Mike's Oud Forums

my friend's ears and the sika tone

Onglon - 6-29-2017 at 05:38 AM

hello fellow oudists,

i have been struggling lately to convince a western opera/soprano friend of mine to sing some bayati. But the bayati leaves her chill as marble. it just does not reach her. and it is not me who does not play well. i sent her directly to the source, for example: this heart breaking song by wadi3 el safi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0JQhmb_e0I or the bayati bridge in ya msafer wahdak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0JQhmb_e0I

i am reaching the conclusion, based on this small sample of experience, that there is no beauty in the maqam itself, just emotional associations we grow up with.

therefore, no beauty in the maqam itself?

regards
onglon


mham - 6-29-2017 at 09:04 AM

Hi there !

What an interesting question :)

As far as I am concerned, I would say that beauty itself is quite subjective !

However, the oriental ear is more used to hearing those quarter tones and maqams since childhood, compared to the western one. So there is definitively something linked to the emotional/cultural/educational background which makes people used to hearing maqams, more susceptible to the emotions they convey, and hence see beauty in them.
From my experience, when i make western musicians hear maqams for the first time, they often hear the quarter tones as wrong notes. But after some time, their ears get used to the sounds, and they start to enjoy them more.

We could also think of a historical comparison in western music itself, with the introduction of new intervals that were first considered as evil and banned (cf. tritone https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/51676/what-is-so-special-a... ). Now they are often used in jazz music and not only !

Well, I hope I brought some interesting elements, I am quite new on this topic :cool:

Cheers !

Jody Stecher - 6-29-2017 at 09:54 AM

As you say, it is a small sample of experience. The opinion of one soprano is not enough to draw a conclusion about inherent beauty. For what it's worth: I am of European descent, was born in the USA and lived there all my life. With the notable exception of Donizetti and a few others, I have not automatically responded to Opera in a positive way. Westerners do not automatically like Opera. This caused Mark Twain to write, over 100 years ago, in his usual humorous way that "Opera is better than it sounds".

Does the maqam Bayati have inherent beauty? I am not qualified to comment but I can say that when I began to learn oud and Arabic maqam music Bayati was the maqam I listened to the most, and the one I wanted to play the most. (Well, Rast, was its equal partner).

Also a trained opera soprano is not qualified to automatically be able to sing Bayati or any other maqam. She needs exposure and training. Would wadi3 el safi be able to sing opera simply because he was a great singer of Arabic music? Not at all. These are two entirely different skills.

Onglon - 6-29-2017 at 11:55 AM


Hi! thank you both for these interesting elements.

SamirCanada - 6-29-2017 at 05:46 PM

I am a native arabic music listener and that wadea al safi video you shared doesn't do it for me. I love wadea... that's not his best stuff in my opinion. To each their own I guess.

For me, I won't oooh and aaah to bayati alone... I need some modulations. Sika/huzam especially will give me that feeling. I think it goes for all maqam based music... if you want the crowd to go wild you need to explore modulations but also execute in an apropriate maner with the right build up and tranation. If you listen to the classics of the arabic music golden age that are recorded in front of a live audience. When the singer goes into a mawal the crowd will react to his execution of modulation to different maqamat

Brian Prunka - 6-29-2017 at 08:24 PM

Something to think about is that categorical perception occurs prior to conscious awareness. Which is a fancy way of saying that if your brain hasn't already created a category for the sikah note to belong to, it will stick it in one of the boxes it already has, all before you can consciously perceive it. So you literally don't hear the note as itself. Your friend simply is not really hearing bayati, even if you play it for her. Eventually she might, if she keeps trying.

On the other hand, beauty in music is perceived through experience and exposure, so there isn't much sense in talking about "inherent" beauty.

Onglon - 6-29-2017 at 09:55 PM

thank you all for the additional inputs.

if i may add a nerdy follow-up:

as we know, a note played in tune brings the instrument alive (it sounds both deeper and brighter - probably because of the triggered harmonics). this is how for example i know that i am hitting the F note on the D string or the Bb note on the g string (in arabic tuned oud). ie, i feel that the notes physically exist and with good ear, one is able to hear the physicality of the note (this special in-tune vibration).

the question being, is the sika also such a note? ie one that has this extra physical vibration if one listens carefully, or is it a mere social learned convention?

i read somewhere in the forum that the sika note differs slightly by cultural regions, which supports the argument that the sika is a social convention.

best

SamirCanada - 6-30-2017 at 07:36 AM

I think you are over analyzing this :) more importantly this isn't really tied to one instrument like the oud, its maqam based music as a whole.

Agree with Brian, its definitely about exposure. I liken it to acquiring a taste for food you didn't grow up eating. Most definitely non natives can acquire the taste for Arabic music and its subtleties. Even become masterful musicians in the style.

Regarding the harmonics of the oud, yea sure if you tune CFAdgc for example. yes the f on the d string will resonate with the base F. If you tune CEAdgc, the f on the d string wont resonate as much. Add that to the fact that all ouds react differently to various notes and tuning. Just sing into a oud and you will see right away which tone the top vibrates to most.

About regional differences of playing maqamat, that's not really a thing any more unless you are talking about very traditional local repertoire. Sure there is Sika and Sika baladi, they differ slightly but to be honest I think Arabic music from the time of 1940's on has been standardized because the whole arab world was listening to the same popular masterpieces. If I am a Lebanese musician playing a tune in bayat and there are Iraqi and Moroccan musicians playing along with me, we aren't going to argue about the microtonal discrepancies of how to play that E half flat. It's going to be played the same way the recording we all have as a reference point.


Onglon - 6-30-2017 at 07:53 AM

my sukar oud vibrates most on the D!
thank you for the answers

Brian Prunka - 7-1-2017 at 10:15 AM

I don't know Samir — I still encounter variations in tuning from people, because the old Egyptian recordings, mid-century Egyptian recordings, Lebanese recordings and Syrian recordings are all different. Some musicians I play with will perform the songs how they learned them from the recordings, resulting in variation.
Also someone growing up in Aleppo still learns the notes differently than someone from Beirut or Palestine — people still learn from the local traditions, I think.

But I agree that anyone performing, say, Daret al-Ayyam, will perform the maqam the way Oum Kulthoum's orchestra did, not some local variation.

Brian Prunka - 7-1-2017 at 10:19 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Onglon  

the question being, is the sika also such a note? ie one that has this extra physical vibration if one listens carefully, or is it a mere social learned convention?



The note sikah doesn't exist as an overtone of the other notes, nor the other way around, so you're correct that it's not the same.

A "C" will trigger vibration on "G" because G is an overtone of C, same goes for F triggering C (and of course, any note will vibrate a string tuned to the same note).
A "G" will also trigger the C string to vibrate the G harmonic of the C string, etc.

Sikah will not trigger overtones in this way, it's not harmonically related in that way, it is an arbitrary convention.

Onglon - 7-1-2017 at 04:11 PM

thank you

Onglon - 7-1-2017 at 06:36 PM

being an arbitrary agreed note, wouldn't the sikah be a set back to the school of science who defines music in terms of ratios? i mean, was pythagor aware of the sikah and if he wasn't, when did it appear? i would love to read more about those subjects.

(these relate as much to the oud as to the maqam system as a whole, so sorry if these are off topic, or too nerdy)

elreyrico - 7-2-2017 at 12:07 AM

Hi,

I cannot fully agree with this statement :

"The note sikah doesn't exist as an overtone of the other notes"

In practive Segah/sikah is a MOVING NOTE which can be played differently according to the taste of the musician (or of his musical tradition) and to the "circumstances" of the melody.

The upper boundary IS AN OVERTONE of the rast note (perfect third)

The lower boundary is the neutral third. (not an overtone)

These two boundaries notes will tend to produce very different sensations when you hear them.

Brian Prunka - 7-3-2017 at 04:49 AM

Quote: Originally posted by elreyrico  
Hi,

I cannot fully agree with this statement :

"The note sikah doesn't exist as an overtone of the other notes"

In practive Segah/sikah is a MOVING NOTE which can be played differently according to the taste of the musician (or of his musical tradition) and to the "circumstances" of the melody.

The upper boundary IS AN OVERTONE of the rast note (perfect third)

The lower boundary is the neutral third. (not an overtone)

These two boundaries notes will tend to produce very different sensations when you hear them.


Your statement is in perfect agreement with mine. The pure third that you call the upper boundary is, as you note, an overtone. But it is not sikah. All of the variable notes that are considered sikah are below that note and are not harmonics. Which is what I said!

Onglon - 7-3-2017 at 05:49 AM

i know this may sound trite for advanced oud players, but in this TV oud educational video from the early 90s (someone mentioned the player / teacher is nizar homsi) we are shown how the sikah is slightly different according to the maqam (at minute 10, he demonstrates this in colour, white for sika in bayati, blue for sika in rast and black for sika in sika). he seems to suggest that it rings better according to the surrounding notes. he then goes on saying that due to the spread of synthethisers with one sika for all maqams, this knowledge is slowly fading away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4GyBcJW4xo

Onglon - 7-14-2017 at 09:40 AM

hello dear oudists,
a question occurred to me: we hear the sika as a second note (bayat), as a third note (rast), as a first note (maqam sika)... but none of the maqam seems to have a sika on the fourth, right?
regards

Jody Stecher - 7-14-2017 at 01:51 PM

Maqam Irak. and Awj.

Onglon - 7-14-2017 at 04:19 PM

you are right! thank you
therefore the sika family can have a sika on the fourth

Chris-Stephens - 7-14-2017 at 06:06 PM

the way i see it, is music (especially instrumental) is a different language, and its like most of the world is only taught a few concepts so thats all the brain can understand but the quarter tones in oriental music (especially Arabic, Turkish, Persian, etc. with microtonal instruments) are quite literally new 'words' or concepts. I feel like learning this music from western music has restructured my ear and how it interprets and relates to these 'new' notes like in rast, segah, bayati, homayoon, etc. maybe if people thought of it this way it would be heard with the right mindset.