Masel - 1-2-2008 at 07:19 AM
Hey I'm back from crete, I spent two months playing rembetika with the people there (but unfortunately not cretan music) it was very good.
Anyway, can someone explain me two things:
1. The difference in sayir or mood between nahawand and farahfaza (maybe nahawand is mellower? Farahfaza closer to the european minor scale?)
2. Hijaz karkurd, or kurdili hicazkar. I never understood this maqam. The only things I can say about it is that it always has many chromatic passages
and can sound very sweet and east european. But in essence is it closer to kurd or hijaz? To me it is very mysterious...
MatthewW - 1-2-2008 at 10:16 AM
hello Masel- from my understanding Farahfaza is part of the Nahawand family, and is maqam Nahawand transposed to G, which is G,A Bb,C,D,Eb F# and G
when ascending, and an F natural can be worked in when when descending. It is similiar to a form of a Western minor scale.
Hijaz Kar Kurd is maqam Kurd played on C.
I think it maybe maqam Hijaz or Hijaz Kar which has more of those chromatic passages which you are referring to.
There is an excellent maqam chart here which is very useful:
http://www.arabicouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?action=attach...
Brian Prunka - 1-2-2008 at 12:16 PM
seyir is the path of the maqam, how it develops. It's more codified in Turkish music, while in Arab music it's passed on primarily through repertoire
and oral tradition.
Farahfaza, i believe has a descending (or descending-ascending) development, while nahawand has a basically ascending development.
Hijaz Kar Kurd is Kurd on C, but it has a descending development, and other characteristics as well. from what i've been able to gather, it often uses
hijaz on G for the second tetrachord, and either hijaz or sometimes nahawand on the upper tetrachord. Kurdili Hicazkar is just the Turkish version of
the same name.
find some samai's in various maqamat and study the way the mode develops, it's usually very helpful in understanding the maqam.
Marina - 1-3-2008 at 11:45 AM
"Farahfaza" = "add joy" in Arabic. Usualy startes form bB, so you got bB Major and than it goes to normal g min. In the bottom line, it's natural g
min. 