The Arabic Music page

Call for contributions:

This page has been getting hundreds of hits every day, and I feel that an update is long overdue. I am not sure what to add to it, or whether I have the resources to add to it. If you would like to contribute some time or some content to the Arabic music page, please send me an email at philo@leb.net

This is a page about Arabic music. Most of the material on it has been collected in one way or another from the USENET newsgroup rec.music.arabic, except for the images that are found on here. I am trying to provide the most comprehensive resource on the genre, while concentrating on the more "serious" aspects (please excuse the elitism!) If you have any comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to email me.

Some of the Arabic modes and rhythms

This section provides several arabic modes, and some of the rhythms commonly used in levantine music, in jpeg form. They are excerpts from a book by Antoun G. Farah, of the Lebanese National Conservatory. The book is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in tuning their ear to this rich musical tradition.

Laure Daccache

Mohammad Saad has made some pages on Laure Daccache, complete with sound clips and images. What do you think?

The Rec.Music.Arabic FAQ

This FAQ, compiled by me, contains some of the frequently asked questions about arabic music. Any contributions you can make to it would be apreciated. just email philo@leb.net, or post on RMA.

The FAQ can be found here

Some archived articles

Over here, you can find some of the most interesting articles that I have run across on RMA, but which are not really fit for being in the FAQ.

A recently contributed, detailed, article by SeifedDin Abdoun on Samaie Farhafza (PDF file).
A tribute to Fairuz by Khaled Salem.
A quick introduction to the maqamat by Adib Chebli.
Some new recordings from Lebanon by philo.
An introductory nay method written by jfriesen@cyberdelphia.com.
Musics of Algeria: Selected Recordings by Dwight Reynolds.
The Omani Dance of Death: Lament and the Expression of Sorrow in Modern Society by Nasser Al-Taee.
Farhan Sabbagh and other ud masters by John Absood.
Impressions on "Jadal": a pseudo-review of Marcel Khalife's recent Houston concert by philo.
Fan Altambura by Nasser Al-Taee.
Sayyed Darweesh's Zafaa, by Saleh Baset.
The music of Mohamad el-QaSbji, by Saleh Baset.
The Arab West and Andalusia, by Bahjat Qaqish.
Bibliography fromt he Library of Congress. I apologize for not remembering who had contributed it.

On Drumming

Recently, a few very interesting articles were written about drumming. The original premise was a posting asking about "how to learn arabic drumming, and what kind of drum to buy?"

Several persons replied to the original question, giving a lot of insight. Below are some of the postings (I hope I didn't forget any.. if so, please send me a note about it).

I found the following link with many resources to learn Arabic drumming.

The list is still growing. The full archives can be found on al-mashriq.

Other web resources (useful links)

You can find a list of sites that might be interesting to the reader, like CD shops, bands and performers, sound bites, etc... Happy surfing.

Rec.Music.Arabic

Rec.Music.Arabic is a USENET newsgroup devoted to all aspects of music of the Arab world. It was founded in 1995, and the topics discussed range from upcoming concerts, to introductions of different styles. See the Historical note for more info.

this page is compiled and maintained by philo. The copyrights belong to the authors of the particular articles, unless otherwise stated. For more information, comments or gripes, please contact philo@leb.net or post on RMA.