Mike's Oud Forums

maqam sazcar

nile pirate - 8-16-2013 at 03:00 AM


Dear all
I would like to have some advice and guidance from those who are maqam- experts re maqam sazcar( persian meaning the work of instruments). I got stumbled with unusual maqam while studying the arabic rhythm nawacht 7/8, usually illustrated with Sayed Darweesh muwashah “SEHTO WAGDAN”.. Iam quite familiar with this lovely muwashah and have some notation scores for it in usual straight forward

Rast.However I founf out that in many sources and according to many scholars it is classified as Sazcar which is rast with D sharp( kurd) instead of natural D(dokah) between normal C and half flat E. Playing it this way sounded awkward to me- To my astonishment many other Rast famous pieces have turned up to be sazcar e.g. mala al kasat and muwashah Ya shadi alalhan
Iam not sure whether this sharp D is a transient ornamentation or a fixed featue of it, then Rast and Sazcar could be played alternatively




































majnuunNavid - 8-16-2013 at 11:57 PM

Hello,

My guess is that it is probably more a transient ornamentation as you call it but can be both. You can have a song that is primarily in Rast but for short segments goes into sazkar, and you can have a song that really stays in sazkar. There are pieces like this where the song starts in one maqam and modulates to another one... so really, should it be classified as the one it starts in and returns to?
I would also like to hear what other people have to say about this as well. :)

صحت وجدا

Arabesque999 - 8-18-2013 at 02:43 PM

dear pirate
I have played and sung this muwashah - and can assure you it it is a straight forward Rast as you said- enclosed is is the score notation used by many reputable ensambles and a link for live performance showing clearly that it is all rast

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YcRNqB...

spartan - 8-18-2013 at 11:13 PM

The piece is definately Rast .

Sometimes in Rast pieces (especially in classical Ottoman repertoire) Segah note is dominant, and due to this the Dugah note is sharpened. This gives a Segah flavor in the piece.

When this D # is permanent in a piece , we have Sazkar maqam.

In Arabic Rast a modulation like this (C-D#- E half flat-F) is not common.
So I guess that they call Rast Sazkar a piece with an occasionnal modulation like this.

Rambaldi47 - 8-19-2013 at 04:30 AM

I am severely unqualified for participating in this issue,
but I'll only give Sami Shumays' (violin/kaman player, taught under Simon
Shaheen among others) analysis of the muwashshah as being in maqam Sazkar.
Quote:

This first version of Maqam Rast, or, if you like, member of the Rast maqam family, is variously known, often simply as Rast, but also as "Maqam Kirdan" (referring to the note on which the melody starts, the octave above the root, a note which is known in the turkish naming system as "Kirdan"), or as "Maqam Sazkar" (the maqam name given to both "Ya Shadi il-Alhan" and "Sihtu Wajdan" in the collection Min Kunuuzina, despite it being known as "Rast" in other collections, such as Sabah Fakhri's majesterial recorded collection of Waslas known as Naghmat il-Ams), which refers to the raised second scale degree that occurs in some versions of these songs, including the Marie Jubran version of "Sihtu Wajdan" presented here.


http://maqamlessons.com/analysis/rast.html

markus - 8-19-2013 at 06:36 AM

Dear pirate how are? long time no see then you come up with this delicate query- showing that even pirates could get trapped – the original sazcar consisting of gins sazcar on the C fara RasT on F
Gins sazcar has unusual compostion;
6/4 from C to D sharp, ¼ from D sharp to E half flat, ¾ fro eEhaf flat to F – resembling in a sense mustaar . In its original form it is seldom sung , played or scored. Much more commonly on descending the kurd is touched in a chromatic way after the Seekah- with a normal D & C in which case the kurd will be the 3rd note with the natural d as the 2nd .In a sense one can say that in descending sazcar woud have nahawand on C then rast on F
SALMAT
Greco-Egyptian

Brian Prunka - 8-19-2013 at 08:58 AM

While it is difficult to know the historical conception of the maqam sazkar, I think we can comfortably say that it isn't generally considered as a separate maqam in modern Arabic music theory.

Aside from those who attempt to reconstruct the past (a fine pursuit in itself), all of these examples would be considered Rast by modern performers, just with different flavors. The only maqam variant of Rast that is reliably called by a separate maqam name seems to be Suznak (Rast + Hijaz). Sometimes Nairuz is brought up (Rast + Bayati), but this is almost always as a modulation from Rast or Suznak and not as an independent maqam.

The Sikah emphasis (with D# or arguably D‡, depending on who you ask) of Sazkar is such a common feature of Rast that it is not typically thought of as something separate, at least in my experience. The descending development of Kirdan is notable, but even that is nowadays treated as an alternate structure for Rast, not a different maqam.

While study of and hypothesizing about older theories/conceptions etc. can be valuable, I would suggest that it is not the most fruitful application of effort for those that are relatively new to the study of maqam music. If you ask professionals the maqam of these pieces, they will almost invariably say Rast.

Masel - 8-19-2013 at 09:49 AM

i agree too much theory can make you forget that theory came after parctice and only tries to explain it, and still the most important is: parctice.

nile pirate - 8-20-2013 at 11:45 AM

thanks a lot
for all who took the bother to help me understand maqam sazcar. I feel more confident and in the light of these views I am more inclined to look upon the kurd note as third rather than second passed transiently between the sikah and the normal D on descent giving a feel of nahawand rather than rast. Still the original sazcar ( sazcar+rast) is not palatable to me

Jono Oud N.Z - 8-20-2013 at 12:37 PM

The maqam Sazkar is described primarily as a compound of Rast and Segah.

Feldman, Walter, Music of the Ottoman Court, (Berlin, VWB, 1996), p. 239.

Here is a famous piece erroneously attributed to Demetrie Cantemir
in maqam Sazkar.

[file]27620[/file]

Feldman, Walter, Music of the Ottoman Court, (Berlin, VWB, 1996), p. 372. (Regarding the attribution).

Murat Aydemir describes the modern maqam Sazkar as being a compound of Rast, Ushshaq and Segah.

Aydemir, Murat, Turkish Music Makam Guide, (Istanbul, Pan Yayincilik, 2010), p. 65-68.

The note kurdi (D#) is used as the leading tone to the segah jins, but is almost, if not always, replaced with dugah (D) before resolving in maqam Rast.
The compound of these three maqamat is evident in the above piece.

Suhtu wajdan piece

Onglon - 11-28-2017 at 12:20 PM

hello!

i am looking for the notes of suhtu wajdan (my teacher wants me to play it for next sunday), and i found this post which talks about it, but can't find the music sheet, if someone has it?

i actually found the attached sheet on the sama3y forum, but it seems to have the ornamentations included, while i would be looking for a simpler version, if available.

best

Attachment: صحت وجدا.pdf (71kB)
This file has been downloaded 201 times

Onglon - 11-28-2017 at 12:58 PM

i may have talked too fast, the music sheet is actually not that bad. thank you

Onglon - 12-1-2017 at 01:11 AM

a much better music sheet for "suhtu wajdan"

صحت وجدا يا ندامى.JPG - 127kB