The Difference Between Quartertones in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish Music
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- Опубликовано: 14 май 2015
- Learn my little rule when it comes to playing quartertones in different genres of music.
Read the full article here:
www.oudforguitarists.com/quart... 
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New video that goes deeper into this subject: ruclips.net/video/xWqc4HFJ4s0/видео.html
bro its not the music its persoal inturpretarion the odds that anyone plays a peice of music the same is “0”🤔and western music uses 1/8 tones watch some blues guitar players !
@@helenabasquette7222 absolutely.
@@OudforGuitarists ✌️&❤️to you thanks
So even in music, there are "accents" and "dialects." I'm a westerner who likes languages and your videos are great.
yes there is .
i have heard great musician from Spain plying Iranian SeTa'r , I could detect accent, and I am not musician.
Also intonation accent.
Linguist gang
There was even a study that found correlation between the prosody of language and the rythm of its speaker's cultural music
Absolutely there are dialects.
Except Turkish, Persian and Arabic are completely different languages and not "dialects"
I had no idea about how this was why turkish persian and arabic music sounded so different but im hooked on it now.
I have no idea what I'm watching but this was very interesting.
me too lol
one year later: haha same
What is the exact problem, we could maybe talk anout it. 🤗
One point to take in is that without frets, the pitches can be bent, so this makes the Oud a sort of "singing" instrument. A "singing" guitar. And scales, well, they are another beast.
I'm still learning a lot about makams, and I don't know how they behave in Persian or Arabic music, but in Turkish music (Ottoman Classical music) the microtonal intervals are often flexible; they can be sharper on the way up and flatter on the way down, in terms of melodic progression. It's easier to tell when listening to a soloist as the intervals are slightly more rigid in ensemble playing. But the most important thing about makams is that they are far more complex than western scales or modes; two different makams can consist of the same notes, but it's their behaviour - the way the melody weaves between notes and what modulations are introduced, among other things - that gives them their "flavour".
Really cool that you are trying to give people an easy entry into the territory. But I think it's important to underline that learning makams is a really long-term investment so that people can understand something about the depth involved.
Indeed, you're absolutely right. It's way deeper than this video. I have some newer videos that go into more detail that also deal with the flexibility (tonal gravity) you describe here.
There is some flexibility in Arabic music, but tonal gravity is used quite sparingly in Persian music.
Thank you for this clear explanation! I'm quite new to this, but there's a major point that I have learned & that I missed here. In Turkish music, those special intervals or microtones (not really "quartertones") are typically not fixed, but actually depend on what's happening melodically: In an ascending phrase, they would be played "sharper", in a descending phrase, "flatter". For example Ussak based on D: The 2. note (between D# and E) is slightly higher when ascending, slightly lower when descending.
UliAngola yes, Turkish intonation goes much deeper in reality than my video portrays. This video is just to scratch the surface.
Sure, I'll come back here anyway - there's some nice inspiration also for me as a Lavta player :-)
So, please tell me how many cents the microtonal is, I confused
Turkish music theory nowadays is based on 53 tones per octave, while Arabic and (I think) Persian music theory use 24 tones per octave. Though, in reality, there are a lot of fine differences in pitch than meets the eye.
53-EDO is an excellent standardisation of Pythagorean tuning (where every interval is based only on powers of two and three) and has particularly interesting characteristics that seem completely alien to most Western musicians. In 12-EDO, the chromatic semitone (e.g. C to C♯, E to E♯) and diatonic semitone (C to D♭, E to F) are both equal to one step. But in 53-EDO, the chromatic semitone is 5 steps, while the diatonic semitone is 4. So if you start from C, going up 4 steps puts you at D♭, then going up one step gets you C♯, then go up four more steps to get to D.
@@electric7487hey, awesome information - where can i learn more about this?
You can definitely hear the different characteristics of the different cultures' music from these scales.
It's amazing what difference playing the same note slightly flat or sharp can make!
The Turkish scale has more major-scale characteristics, while the Persian scale has more minor-scale characteristics, with the Arabic one being in the middle, obviously.
It is just the tip of the iceberg. This video really doesn't do the matter justice. Scan my most recent videos , you'll be able to go a bit deeper.
2nd version is definitely Turkish, to my ears it sounds like listening to a Jannisary band marching. Hard to tell the difference (although theoretically possible) but all these years the "tonal structure" makes a place in your brain.
I played the two parts of the same song back to back and guessed the second was sharper (turkish) but I am a musician.
I too could immediately tell by the Janissary band instruments.
What a great thing to have a video about different kinds of quarter tones! It's nice to get a break from equal temperaments once in a while....
cheers from springy Vienna, Scott
You are so talented
And BTW, please note that these are not quarter notes but microtonal intervals.
çınar timur That's right. Quarter tones as a term is an over-simplification.
Allah akbar music is haram
Wait, how is music haram?
çınar timur sure. But lot of westerteeners can’t hear smaller intervals than quatertone.
I think it is not relevant to talk about microTONALITY in the context of a modal music. It would be more appropriate to speak of unequal tempérament
Good video and thank for playing the Tatyos Efendi version! Armenians were first class composers and musicians in the Ottoman empire!!
Armenians contributed a lot to music even also in Persia. The modern Tar design was perfected by an Armenian luthier.
Awesome that this info is so accessible to players all across the planet now.
This is a channel I didn’t know I needed but absolutely do. Thanks!
I want to mention that there is a significant difference between Ussak and Beyati makams in their appearance in the songs. Ussak appears with a RISING scale, Beyati appears with a falling-rising scale. Since the scale of each of the both makams is the same, starting from La (dügah) to La (Muhayyer), the difference in this makams will only appear in a written song.
This sounds interesting, what do you mean by falling-rising scale? Also could you link some examples?
@@creampuff966 I am not sure if it is significant for this video because he actually just points out that the quartertone is played a little different in different cultures. But when you do the start of a taksim (his turkish example), there you can not refer to both makams. There is a significant difference in the melodical development, expecially when you start a taksim. In the Ottoman music system which is thought in turkey there is a significant characteristic of a makam which is called the melodical development. The makam is incomplete with just its specific scale. With rising and falling I just used the wrong words because I struggled to translate it from the turkish language. I just found out that a turkish master translated it in a better way. He says Ascending and Descending. I highly recomment to watch the Videos from the 90´ies of Oud Master and Composer Cinucen Tanrikorur, when he gave seminars in the USA. There he explaines the differences between the 4 makams Ussak, Beyati, Isfahan, Acem which actually use the exact same scale.
kheili karet ghashange navid jan, and you re totally right! I ve always made the difference between turkish Persian and arab thones but I never knew that this is making the difference
Thank you for these amazing videos this is a terrific resource for the whole world!
As a persian,im so happy this was in my recommendeds. Im a fan now
I heard about this is my world music class in college, that music has different amount of notes between 'c's but I had absolutely no idea this was how it was or that it was this cool
It's a whole new world
In Turkish music, although in theory Beyati and Ussak have the same microtonal interval on 2nd degree, we play the one in Ussak distinctively flatter than in Beyati.
çınar timur Thanks for pointing this out. This whole video is more of a over-simplification. Even in Persian music, the microtones for certain pitches are different from one Dastgah to another even when called the same note.
Do you think it's fair to say that the notation used to write down scales from Arabic, Persian and Turkish music (that is to say modified Western notation with quarter tones) is a poor representation of the music?
Because when I read posts like this it seems to me that the quarter tone way of writing things doesn't actually represent the reality of the music very well at all.
Can you give me the interval both of it ?
Sen türksün dime
@@Muzikman127 The quarter tone way of writing music is only a shorthand. In reality, where exactly the microtonal notes sit varies widely. In 24-EDO, equivalent quarter tones in two different scales or modes will sit at the same level. But 24-EDO is not universally used during performances, and a significant number of musicians still choose to retain the finer microtonal details of the past, where an E half-flat in one mode is slightly different than an E half-flat in another mode.
i'm getting acquainted with turkish and midasian music with quarter tones, i can even play some quarter tones on my viola)) but to distinguish differences between quarter tones is really difficult))) for me now))
Thank you for telling the difference and also showing the scales!
yeah sorry microtonal intervals
WOW What at title for a RUclips channel! Def subscribed!!
The first one is the sharper one. As a jazzer I have always wondered about quarter tones.
Not a huge deal, but technically these are 3/4-tones (larger than a semitone, but smaller than a whole tone), not quartertones.
Another way to think about differences in intonation is that the Persian version approximates the interval 13/12, the Arab version approximates the interval 12/11 (which iis exactly what you would get in a 24-tone equal tempered system), and the Turkish version approximates the interval 11/10 (which is not exactly, but fairly close to what you would get in a 53-tone equal tempered system). Not incidentally, theoretical descriptions of Arab and Turkish music assume that the octave is divided into 24 and 53 parts, respectively. To what extent theory reflects practice is another issue.
Thank you for explaining it.
24-tone equal temperament is built of equal quartertones generated by the 24th root of 2. They form irrational numbers, not simple ratios. A 24-tet proportion may resemble an 11/10 quartertone, but it will not be exactly the same.
@@taylordiclemente5163 It's 12/11 that is almost a perfect match with 24 tone equal temperament (150.64 vs 150 cents, an imperceptible difference), not 11/10.
The interesting thing is that in Indian classical music, a very deep modal music system, they use "almost the same" intervals of western music (considering natural intonation, not equal temperament), but each of which has two slightly different intonation shades (except the tonic and the fifth, which are always perfect). "Quarter" tones are completely absent. In fact, Turkish and Arab intervals sound much "weirder" to the western ear than Indian ones.
@@andsalomoni western music used to use just intonation and modes, too, in the middle ages and renaissance. I study early European music, and the farther back I go in time the closer it brings me to the Middle East and India. It's fascinating.
That's why I'm playing quarter tones on my synthesizer with the pitch bend. You can use the Arabic Scala settings but with the pitch bend it sounds more real. It take time to learn it but it let you're virtual instruments sound real.
True dat. I find it lets those notes breathe a bit more and allows them to be beautiful in their passing nature. I use a Korg MinilogueXD and you can tune the keyboard to whatever you need, but I find it still often grating. Those notes need to wiggle a bit, hence your method indeed being indispensably useful. It's just a son of a bitch to get the hang of..
Great video!
Thank you, this was so informative.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for the clear demonstrations :)
+Darragh Keary You're welcome!
thanks alot , I was looking for some sourc to explain the difference for quite some time , since I knew there was a differenc, again i thank you very much, and while we are at it I would like to ask you a question what happened to maqam rast and maqam nahawand or nahavand in the Persian music, how come it's not in the system, I tend to think it used to be there so what happened to it?(and you know that rast panjgah is not maqam rast)I will be waiting for your reply. thank you !
Amazing that you can play without frets adjusting by quarter tones
Anyone can do it.
Excellent video.
Composing dessert music is the most difficult work for me. Because I didn't know the different, but I can feel it. Sometimes I think: "Wait... It doesn't sounds like Arabic, it's kinda Turkish, but why it's sounds almost like Indian too at the same time"... 😂😂
Now, after I watched this, I completely understand what's wrong with my work. But it's still not an easy task to setting the right tone for the instruments to reach the exact purpose. Especially, I'm not used to with this kind of musics. But later or faster, my ears will learn and get used to with the microtones.
Desert music 💀😭 turkey has no deserts
The second is sharper, sounds almost major.
Great video. Im interested in this and leaned a lot. I thought version 1 sounded sharper to my ears
The quality of the second piece made it difficult to focus. I love the Oud sound, and used it's sampled version in a piece, but in a European minor/major [D/G] scale, but later, one phrase ended in a note of 'B', but neither B nor Bb sounded right. So, I really would like to find out what some of the Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and other 'scales' may be useful to blend' into something I'm working on, as if I use an Oud sample, I would like to also recreate a more 'authentic' sound.
The main problem is 'blending' European and Middle Eastern - and Indian scales is the difficulty of harmonies or rather harmonic intervals apart from unison and the octave. I wonder if any Middle Eastern scale has, say, a 'perfect fifth' or some different notes from the tempered scales that can sound good together, even in a 'dissonant' jazz kind of way. An example is the 'droning' of the sitar in some Indian pieces.
I've been wondering the same and would love to create some "crossover" music. Have you found any examples by any chance?
I would bet that the 2nd version is sharper. To my ears the Turkish sound is more metallic and Arabic rounder. Great post Navid.
love it!!
The real specialty of the Turkish maqam system MIGHT be that certain keys in certain maqams -- such as the Segah key in the maqam Uşşak -- VARY (i.e. gets microtonally sharper or flatter) within one and the same piece, depending on whether one is moving "upwards" or "downwards" in the scale. (I don't know whether the same is true of the other two systems.)
Thank you Navid for your courses .
thanks bro, very helpful
Version 1 is the Arabic .. And the second one is Turkish *_*
that's right
Good challenge. I also think the 2nd was Turkish - the quarter tones didn't jump out at me like they did in the first - in fact I hardly noticed them.
Persian music and Azerbaijani music seems to use the same micro-tones (and the same musical ornaments that involve micro-tones), as they are more choppier in nature than in Arabic music, non-Iranian Kurdish music, Sephardic Jewish and Mizrahi Jewish music, Armenian music, Georgian music, Central Asian musics, Greek music [and much other music from the Balkans (i.e. from the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania)], and Turkish music [as well as in Indian (Hindustani and Kartinak) music, Pakistani music, Afghani (especially Pashtuni) music, Bangladeshi music, Nepali music and Sri Lankan music]. Therefore, Arabic music and Turkish music are more similar to each other than Persian music; and Turkish music and Greek music can be extremely similar to each other, which is depending on the musical genre.
Originated from Byzantium, especially Turkish art music
Nice explaination! ( btw it's "Carnatic" )
Amazing!
Your are best of best bro thnx man 👍😄
Amazing thanks 😊
Very , interesting.Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it
This is so interesting I love it! I'm watching this for my music theory class in California. My answers for version 1: I think is using flatter quarter tones and version 2: sounds sharper than version 1. Don't know if I'm right. :)
That was my guess too 👍🏼
On an unrelated topic, Abu-Ata sounds similar to Sindhu Bhairavi raga in Indian Carnatic music.
great nuance 👍👍👍
does the placement of the frets for these quarter tones differ between Persian Tar and Turkish Tanbur?
Hello there!! I’m wondering where one would find a good source of Middle Eastern music that’s royalty free and okay to use on videos?
Really helpful and informative! Thanks
great video
Thanks!
Incredible ear, I'm too used to 12 tone ET. I need to learn the Oud asap.
Once you start, it's quite addictive.
Alois Hába has brought me here ;-) Thanks a lot for the explainations! Does Kurdish music have an own quartertone scale or does it depend on the region?
The arabic tunes tend to be lower, but they don't use the same quartertones as in turkish, iraqi or persian music. Every musical system is different! Turkish music for instance is based on the phytagorean tuning. In arabic music a small wholetone is 165 cents, in turkish it's 180,45 cents (pyth. limma of 90,225 cents x 2) and in Persian (the scales very different and not even maqam but dastgah) it is the "big neutral tone" which is 160 cents. Compared to the western tempered system which is halftone = 100 cents, wholetone = 200 cents.
Even within a country from region to region the intonation differs. They don't even have the same maqamat/makamlar. Read "Makamlar: The Musical Scales of Turkey" by Thomas Mikosch. The author compares the scales to other systems and explains the history of them. The maqam Huseyni for instance goes back as far as ancient greece which can be traced back to "Ptolemy's equable diatonic scale" (Michael Hewitt's book on that topic is an eye opener!)
Z. Guitar Odd thanks for adding this further clarification. I'm more interested in your mention of Dastgah. I am trained in traditional Persian music and I have not yet heard or read definitions of Maqam and Dastgah that suggest they are any different in practical application. In basic reality is they are just terms that mean the same thing, modal system with certain subtle differences.
Dastgah is very different compared to maqam/makam. First of all the intervals (160 cents for neutral interval compared to 165 in arabic and 185,45 in turkish music for instance and the other intervals are different as well) and the scales too. I have been studying turkish makamlar and arabic maqamat on my own and with many teachers over the last few years. There are many scales that don't exist elsewhere but just in Persia. It is a whole different system compared to the others. Though many maqamat/makamlar have their origin in Persian music. Just like maqam (and the pitch name) Yegah (-gah is persian for position) which means "on the first position". Or maqam Dugah (second position) or maqam Cargah (fourth position). Of course they have scales that are quiet the same though they are different. I am just reading the book by Hormoz Farhat which is very good and I think the only book on persian Dastgah. In persian music are also many scales which don't have an octave, they just go beyond it. But I am just beginning with that myself. All I can say is makam and dastgah is not the same though they share some scales.
Z. Guitar Odd all that is true. What I'm trying to say is that at a fundamental level, Maqam and Dastgah are comparable systems. For a the audience of this video, who are beginners, this is important to know at first. The subtle distinctions grow as you get deeper of course.
Sorry, I didn't want to offend anybody. Just to share some information which might be hard to come by. Your videos are great. It's just impossible to find someone who can teach that kind of stuff in english :o), so respect for that. Sorry, didn't want to offend you or other viewers in any way. Great work you do in sharing that information!
Z. Guitar Odd no offence taken. I really appreciate the time you took to add these comments. For those who are ready for more info, they are invaluable and help clarify a lot. I think we are looking at the same thing from two angles: practice and theory.
I like the oud
anyone know where i can get traditional Turkish, Arabian, or Persian MIDI files? they seem very hard to find
excellent explanation on the subtle details of the microtones
Nice video. The quartones also differ between makams. For Rast makam it is e.g. higher than Ussak. It is therefore the Turkish tanbur got very many frets.
Yep!
@@OudforGuitarists You forgot to mention the highest quartertone, which is the Greek. It is so high that it is a whole tone. Therefore they claim to be playing Rast on a Bouzouki or guitar.
ruclips.net/video/L9Tl_4fekDI/видео.html
I think this is quite funny (or sad).
fascinating. i can barely hear it as an egyptian. the two songs at the end sounds like the arabic one is first (flatter quartertone)
The second song sounds more similar to a usual major chord. The first one is more middle eastern because of a more distinctive quarter tone. So the quarter tone of the second song is more sharp.
Since the second version had poor audio (and my brain is so heavily tuned to the western scale), I was unable to distinguish the difference. I lived in Turkey over 10 years and as a musician from the US I was captivated so much i bought an Ud while living in Ankara and learned from Turkish friends; nevertheless, I was often puzzled buy the nuances and found even the simplest songs were hard play the same way twice.
It just takes some practice with the right guide and you'll be able to hear and play the microtones.
@@OudforGuitarists Persian, Azerbaijani, and Turkish music are parts of my daily nourishment. I have a deep connection with Persian music but listen to Azerbaijani songs too cheer me up. When Dastgah-e Homayoun falls in the hands of Azeri musicians it turns into a cheerful melody😊than when is played by Persian music players. I could readily make distinction between the first version in Arabic and the second in Turkish Analoty. However, there are muguam in Azerbiajnai music that I am uncertain to pair it with mugums in Persian music such as Shekasteh Fars, which comes close to Mahour, but not exactly and Nava doesn’t sound a perfect match either. I request comparison of Mugams. I pasted the link below. Thank you for the video. It refreshes my old time music lessons. ruclips.net/video/mUGy8marU0c/видео.html
Thanks dude for differentiating. ...if you don't mind me using my Western scale to tell what I hear, the note or interval that really stands out to me as sharper in the first example is the 3rd of the scale (sounds in between a major 3rd and a minor 3rd- it could be called a "perfect third") the second song I could play on a keyboard because it pretty much fits that scale. But you were playing the second of the scale as one that is particularly different, and I definitely noticed that difference in a lot of music. And then I have found several Middle East area songs that had the 7th of the scale in between a whole and half step from the higher tonic! Man, this is getting complicated!
Z. Guitar Odd I have Cameron Powers' "Harmonic Secrets of Arabic Music Scales", which gives tables of pitches in both cents and ratios (and Hz too).
It would be interesting if he also discussed the differences which seem to exist between different parts of the Arabic world. Moroccan or Algerian music certainly sounds different to me from music from more eastern regions, but my ear isn't good enough in most cases to identify actual pitch differences very precisely. I wonder whether there is some indigenous Amazigh influence at work in the western area?
I don't know Mikosch's book, but thanks for mentioning it, I will look it up.
@@petretepner8027 He can't because he has no clue about music what so ever! Western or Arabic. Most of his stuff is culled together from internet sources and David Muallem's book! He doesn't know that maqamat are different ascending from descending, or what about when they go above the octave!? No information what so ever. Because HE HAS NO CLUE! A major part of the scales are even wrong. Show it to an Arab musician, he will have the laugh of his lifetime! That book is plain rubbish! Absolutely rubbish and useless! But he is right now writing a book about the Egyptian ney ... well ... if you are really into Arabic music, you will learn nothing from that book. He just found some information that he collected. Spelling mistakes all over. This book is just a joke, sorry. And yes, I studied that stuff and know what I am talking about. Go to maqamworld.com and there you have it. Powers books are a waste of money! Mikosch discusses the difference between Turkish and Arabic Makam/Maqam scales but has his focus on Turkish makamlar and you get the modulations and so on ...
@Maurice LaCroix II Thanks for the heads-up and the link. I was already disappointed with Powers' book: all those full-page tables that take up a lot of space, but aren't really at all informative. I searched in vain for the "harmonic secrets" the title promises us.
@@petretepner8027 The only book that really compares scales is Thomas Mikosch's ... but his focus is on Turkish Makam scales. This is the only book that does any comparison. Comparing Persian music to Arabic is like comparing Chinese music to Japanese ... and Powers has no clue about Western or Arabic music. He can't tell a major scale from locrian. He just found some scales in books and online and thought it would be a good idea to write a book. The charts are also bullshit. Most Arab musicians hold to the Pythagorean system just like the Turkish people, he just is talking about just intonation. Though the Arabic intervals are more drastic and don't sound as delicate as those of the Turkish. The Persian dastgah system is another story. Maqamat are about 800 years older than the dastgah concept, though many Maqam names are Persian. They share a few scales such as dastgah Hosaini and Mahur but the sound is different to their Arabic equivalent. Compare Iradj (Persian) to Oum Kalthoum (Egyptian) and you'll hear the difference. Persians have dastgah and their guzes, no maqamat. There is a lot of rubbish on the book market about this. Habib Hassan Touma is also a classic and must read. Like the Helmholtz of Arabic music if you are not able to read al-Farabi's books, which haven't been translated yet from Arabic.
@Maurice LaCroix II More good info. Thanks! I've bookmarked this page so I can read your comment again and maybe follow up your recommendations if I ever find the time to go into Arabic music more deeply. Meanwhile Maqam World looks like it has plenty to keep me occupied. I seem to remember an older incarnation of that, which wasn't so clearly laid out, and then went offline...
Very good. I would add that the turkish 2nd degree is in ascending much more sharper than in decending. (Makam Uşşak)
انا مش فاهم
I like the turkish one, it sounds the most dissonant not surprisingly.
I think because its closer to the II degree of the scale, pheraps just right in the middle of IIb and II
As a Turkish thank youu
Yes
By Turkish, you mean Armenian
@@ham8654 oh f*ck off
Every time I hear these scales; my Western ears get cross-eyed😬
i don't know what that means exactly , do you like Orientals scales or dislike them ? xD
Hamza Trabelsi , no I find quarter tone scales interesting, they’re quite hard to play. I fiddled around on a Turkish saz once, and found out that I’ll never going to learn how to play it properly🤣
cross-eared, surely?
X4rrr, read again, and now actually read.
@@davidclarkson3066 That's OK, It's your Brain .. It's just Not used to hearing that kind of music. It's just Like eating an exotic flavor of food, it tastes weird to you, but is familiar and comforting to someone who grew up with it. 😃
Very nice mashaallah
Any listening recommendations for learning / getting my brain to understand quarter tones? I couldn't even hear the difference between the Persian and Arabic quarter flat note. I've been a musician for years but I just never been trained to find meaning in that level of pitch granularity, you know?
I think if you listen to this music a lot you will eventually get used to understanding these differences. I guess the best step is firstly find a music style that you like from different regions. Then try to understand/ sing along. It would help if you have a fretless/multifret instrument like oud or/lavta, tanbur.
Great
Is there any way I can find the recordings you used for the challenge in the end of the video? Greetings from cold Norway 🥶
You were on spot with Turkish one, I can say that. And I think it is all about the languages, Persian sounds flat, Turkish sounds sharp and so the music reflects that
Well done my guy
The way you said abu ata was so persian😂 so damet garm khaste nabashi
I hope you teach us the turkish way to play oud
2nd sounded like a major scale therefore Turkish.
thank you for the great video. do you know anyone to learn turkish violin on youtube?
خیلی عالی بود. 😊
According to my tuner, the persian Eqf = E+3/8 ,
the arabic Eqf = E+3.5/8 ,
the turkish Eqf = E+2/8
Sounds a lot like the Indian Svara: Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa. Can you please compare. I am not that much into music theory.
Can you givr us names of the most important singers in iranian music history because i don't know a lot about persian music
I want to learn guitar because i like world music but watching this looks like it will take me a lifetime to be decent
I have one student that started taking zoom lessons with me every week since November so about 9 or 10 months now, and she is reading music, playing microtones and progressing really well. It's no more difficult than any other musical instrument. Maybe a little harder than guitar, but maybe easier than piano.
2 was Turkish I think. The microtones didn't sound as out-standing in the second one compared to the first. They sounded closer the semitones, or they were "sharper" to my ear.
Arabic one has a better flow
Number 1 was Turkish and 2?
به به،کوک Abu ata ایرانی را عالی اجرا کردی،عالی بود برادر👌👌💚💚🌺🌷
Do you have an opinion on what scale is closest to the romani gypsy scale?
These days, flamenco plays in phrygian, but where are the historic roots of the sound from?
Is the second example using sharper quarter tones?
Yes, wikipedia lists several scales in reference to romani gypsy scale.
But here are a few that are the most close, in Arabic terms: maqam hijaz Kar, maqam nawa Athar.
In Persian music the closest would be Dastgah Chahargah. Chahargah is similar to hijaz Kar except some microtones are sharper. It has intervals which are not found in Arabic or Turkish music.
@@OudforGuitarists thank you, that really accurately answers my question. Wiki mentions the phrygian, phrygian dominant, double harmonic, but doesnt really mention any microtonalisms, nor does it give me any insight to the historical roots of the musical scales. I did find one man talking about the Romani descending from Indians and travelling somehow to Spain.
The music has evolved a lot since then, and I'm not sure how much altering will really enhance the sounds. Most Eastern music I've heard seems to use drone notes and melodies. The incorporation of chordal harmonies makes it really difficult to alter tuning by a whole lot. The arabian soleares falsettas sound really good with these alterations though.
Thanks again!
@@socalsalas2983 I think you would enjoy Ross Daly's talks on modal music. There are a few documentaries on RUclips. I highly recommend checking out his work.
I didn't quite catch your name in the beginning of the video.
Are you an Iranian-American? I have a question about oud making, are they also different between them?
I'm Iranian-Canadian. Yes, Iranian Ouds have their own style, craftsmanship and sound. A little different, but you can play any Arabic music on Iranian Ouds.
It's kinda tricky to divide them into Arabic, Turkish and Persian (bear in mind I'm going to use the Rast 3rd as a reference point).
It's better to define them in terms of geographical spread. The Turkish are, as you say, consistently the highest in terms of intonating their quarter tones.
In fact they intonate their Segah notes in Rast so high that it can be hard to distinguish between it and Ajam.
The Syrians are second place, not being quite as sharp but certainly moreso then everyone else besides the Turks.
Fun factoid, the Byzantines actually based their modes on Arabic/Turkish music theory so their Diatonic mode is something like a Turkish/Syrian Rast.
The Iranis are harder to classify so I'm going to break type. If we're talking Rast Penjgah then, to my knowledge, they seem to play it a lot like the Turks do (though my Irani repertoire isn't extensive enough).
But you're on the money with them intonating their (for lack of a better term) Bayyati/Ussak seconds comparatively low.
But here's why people are griping in the comments about Arabs: You're right, and so are they.The Egyptians (and I think the Khaleejis) intonate their Rast thirds pretty low.
Don't know about the Iraqis though. Need to dig through some samples.
MisterManDuck ethnic groups like Armenians ,Greeks and other non-ethnically- Turkish minorities of .Asia Minor and the very ethnically mixed Ottoman Empire created and contributed to the music. I think using Asia Minor over the term Turkish is more appropriate in terms of inclusive geography.
Then there's the diaspora ,the exiles ,so geography can fail us there. In the Americas,it was Armenians and Asia Minor Greeks,and various refugees and exiles of the Ottoman lands who held brought the oud tradition in the Americas (north and south) and held it down in the 20th century. And esp the Armenians . It was til immigration allowed other west Asian north African and African immigrants bringing new waves.
Well, yeah, they will have done so because that's how empires tend to work and everything is kind of a rough rule. It's a little tricky to account for every single little cent's worth of intonation due to everyone's contribution. But going by what I heard, you're *kinda* bang on the money with calling it Asia Minor over Turkish, because from what I've heard of Turkish and Armenian Oud playing there's a lot of stylistic overlap.
Kinda.
There's also something else to consider: There are classical and folk traditions that are already established in given areas, and ethnographic work actually has been done on them. More established and codified traditions of playing tend to be more widespread and also dictate, to some level, what other people in the region will be playing. This also makes them easier to track and assess. Smaller demographics will end up contributing to the larger systems that are more established, or will be defined in some way by them.
Hampartsoum Limondjian is a very good example of this. Being of Armenian descent he codified the notation system - based on Armenian church hymns - that was the standard of Ottoman repertoires up until the Turkish decided to emulate the Western Clef System. And was a beast of a musician besides. It's due in large part to his work that there still is a surviving Classical Ottoman repertoire.
The reason I say all of this is because we can at least make some inferences from what we actually do know based on what's recorded. You can look up Scott Marcus, or alternatively any literature regarding how recorded Maqamat never actually meshed with the 24-TET system proposed by the Cairo congress of 1932. Scott Marcus in particular notes how in Aleppo their Rast Thirds range from about 355 to 365 cents, while in Damascus it's something like 365 to 375 cents.
And, according to my contact who is *very* well versed in the classical Turkish tradition, their thirds are classically a lot higher than the Arabs. At their *lowest* they will intonate like the people in Damascus, but at their highest they intonate at about 385 cents. Most Arabs down here in the Gulf would call this Jiharkah or something close to Ajam. Which makes sense because a lot of Arabs intentionally started tuning their thirds lower to more easily distinguish between Ajam and Rast. And I can tell you from personal experiences that Gulf places their thirds a *significantly* lower than the Syrians and Turks.
That's not to say that Armenians, or any other exiled populace, hasn't contributed. They have. There's documented evidence that they have, and that's undeniable. But unless we have recordings and ethnographic studies to go by for their intonational tendencies, we can't make any inferences. And that's really what my post was about. Not about who contributed what - music and culture are always in flux and has no solid borders - but very specifically intonation within certain geographic spreads, with reference points we can actually use.
I think the second one is sharper, but I can't really tell.
How do you actually visualize these subtly different quarter tones on the oud fretboard??
At an advanced level, it's more about finding the notes with your ears rather than visually. But at the very beginning, I do use a visual aid to teach them. Take an open string, then find the minor 3rd interval from your open string. If you visually divide the interval between the nut and your finger placement on the minor 3rd interval, then you will roughly find the placement of one of the microtones used. But after that, one must use their ear to fine tune.
I understand that in Turkish music, these microtones tend to be played a little sharper when ascending and a little flatter when descending. Is this also true of Persian and Arabic music?
No, the pitches are immovable regardless of the octave or ascending/descending melodic movement. Any changes in pitch would be seen as a different maqam. So for example an E half flat in maqam sikah might be a little flatter than in maqam rast but it is always called by the same name and this pitch ought to be consistent.
What song did you use for the intro? Would love to know it :D
It's my own jingle I composed for my channel. Glad you like it.
So, I have a question. Like how westerners find quarter-tone, Eastern music off-putting and sometimes, even unnerving, do easterners have a similar opinion about western music? Or is it a different situation?
I think there was a generation which became fascinated by it so much they wanted to conform to Western music. Then later another generation rediscovered the value of modal music in eastern music. So some musicians don't like the limits brought on by using equal temperament instruments and conductors.
I don't think it's off-putting when simply listening to music, it's off-putting when trying to perform and arrange with Western music and Western instruments in some scenarios.
Having spoken to and participated in Western orchestras as well as instruments from the Middle Easr, India and Japan, I feel that I can answer. Some people, usually older folks, will claim that they simply can't understand Western classical music because their particular tradition is based on a single melodic line. But, nobody these can deny that they're used to hearing it in TV or movies because it's pervasive in entertainment since the 1960's or so. (Mainly, I have heard this most from older Indian folks.) There are many people in many parts of the world these days that want their traditional systems to embrace polyphony within their own traditional music systems. I have heard this mostly from Arab and Turkish people. it will be very interesting in about 200 years to see/hear how that turns out and what they come up with. ..........
@@titanrodickable fascinating...
Actually It sounds too simple for someone who only listens to Eastern music😅😅😅
no. Western music to me is like a properly prepared food with basic taste. not bad but there are no surprises nor extravagance (except for when I listen to JS Bach). what annoys me is not that music itself but rather the fact that it's everywhere. there's no escape from it.
any good playlists for music from each? (preferably on spotify or youtube)
For Arabic, I think the best introduction into this music is Sultans of Tarab volumes 1-7:
open.spotify.com/playlist/2F2JHvkymjnsiWMUXptVE3?si=Zl8IrDGfT_q0MQYb8HrEXg
For Oud (includes all regions that play Oud there is this playlist:
open.spotify.com/playlist/5csFaYPrW0gz6bJn4NeZoT?si=DK-ko19yQs6le2OYSzYxSQ
I haven't found a stellar Turkish music playlist yet.
For Persian:
open.spotify.com/playlist/0pqpJno0nEkXgWINZNYsbi?si=xexqsbLQS6-hB3fu41XEFw
Thank you very much. As someone who is new to music of these regions and oud in general I really do appreciate this along with your channel as a whole.
ps hello from America
@@isaiahhuerta9505 feel free to ask questions anytime.
This also what I've noticed. Turkish and Arabic quater notes are slightly different. I think of it this way
Arabic -50
Turkish -70
Thanks for watching and commenting. I did an update this week about this: ruclips.net/video/xWqc4HFJ4s0/видео.html
3:14 i declare this to be „the lick“
Ah yes, "quarter-tones" - everything my ex-violin-playing Western ear determinedly tells me should be avoided at all costs, lol! But I'm actually here in my quest to be more able to differentiate the music of each region, and I found this quite informative - so thank you! Though I must admit to still being a little confused, as many of the Turkish examples I've listened to seem to ascend on the sharp side, but descend on the flat side...?
That means your ear is very good. It's true. This is just an oversimplified video. In practice using microtones is much deeper. Even from country to country the pitches are slightly different.
I just wanted to steer people away from the idea of 24 tone equal temperament which exists out there.
Rather than being confused, just be flexible and use your ears. Your ears are the authority.
@@OudforGuitarists Thank you!❤
The problem with that is that the violin was patterned after other ancient fret-less instruments which were widely used in playing ethnic quarter tones....Avoid at all costs? lol
Version 2 uses sharper 2nd intervals.
Words are Persian as the roots are Persian like maqam which meams position and bayat which is beyad ( in memory of ) nahavand which is a city in iran ...etc
Ooh interesting. I have heard some theories about bayat being Turkish origin or arabic but beyaad I've never heard.
does this mean if i purchase a turkish oud for example, i can play arabic music?
MAANI MM you can play all and every kinds of music on a fretless instrument. But the taste and the color may vary
Turkish uşşak you played at 3:18 doesn't sound like uşşak. Idk why but I Live win turkey and I have listened thousands of turkish maqam musics, and that one didn't sound like uşşak. Maybe I'm wrong, I just wanted to tell. But You are talented and you play amazing. Great video 😊
You are correct. It was a very, very poor rendition of uşşak. I think I have improved in my Turkish-style playing since then, but the Turkish style is my weakest point still. I'm still learning and studying it.
There is another matter of Turkish and Arabic Ouds: I have both Turkish and Arabic Ouds, and when I play the Arabic Oud and try to play the some intonation, it just doesn't sound right. I think you really need a Turkish Oud to play the intonation correctly. The design highlights different sounds. But that's my opinion. I would like to put it to the test and have a skilled Turkish Oud player play my Arabic Oud and see if the intonation comes out properly. That would be a great video.