Music in Egypt Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture Includes CD

by Marcus, Scott L.

• ISBN13: 9780195146455
• ISBN10: 019514645X
• Format: Package
• Copyright: 2006-11-17
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Music in Egypt is one of several case-study volumes that can be used along with Thinking Musically, the core book in the Global Music Series. Thinking Musically incorporates music from many diverse cultures and establishes the framework for exploring the practice of music around the world. It sets the stage for an array of case-study volumes, each of which focuses on a single area of the world. Each case study uses the contemporary musical situation as a point of departure, covering historical information and traditions as they relate to the present. Visit www.oup.com/us/globalmusic for a list of case studies in the Global Music Series. The website also includes instructional materials to accompany each study. Music in Egypt provides an overview of the country's rich and dynamic contemporary musical landscape. It offers an in-depth look at specific Egyptian musical traditions, paying special attention to performers and the variety of contexts in which performances occur. The book acknowledges the pervasive presence of Islam by focusing on two Muslim performance genres and by considering the age-old issue of the compatibility of music and Islam. It accomplishes the latter by incorporating the voices of many of the performers featured on the accompanying CD. The volume features a variety of musics that reflect and help to create a number of distinct regional, national, and community identities co-existing in Egypt today. Drawing on more than twenty years of extensive fieldwork, Scott L. Marcus offers detailed ethnographic documentation of seven performance traditions found in Egypt today: the call to prayer; madh, a genre of Sufi religious music; southern Egyptian mizmar folk music; early twentieth-century takht-based art music; music by the acclaimed singer Umm Kulthum, which dominated the mid-twentieth century; wedding procession music; and music by the current superstar pop singer Hakim. The book is packaged with an 80-minute audio CD containing excellent examples of each tradition. All of the examples are based in a single melodic mode--maqam rast--to best engage students with the musical form, structure, and practice of the traditions. Separate educational tracks on the CD introduce maqam rast and the variety of rhythms found in the CD examples. In addition, the CD features a special solo improvisation (taqasim) in maqam rast by UCLA professor Ali Jihad Racy, to help students better understand this particular melodic mode. Enhanced by eyewitness accounts of performances, interviews with performers, listening examples, and song lyrics that enable students to interact with the text, Music in Egypt provides a unique and hands-on introduction to the country's diverse and captivating music.

Author Biography

Scott L. Marcus is Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Table of Contents

Foreword	xiii
Preface	xv
CD Track List	xxi
The Call to Prayer: A Communal Endeavor	1	(15)
The Enduring Tradition	1	(10)
Giving the Call to Prayer	1	(5)
A Community of Callers	6	(4)
Responses to the Call: An Interactive Phenomenon	10	(1)
Change	11	(1)
Mass-Mediated Broadcasts of the Call to Prayer	11	(1)
An Uneasy Juxtaposition	12	(1)
The Melodic Aspect of the Call to Prayer	13	(3)
The Eastern Arab Melodic Modes: The Maqamat	16	(27)
Melodic Texture	16	(3)
Arab Melodic Theory	19	(4)
The Scale System: Pitches and Intervals	19	(4)
Maqam Rast in Modern Arab Music Theory	23	(2)
Tetrachords	23	(2)
Transposition	25	(1)
Maqam Rast in Performance	25	(18)
Intonation	25	(2)
Accidentals	27	(2)
Melodic Leaps	29	(1)
Use of Multiple Upper Tetrachords	29	(2)
A Characteristic Progression through a Maqam's Defining Features	31	(2)
CD Track	33
A Taqasim by Ali Jihad Racy	31	(1)
A Region for Beginning the Performance of a Maqam	31	(2)
A Characteristic Manner of Progressing through the Rest of the Maqam	33	(6)
A Special Shape for the Islamic Call to Prayer	39	(1)
Modulation	40	(3)
Madh: A Genre of Sufi Religious Music	43	(17)
The Instruments in a Madh Ensemble	44	(4)
A Coffeehouse Context	48	(1)
A Sufi Zikr Context	49	(3)
Public Zikrs	50	(1)
Movement and Chanting at Zikr Rituals	50	(1)
A Weekly Zikr at the Mosque of Sidi Ali	51	(1)
Music in a Madh Cycle	52	(8)
Madh Mawwal Texts	53	(4)
Instrumental Passages	57	(1)
Features Shared among Many Eastern Arab Music Traditions	58	(2)
The Eastern Arab Rhythmic Modes	60	(11)
Skeletal Structures: Maqsum, Masmudi Saghir and Sa'idi	60	(4)
Ornamenting the Rhythms in Performance	61	(2)
A Variety of Takk Sounds	63	(1)
Other Rhythms	64	(5)
Wahda and Zaffa	64	(2)
Malfuf and Sa'udi	66	(1)
Masmudi	66	(1)
Sama'I	67	(1)
Additional Region-Specific or Culture-Specific Rhythms	67	(2)
Changes Over Time	69	(2)
Upper Egyptian Folk Music for Weddings and Festivals: Mizmar Ensembles	71	(18)
A Mizmar Ensemble at an Upper Egyptian Wedding	71	(18)
The Ensemble	73	(4)
``Tipping''	77	(1)
The Repertoire	77	(1)
Solo Instrumental Improvisation	78	(1)
The Songs ``Kan `Andi Ghazal'' and ``Sama `ti Yom Rannit Khulkhal''	79	(4)
Male Stick Dancing at Weddings	83	(1)
Sa'idi Mizmar at Saint's-Day Festivals	84	(1)
Male Stick Dancing at Saint's-Day Festivals	85	(1)
Sa'idi Mizmar/ Tabi Baladi in Government Folk-Music Ensembles	86	(1)
``Gypsies''? A Shared Middle Eastern Tradition	87	(1)
Sa'idi Mizmar Music: Unique, Yet Partaking of a Shared Musical Tradition	87	(2)
Islam and Music: Is Music Haram?	89	(7)
The Highest Authorities: The Qur'an and the Hadith	89	(2)
Different Contexts/Different Rulers	90	(1)
Sufis: Developing the ``Art of Listening''	91	(1)
The Sama' Polemic in Present-Day Cairo	91	(5)
Voices of Performers on the Accompanying CD	91	(2)
Other Voices in Present-Day Cairo	93	(1)
Maintaining a Separation between the Human and the Divine	94	(2)
Art Music of the Late-Nineteenth/Early-Twentieth Centuries: Takht Ensembles	96	(21)
From Takht to Firqa Ensembles	97	(4)
The Takht Ensemble	97	(3)
The Creation of a New Large Ensemble: The Firqa	100	(1)
The Takht Repertoire: The Wasla Suite Form	100	(1)
Reviving the Past	101	(1)
Creating a Takht Recording: CD Tracks 9--19	102	(2)
The items in Tracks 9--19	104	(13)
The Improvisatory Genres: Taqasim, Layali, and Mawwal	104	(1)
Layali	104	(1)
Two Mawals	105	(2)
The Instrumental Dulab and Sama'I Genres	107	(2)
Two Precomposed Song Genres	109	(1)
The Taqtuqa ``il-Bahr Nayim''	109	(1)
A Muwashshah	110	(4)
The Wasla as a Composite Sociocultural Entity	114	(1)
The Tarab Aesthetic	115	(2)
Art Music of the Mid-Twentieth Century: Umm Kulthum and the Long-Song Tradition	117	(22)
A New Superstar Emerges	117	(2)
The Development of New Mass Media	118	(1)
The New Ughniya (Long Song) Genre	119	(5)
Umm Kulthum's New Directions	121	(2)
Umm Kulthum's Ensemble	123	(1)
Other Famous Ughniya Singers	124	(1)
Performances Videoed and Then on Television	124	(1)
Umm Kulthum's Last Years	125	(3)
The Umm Kulthum Song, ``Aruh Li Min,'' on CD Tracks 20--22	128	(11)
The Hall, the Stage	128	(1)
The Instrumental Introduction (Muqaddima)	129	(1)
Umm Kulthum Begins to Sing: The Vocal Refrain	130	(1)
The Poetic Text	131	(5)
Maqam Rast	136	(3)
Zaffa (Wedding Procession) Music	139	(16)
A Zaffa Band's Performance at a Five-Star Hotel	139	(3)
The Creation of the New Dumyati Zaffa Ensemble	142	(10)
The Sharqiyya Mizmar	143	(2)
Three Categories of Zaffa Ensemble Members	145	(1)
The Unique Sharqiyya Mizmar Style of Playing	146	(1)
Zaffa Songs	146	(4)
Maqam Rast and a Variety of Rhythms	150	(2)
Beyond Zaffa Performances	152	(3)
A Sharqiyya Mizmar Player's Life Story	152	(3)
Present-Day Pop Music: Hakim and the Sha'bi and Shababi Genres	155	(20)
A Wedding Performance	155	(3)
A Typical Performance Schedule	158	(1)
The Band	158	(2)
The Sha'bi and Shababi Pop-Music Genres	160	(2)
Hakim's Rise to Fame	162	(5)
The Early Years	162	(1)
Muhammad `Ali Street, a Historic Center for Musicians	163	(1)
Shameful, but Not Haram	163	(1)
Stardom	164	(1)
``Modern Sha'bi''	165	(1)
An International Vision	166	(1)
Controversy	167	(1)
Creating a Sha'bi Song	167	(8)
Adding a Sha'bi Feel to the Three Traditional Components	167	(1)
The Arranger, a New Fourth Component	168	(1)
``il-Kalam Da Kabir'' (CD Track 26)	169	(2)
Continuity and Change	171	(4)
Afterword	175	(2)
Glossary	177	(6)
References	183	(3)
Resources	186	(10)
Index	196