Edward Powell
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WHAT IS MAKAM ART MUSIC?
I would like to start a thread in which we can try to clearly identify just what exactly IS "Makam Art Music"....
-where did it come from?
-who listens to it?
-who has listened to it?
-why does it exist?
-who invented it?
-what condition is it in today?
-what is it's future?
......etc etc....
I would like to begin with my own general understanding and hope that others can correct my misconceptions and add their own
- - -
MAKAM ART MUSIC
Perhaps otherwise known as "middle-eastern classical music". The middle-east is identifiable as a cultural region because of unifying elements such as
geography, religion, empires, language, and economics..... etc. Localities belonging to this region include North Africa, Saudi, Anatolia, Levent,
Iraq, Iran...etc This region has of course had a thriving folk/rural music for thousands of years. This folk music contains simple makams and
rhythms which share a regional similarity but also exhibit destinct local differences.
Folk music has always existed wherever there have been people. Similarly, wherever there has been an aristocrasy - a wealthy educated class - there
has existed "Art Music" to either entertain the society's elite, or in the form of religious/spiritual music. However, the audience for ART MUSIC has
always been tiny compared to that of Folk Music.
Traditional middle-eastern Art music (makam art music... or "MAM") has been performed by very small "chamber" ensembles and contained a lot of room
for individual and group improvisation, as well as sophisticated composition. The building blocks from which MAM is build from are the simple makams
and rhythms found in folk music. These fundamental musical elements were developed into sophisticate and complex forms and then served to the educated
elite as a refined and highly artist music.
MAM was an oral tradition and no systematic teaching methods existed... but with the recent decline of the oral tradition a need to systematise arose
as a way to teach MAM in schools. Turkey in particular, excelled in this sytematisation and opened many successful schools. However, the music itself
existed long before it was systematised, but consequently the systematisation has had an influence on the music itself.
Post colonial modernisation has had a profound impact on MAM. Ideas such as the multi-member orchestra were adopted from the West. This tendency
resulted in a decline of the improvisational element, and the reduction of individual expression in MAM.
Turkey experience this pro-West revolution in the 20's - hense MAM in it's traditional form experienced a significant decline over the next few
decades. Later in Turkey a revival of traditional MAM occured and prompted the development of a systematic approach to teaching MAM and the opening of
many schools. Because of this Turkey went from having very very few MAM musicians in the 50's to nowadays harvesting a large new crop of recently
educated young students.
Egypt, on the otherhand experienced it's pro-West period in the 50's, and is in fact right now going thru what Turkey went thru in the 60's... a
condition in which MAM is almost extinct. The possible good news is that, as with Turkey, Egypt may recognise what it is on the verge of losing, and
hopefully go thru something similar to what Turkey went thru in developing a system for teaching MAM in schools. Of course there exist MAM schools in
Egypt but they currently still adhere to the post-colonial model which holds the non-traditional concept of the large orchestra in favour of the
traditional small MAM ensemble.
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MatthewW
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In my very limited understanding, I found this term in the subject regarding makams used in Turkish classical and folk musics: in Turkish classical
music it describes the two styles common during the Ottoman period, 1453-1923: art music of the Ottoman court, and music written for the Mevlevi or
Whirling Dervishes.
V. Belaiev, Turkish Music, The Musical Quarterly, July, 1935
maybe this book may be useful?:
http://www.lulu.com/content/1858998
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