Mike's Oud Forums

What Maqam is this?

TheCuddlyDevil - 5-12-2007 at 06:23 AM

I haven't really specified what kind of maqam I want to use, so I just played around and played the notes that I like. I started with the lower jins of Sikah.

Basically, I have Sikah on E|b and Zamzama on G. Zamzama's dominant in this case is D#, which I will replace with D##(E|b) for obvious reasons. But I still have on problem.

If you place all these notes together I have a huge gap between B (where Zamzama ends) and E|b. What notes do I place in there?

Does a maqam have to follow certain rules? Does that mean I can't make my own? What about melodic development, anyone know about this? Why is it that everytime I "jump" a note it sounds odd? Even though Naseer does this just fine.

I know I asked alot of question, but I'd really appreciate it if anyone helped me. Especially in regards to the first question.

TheCuddlyDevil - 5-14-2007 at 04:44 AM

Bump.

Can anyone here help?

Brian Prunka - 5-14-2007 at 11:29 AM

What I think you're going for is a lower sikah tetrachord and an upper zamzama tetrachord. I don't know of a maqam with this structure.

the notes would be:

E/b F G Ab Bb Cb D Eb (F Gb, probably)

There's no reason why a maqam has to repeat at the octave, so the fact that the lower jins is on E/b doesn't mean that you couldn't have an Eb in the upper part.
People will say you can't just make up your own maqam, but people used to make up maqams, or else where did they all come from?
The musicality of it is important though. Your questions about 'rules', melodic development etc. can only really be answered by listening and studying a lot of music, including improvisation and classical repertoire (muwashshahat, samai's, etc.).
The reason it sounds odd every time you jump a note is because you haven't figured out the music of what you're doing.

TheCuddlyDevil - 5-15-2007 at 10:13 PM

Thanks alot, that really helped. Though now I have to figure out how much of a "tonic" the new Eb is (mustaqarr?).

But I have one more really important question, what if I play descending from the E|b? The new qarar above that is Eb, what about below it? F|b? give me a layout descending from E|b, please.

Thanks alot.

TheCuddlyDevil - 5-19-2007 at 06:09 AM

plz?

Brian Prunka - 5-19-2007 at 05:34 PM

The high Eb you mean? it wouldn't likely be a tonic at all, unless you modulated. Theadditional tonics you might have without changing the notes would be G (zamzama) and Bb (Hijaz).

Descending from E/b you might have D C B/b or D# C B/b