of a most intense inspirational lethargy.
My apologies to Jacques! I beg his understanding on this matter.

In anycase, I will try to coalesce my responses in this one message to
both messages of yours that I kept on tab, the latter of which (about
Sazkar) is copy-pasted below.

================

Yes, I understand that the Hebrew tradition of Tanakh recital does
involve maqams common to all nations in the Middle East. Naturally so!
But you realize of course that mine was a cynical response to the
latest political crisis in the Levant exacerbated by both the Turkish
and the Israeli sides. I was nevertheless glad that my cynical
reaction found such an informative response in your messsage!

The Jewish flight throughout history and the musical cultures they
have influenced is noteworthy from a musicological perspective no
doubt! However, my inquiry, however cynical in nature, aimed at
something more historically rooted. To clarify, I meant the music-
making habits in the Old Kingdom of Israel, before the split of Judah,
before even Pythagoras and Aristoxenus were born to the world. What
was the microtonal nature, if any, of the kingdom's music-making? Did
they have special modes and tunings that they kept records of? Are
there any remaining musical treatises from those periods? What impact
did those have on the music of Ptolemaic, Byzantine and Caliphate
empires? And more importantly, does any of this have any reflections
to the quotidian state of Israel which occupies a place in the Levant
today?

It is a glad occasion to share in kindred spirit your enthusiasm
toward achieving greater "tarab" or "rapture", if you will, through
the utilization of maqamat. Amidst all the political turmoils looming
like a dark sceptre over the holy land, one cannot but overstate the
importance of maqam tradition's unifying role on the whole
geography... IF, that is, the nations stopped their petty bickerings
and grandiose posturings over one another and shared this common
culture and all the spiritual elation it brings in due humility!

But what we see is a scene of cultural sacking, with "modern" nations
intent on usurping Alpharabius, Avicenna, Safi al-din and the lot into
their own genetic pot! And moreover we witness them shamelessly
ascribing maqams and perdes to their own blood and race!

It's all very apparent that nationalism is a late 19th Century
phenomenon imported from the Balkans and the West, a terribly vulgar
and decadent form of society management at that. it bides not in the
least with the nature of maqamat.

At this point, though I am confident that I made it out very clearly
in the past, I still find the need to emphasize that I do not promote
any kind of racism or ethno-centrism. Especially not in music! To me,
being Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, etc... is a matter of culture-
language union. I utterly detest and abhor any attempts to
ideologically draw puritan lineages to whatnot tribe and whatnot
ancestry in order to promote one's own superiority over others. I
abhor it even more when, say, Arabic music/tuning is pushed forth in
the international arena to the detriment of Turkish music/tuning or
vice versa.

Shameful is the current state of affairs that reduced Turkness to the
state of ethno-centrism in the bloody conflict with Kurdish
seperatists. Shameful again are the machinations of Islamicist
romantics in the region! Shameful were and are all attempts to
nationalize a broad musical tradition that does not belong to one
nation alone. Shameful are those who distorted traditions to conform
to the ideological doctrines of this or that regime.

Turkish intonation of maqamat still awaits to free itself from
nationalistic dogmas. Arabs may also be thusly handicapped - being
themselves so intent on "making themselves the other". So far, the
trend had been the seeking of sellout right-wing political support in
the promotion of an ethno-centric music agenda against Kemalist
leftists, who exploited even worse Ataturk's name to promote some
ultra-Westernism in music education. Ataturk's original intent, it
appears, does not support either side. He seems to have wanted the
polyphonization of folk and popular songs of ingenuity, slyvan craft,
and unpretentious straightforwardness as the new national music. If he
was lectured on the microtonality of even those songs, would he still
have insisted on twelve-tone polyphonization and horribly warping of
Huseyni, Huzzam, Saba, Karjighar, Ushshaq, most of which he adored? I
suspect not!

The overall results are grotesque in the Alla Turca quarter: The
veneration of mediocre and ostentatious performances of a twisted
syncretic nature under the guise of "national music the way Ataturk
wanted". Choirs in "civilized attire" trying to imitate the Western
manner of singing undecipherable archaic lyrics all in the name of
modernity and patriotic show!

And the Alla Franca quarter: Trying to promote Mozart, Bach, Beethoven
and the rest - great geniuses for sure! - as "universal". No sir. The
only thing universal about music is that every race, nation and
society have their own tastes and practices! But will they listen? No,
they are blinded by the "taqlid" of the ways attributed to the man
whom they do not wish to know in truth, but wish to make conform totheir antagonistic whims.

That is why I find your efforts to understand the perdeha of maqamat
and their inflexions so commdendable. But you do not stop at that. You
go so far as to apply some ingenious Renaissance polyphony to these
microtonal settings and try to discover how, say, Sazkar and Beyati
became two seperate instances to Turks and Arabs, or how Iran and
Turkiye adopted different intonations for maqams sharing the same name!

You'll no doubt forgive me if at times I lose track of your messages
filled with such insightful knowledge, for what am I if not a poor
soul trying to grasp the wonders of music through the sensations that
are a gift from the Maker? And yet, I found your explanations as to
the possible evolution of the Arabic Sazkar quite amusing and well-
established!

By all that is good and holy, let's carry on these topics at a more
propituous time, possibly after I have managed to produce some pieces
for Jacques and his crew, what say dear Margo?

With much cordiality,
Dr. Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Jun 1, 2010, at 9:34 AM, Margo Schulter wrote:

> Dr. Oz (Ozan Yarman) wrote:
>
>> [...] I never heard any Jewish tunes pertaining to
>> non-twelve settings in this forum.
>
> Dear Ozan,
>
> Please let me quickly and happily confirm that the
> maqamat, or maqamot in Hebrew, are used among the
> Sephardic Jews for the recitation of Torah, with
> the maqam chosen to fit the character of the text.
>
> This is not, of course, surprising when we remember
> the hospitality that many Jews received in various
> Islamic countries and regions of the Near East when
> driven from Spain in 1492, along with the Islamic
> people living there (for example in Grenada) who
> wished to maintain their faith. It is noteworthy
> that the fall of the great Alhambra brought an
> era of displacement and repression for Jews as
> well as Muslims in Spain, but interestingly
> may have led those Jews who fled into the
> realm of maqam music which they adopted for
> sacred purposes.
>
> These maqamot are rich with the traditional
> middle or Zalzalian seconds found in the various
> Near Eastern traditions, and more specifically
> follow the naming conventions of the Arab world:
> thus Bayati (or Bayat) is like the Turkish Ushshaq,
> for example.
>
> Here are some quick references:
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Maqam>
> <http://www.pizmonim.org/weeklymaqam.htm>
>
> You raise a broader question also: what is the
> role of the maqamot in the music of the Arab Jews,
> whether in Palestine/Israel or in various
> communities in other parts of the Arab world?
>
> Here we might want to focus on the traditional
> music not only of the Sephardim, but of the
> Mizrahi or Eastern (more literally "Egyptian")
> Jews.
>
> Certainly I can assert that some Jewish musicians
> are embracing the maqamat (or maqamot) as a
> millennium-long musical heritage shared by
> Muslims, Jews, and also the Christians who are
> very numerous in Palestine/Israel (e.g. al-Jalil
> or the Galilee, and also Bethlehem), because this
> is my own position.
>
> Whether people performing in the maqam tradition,
> however imperfectly or provincially (by these
> adjectives I mean myself!), are doing so as
> "microtonalists" is an interesting question.
> My main purpose in playing maqam music is not to
> make "microtonality," but to help bring about
> _tarab_, the experience of enchantment, with
> Zalzalian steps and also small shifts in the
> location of a given note or perde (i.e. by a
> comma) as techniques which may help bring
> this about, as noted by Tawfiq al-Sabbagh and
> Ali Jihad Racy.
>
> In fact, better knowledge of the many Jewish
> melodies or recitation formulae in the various
> maqamot might deepen our understanding of
> the traditional participation of Jews in the
> musical culture of the region, and the
> possibility of moving beyond the most tragic
> politics in the Holy Land during the past
> 130 years, and into an era when refugees who
> so wish are free to return to their ancestral
> communities or districts, and peace need no
> longer be an exile.
>
> With many thanks,
>
> Margo
> mschulter@...
>
>
> ------------------------------------

[tuning] Re: Jacques Dudon, 1/1-7/6-11/8-13/8, and maqam music (I)
May 18, 2010 10:56:06 AM GMT+03:00
Dear Ozan,

Thank you for such a thoughtful and informative reply, and one
especially appreciated at a time when you have been seeing to the
publication of your new book, for example.

One of the things your response to my Sazkar Jadid illustrates is how
the same name for a maqam can come with quite different understandings
in different regions of the Near East. It is somewhat amusing how the
two of us, in response to the name Sazkar, set out on quite different
understandings of the _seyir_ -- that is, the "path" or procedure --
to be followed in travelling through this maqam.

However, this confusion has brought forth at least two happy results,
I hope you will agree. First, I now have some understanding of an
Osmanli Sazkar, if that is the right term, along with a possible
hypothesis as to how this classic Ottoman seyir could have led to the
current Arab maqam, thanks to your clear explanation!

To keep this response at a more reasonable length and to make it
easier to follow, I will here limit myself mainly to these points: the
Ottoman conception of Sazkar and its seyir as you have so lucidly
presented them; whether and how this seyir might be adapted to my
regular temperament with its different intonation of Rast; and how the
quite different Arab conception of Sazkar might have evolved.

For the benefit of others who may be reading this, I should quickly
explain two units for measuring steps and intervals which we often
use. The Holdrian comma is equal to one step of 53-EDO, about 22.64
cents; while the yarman is a step in your 79MOS-159 generally equal to
almost precisely 2/3 of a Holdrian comma or 2/159 octave, and is
conveniently equal to about 15-1/8 cents. Thus multiplying the number
of yarmans by 15, and adding a cent for each eight yarmans, gives a
close estimate of the size in cents.

>> Sazkar Jadid tone Bayyati
>> |-------------------|......|-----------------|
>> A B* C* D E F* F#* A
>> cents 0 264 341 495 705 837 969 1200
>> JI approx 1/1 7/6 39/32 4/3 3/2 13/8 7/4 2/1
>> 264 77 154 209 132 132 231
>> 7:6 117:112 128:117 9:8 13:12 14:13 8:7

> Sazkar being a Turkish contrivance, the AEU rendition or its 53
> Holderian commas approximation seems closer to practice with the
> scale of this maqam:

Here I will add some sizes in cents which may help readers new to the
comma system.

> Degrees:
> 0 9 17 22 31 39 40 48 53 66 70
0 204 385 498 702 883 906 1087 1200 1494 1585
~ 1/1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 27/16 15/8 2/1 64/27 5/2

In this interpretation of Rast, there are no neutral intervals, but
rather 5-limit steps of 8 and 5 commas, or around 10:9 and 16:15,
where a different style of interpretation such as mine would have
neutral or Zalzalian seconds of around 7 and 6 commas. Both
interpretations can be found in 10th-13th century Islamic sources.
Also, as will become clear in your presentation of the seyir, the step
at 39 commas or 5/3 is used in the opening portion of the maqam, and
the 27/16 step in the closing portion.

Before addressing the question you ask below about the Arab
interpretation of Sazkar, I might present another version of your
listing of the steps and interval sizes for Rast using commas, and
also giving the tempered sizes in my 704.607-cent regular tuning:

Degrees:
0 9 16 22 31 38 40 48 53 66 69
0 204 362 498 702 860 906 1064 1200 1494 1562
1/1 9/8 21/17 4/3 3/2 23/14 27/16 24/13 2/1 64/27 42/17
0 209 363 495 705 859 914 1068 1200 1486 1562

In fact, from this "Zalzalian" interpretation of what in the Ottoman
tradition would typically be more of a 5-limit intonation, I can
deduce a possible hypothesis for how the current Arab understanding of
Sazkar could have developed from the classic Ottoman interpretation,
as mentioned above!

However, it may first be of interest to see how your explanation of
the classic seyir might translate to a Zalzalian tuning of Rast of a
kind which I understand is sometimes practiced in Turkey also. Here I
take it that the first portion of the seyir begins on perde segah; the
second portion with the so-called Ushshaq tetrachord on perde dugah;
and the final portion in Rast, of course, ending on perde rast. First,
let me quote your seyir and step sizes, adding to your notation of
the steps in commas the sizes of these steps in cents, plus a JI
notation for the degrees above the 1/1 (perde rast) in ratios and
commas:

> Steps:
> 5 9 8 9 5 13 4
113 204 181 204 113 294 91
5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2/1 64/27 5/2
17 22 31 39 48 53 66 70
|---------------| |--------------|
Segah tone Hijaz

> 8 5 9 (so-called Ushshaq tetrachord)
181 113 204
> 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2
9 17 22 31
|---------------|
Huseyni with 10:9

> 9 8 5 9 9 8 5
204 181 113 204 204 181 113
1/1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 27/16 15/8 2/1
0 9 17 22 31 40 48 53
|-------------| |------------------|
Rast tone Rast

> First the maqam starts off with a Segah openining, proceeds to
> expose it further, then, possibly skipping the Ushshaq tetrachord,
> concludes fully in Rast.

Indeed the first portion appears to match your explanation of Maqam
Segah in your thesis. The optional second portion with the 8-5-9
tetrachord, the so-called Ushshaq, might better be called a version of
Huseyni, which in the Ottoman tradition might take a lower step either
around 10:9 (as here) or 11:10 (as in the example in your thesis). The
last part, as advertised, "concludes fully in rast."

Here it may be interesting to see how this seyir might translate to my
keyboard and system of intonation, taking F# as perde rast.

Degrees:
0 9 16 22 31 38 40 48 53 66 69
F# G# Bb B C# Eb Eb* F F# A Bb
1/1 9/8 21/17 4/3 3/2 23/14 22/13 63/34 2/1 26/11 42/17
0 209 363 495 705 859 914 1068 1200 1486 1562

Seyir part 1: Maqam Segah (Zalzalian version)

Steps:
6 9 7 9 6 13 3
132 209 154 209 132 286 77
21/17 4/3 3/2 23/14 63/34 2/1 26/11 42/17
16 22 31 38 47 53 66 69
Bb B C# Eb F F# A Bb
|----------------| |-----------------|
Segah tone Hijaz

Note that in either your correct Ottoman version, or my Zalzalian
variation, the first step of the Segah tetrachord is smaller than the
last, at 5-9-8 or 6-9-7 commas; and that in the upper Hijaz
tetrachord, the large central step is notably wider than the 7:6 often
favored as espcially apt.

Seyir part 2: A Ushshaq tetrachord

7 6 9 (actual Ushshaq tetrachord!)
154 132 209
> 9/8 21/17 4/3 3/2
9 16 22 31
G# Bb B C#
|----------------|
Ushshaq with ~12:11

Here, as it happens, 154 cents at around 12:11 or 128:117 evidently
fits an Ottoman conception of Ushshaq, despite the unsuitability of
the tuning as a whole for a Turkish style -- perhaps an instance of
the proverb that even a broken clock is right at least once a day!

Seyir part 3: Concluding in Rast

9 7 6 9 9 7 6
209 154 132 209 209 154 132
1/1 9/8 21/17 4/3 3/2 22/13 63/34 2/1
0 9 16 22 31 40 47 53
F# G# Bb B C# Eb*/D# F F#
|---------------| |----------------- -|
Rast tone Rast

The definition of Rast as around 9-7-6 commas is stated by theorists
such as Tawfiq al-Sabbagh of Syria and Salah al-Din. A yet more
accurate measure of this 9-7-6 variety of Rast as realized in my
regular temperament would be 14-10-9 yarmans.

> I don't know how Arabs use it today. I know their habit of lowering
> perde segah to the point of invalidating the leading tone below it
> and skipping all the way down to perde dugah. But what does this
> matter? The maqam has been developed in the Ottoman court during
> the 19th Century. The authentic intonation is ought to be searched
> in Istanbuline aires.

These matters regarding Arab intonation might be interesting topic for
another thread, and you have stirred my curiosity! However, what I
would like to address here is the Arab understanding of Maqam Sazkar
and a possible connection to the Ottoman conception as you have
artifully explicated it here.

> (So much for 24-tET as the ultimate simple-resolution basis for all
> maqamat, eh Carl? You ought to get your hands on some masters of
> Classical Turkish music.)

In the Arab, Persian, and Kurdish traditions also, for example, the
distinction between larger and smaller neutral seconds is important to
interpreters steeped in classical styles. When a step of 130 cents is
wanted (as in one popular Lebanese interpretation of a maqam I play
with a tetrachord of 132-154-209 cents), or a step of 165 cents (as in
your tuning of Huseyni in the Turkish manner), 24-EDO is hardly an
adequate substitute.

Now for the current Arab interpretation of Maqam Sazkar, and how it
may have evolved from the classic Ottoman Sazkar! Let us begin with
the usual tuning of Maqam Rast at 9-7-6 commas, here giving the Arabic
forms of the perde names, and then showing the strikingly modified
nature of this tetrachord above the final, perde rast of course, in
what is called Sazkar:

Typical 9-7-6 Rast

rast dukah sikah jahargah
F# G# Bb B
commas 0 9 16 22
yarmans 0 14 24 33
cents 0 209 363 495

Arab Sazkar jins: 13-3-6 (or 19-5-9 yarmans)

rast kurdi sikah jahargah
F# A Bb B
commas 0 13 16 22
yarmans 0 19 24 33
cents 0 286 363 495

Apart from the substitution of perde kurdi for dukah in this
tetrachord, the rest of the seyir is pretty much like a usual Maqam
Rast, with the same options for inflections, like evdj/acem and
huseyni/hisar. After the initial ascent, one possible development is
to use the usual perde dukah rather than kurdi, thus returning to a
usual Maqam Rast of the 9-7-6 type.

In fact, the hypothesis that occurs to me after reading your
explanation of Ottoman Sazkar as still understood in Turkey is that,
performing the upper Hijaz tetrachord of the seyir in a Zalzalian
style of intonation, Arab interpreters may have transposed the notes
kirdan-sinbulah-buzruk down an octave to rast-kurdi-sikah, thus
arriving at the striking trichord above the final of Arab Sazkar,
which with the usual jaharkah added forms the first tetrachord!

Opening of seyir, Ottoman Sazkar based on 9-7-6 Rast

Segah tone Hijaz
|---------------------| |----------------------|
commas 6 9 7 9 6 13 3
yarmans 9 14 10 14 9 19 5
cents 132 209 154 209 132 286 77
Bb B C# Eb F F# A Bb
sikah jahargah nawa hisar awj kirdan sunbulah buzruk
|------------------|
|
|
v----------------- (transpose down an octave)
|
|
|
Arab Sazkar tone Rast
|---------------------| |----------------------|
commas 13 3 6 9 9 7 6
yarmans 19 5 9 14 14 10 9
cents 286 77 154 209 209 154 132
F# A Bb B C# Eb*/D# F F#
rast kurdi sikah jahargah nava huseyni awj kirdan

This seems to me a not-too-unlikely hypothesis for the present form of
Arab Sazkar, one starting point for my Sazkar Jadid, which differs in
part by being based on a tetrachord of 9-6-7 commas, which the
20th-century Arab theorist Salah al-Din calls Rast Jadid by contrast
with the usual 9-7-6 commas, but which might well take Ibn Sina's name
of Mustaqim for a maqam with conjunct tetrachords of 1/1-9/8-39/32-4/3
or 204-139-155 cents, not too far from 14-9-10 yarmans or 209-132-154
cents in my regular temperament. This I explain not to delve here into
some of your following comments which we should explore further when
you have had a chance to reply to this message, Inshallah, but to shed
some perspective on your concluding remark.

> That is the necessary cadence for Sazkar or Sazkar-i Jedid. But
> what is that? At this very moment, a wily efreet knocked off the
> lid of my metronome in the other room where it started to tick-tock
> loudly. Maybe he is vexed about this New Sazkar? :)

Since I have now inquired and learned the wise teaching that an efreet
is also a creature capable of choosing good or evil, let me offer what
I hope will be a due measure of propitiation, out of simple justice as
well as possibly in the interest of your peaceful music making.

And so I would beg the pardon of your visiting efreet for uttering the
auspicious Ottoman name of Sazkar and then setting out to present a
variation upon the curious Sazkar I knew in what might be to classical
ears a provincial version, as understood and further taken in strange
directions by an alien to the region attempting, among other things,
to find a seyir for the Maqam Mustaqim described by Ibn Sina about a
millennium ago.

Yet in this very strangeness there may be a certain virtue: for any
knowledgeable person would quickly realize what I gladly acknowledge,
that such a curious style is neither a standard nor a substitute for
the classic Ottoman tradition that has done so much to enrich the Near
East and the world. Rather I would entreat that it be taken as a
pleasant diversion of the reason and senses, one sign of the
exuberance of a Renaissance, and here a Zalzalian Renaissance seeking
to honor the Mutazilah way of logic and art.

And to your guest, I would make a humble offering of my music and
theory, however uninformed or inept, as a gift meant to impart some
small measure of _tarab_ or enchantment which the infinite variety of
neutral or Zalzalian steps can bring; and as a gentle signpost,
however wayward my seyir, toward the best seyir, which is toward
Allah, or ha-Shem as we often also say in the Jewish tradition, the
compassionate giver of all good things including the wonders of music.

With many thanks,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@...

a bit political perhaps, but what the heck?

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...>

🔗Margo Schulter <mschulter@...>

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...>