naddad
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Ear training for quarter tones
I am a beginner at the oud and at listening to oud music.
My first instrument was the piano, then I started playing the guitar, moving to blues, then jazz, going through jazz theory, etc.. and until I started
listening to oud taqsims, I thought I had a finely tuned ear. I thought that being able to detect an out of tune guitar string with plus or minus
10-20% a half tone is an ability of a good ear. Well, soon I would realize my ear is not so finely tuned!
One day I was sloppily playing oud (pretty much the best I can do...!) in front of an oud player and he kept correcting my fretting, because I was
often off by a quarter tone (e.g. playing an Eb instead of an E half flat), and realized that it's really difficult for me to tell the difference in a
quarter tone interval.
When I listen to oud taqsims, I just cannot hear quarter tones. My ear just rounds it up or down to the nearest half tone.
Question is now, are there any online resources that you could recommend that could train an ear to distinguish a quarter tone?
There's a great ear training resource called EarMaster, but it's for western music. Wondering if there's a similar program for quarter-tone scales.
Best
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fadel
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hi
this is big think in Middle East music
In arabic music ther Many differences for quarter toune
Different from the Turkish to arabic music
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for my I play evry month 1 maqam to focus
staret ( raset maqam ) play + listen only raset
good luck
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naddad
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Thanks Fadel.
So, I listened to the Rast maqam here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/Rast.mid
and to me it just sounds like the dorian mode, i.e. with a flat 3rd and a flat 7th, here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b5/Dorian_mode_C.mid
But the Rast is really a half flat 3rd and half flat 7th.
I really need to play the two scales back to back to hear the difference between them. When someone is playing a taqsim on the Rast I just hear
Dorian...
I guess with listening to a lot of music I could train my ear to hear the difference.
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SamirCanada
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Did you ever see this website? http://www.maqamworld.com/
its the best ressource out there imo.
One thing to note is that maqamat is more than scales and notes... in short, its a sytem of grouping 3-4 notes (Ajnas) and also there are ways develop
the modes (sayir).
The best way to learn is to listen a lot, play a lot and most importantly study a lot. If you can take lessons with a good teacher you will learn a
lot more than by yourself although it can be done by yourself if you have the ear for it.
@samiroud Instagram
samiroudmaker@gmail.com
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fernandraynaud
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I keep recommending this, but nobody has come back to object. Get OudProf's Learn Maqamat on Oud version 2 on DVD. For the price of a single lesson
you have a goldmine of diagrams, demonstrations, maqamat examples and even a spreadsheet to identify maqamat by intervals. Then as you learn the
"scales" and practice on your instrument, your ear WILL develop. At first you just hear the half-flat as out of tune, incapable of forming a
harmonious chord. Then you start to hear degrees of the quarter tone, though it's hard for us, accustomed to half tone discrimination, to accurately
identify the difference between the 9 "komas".
Still, you will pretty quickly hear the difference between an equal tempered major third and an Ajam third. A good way is to play a C-E chord. An ET
third is actually a very poor third. After a while you hear how much beating there is. Listen for it on a piano. It's dismal. On the harpsichord we
tune for good intervals in the core keys. An Ajam third is a beautiful third, and exploring this is a good way to develop your ear. Hunt around on the
fingerboard for the E, maybe use an electronic tuner, find the ET third, then find the perfect third. A Rast third is very different, part of the way
towards a minor third. It does not make a harmonious C-E interval. By the time you've explored this you are distinguishing 3 different "major"
intervals, plus the minor. Then keep going.
P.s. If you have access to a harpsichord and a versatile electronic tuner, or a good sampler like Kontakt on the computer, you should explore
different Temperaments. Historically, different periods were focused on perfecting different intervals. The Renaissance was more interested in perfect
fifths, the Baroque more in the thirds. It's only in the 19th and 20th century that the uniformly imperfect Equal Temperament was accepted. Studying
this is another way to develop your pitch perception.
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fadel
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hi
Search for songs and music on raset
And learn the piece of music on raset
Practice and training will improve your hearing
salam
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littleseb
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playnig, playin , playing. and more playing. and practicing basic maqamat, first the ones without quarter tones (eg nahawand and hijaz), then moving
on to simple maqamat with quarter tones (eg bayat and rast).
and more playing. and then a bit more playing, just for good meassure.
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ameer
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Another trick is to listen to performances that modulate between different maqamat e.g. a taqsim that starts out in rast and goes to ajam will only
change the third and seventh, or a taqsim or song that uses both forms hijaz will only change the sixth. Having those notes so close together not only
allows you to hear the pitch differences but the way in which the different notes are used to induce different moods which is what it all comes down
to.
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adamgood
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Naddad the first thing I would say is don't bother listening to midi files if you want to get the tastes of these pitches for Arabic or Turkish music.
It's not how people play, it's artificial. Something like baklava made with artificial sweetener. Listen to recordings of masters, find youtube videos
of masters on any instrument that has microtonal possibilities. In makam/maqam music the pitches are constantly moving around.
You mentioned that you were playing for another oud player...do you have a chance to be around this person more often??
Play along with recordings. Know what makam the recording is before you go in to it. Use a program like Amazing Slowdowner or Transcribe! to slow down
passages and imitate the pitches. Sing the pitches. This is ear training!
Finally I would recommend to not get too crazy with comparing one makam to some western jazz mode. maybe in the beginning just to help you but just
know that the comparisons are on the absolute tippidy top of the iceberg. As someone else mentioned in the thread a makam is not a scale, there are
key melodies, direction, a path ("seyir").
I will say if you are hearing Rast as something like a Dorian mode then you are indeed hearing something going on...you hear the 3rd rubbing though,
Dorian would have a pure minor 3rd no? A literal quarter tone would be right in between minor and major.
Have fun always!! Keep it up.
Adam
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