In music, the term Arabic scale refers to:
- The double harmonic major scale1, a scale whose gaps evoking "exotic" music to Western listeners, though in actual Arabic music many scales are used. This is also known as the gypsy scale and the Byzantine scale.
- Not a scale but the musical temperament or tuning system used in Arabic music and theory. This has been primarily the quarter tone scale since the eighteenth century. Known as gadwal in Arabic2.
- Alexander J. Ellis refers to a temperament of seventeen tones based on perfect fourths and fifths as the Arabic scale3. This is presumably Safi al-Din Urmawi's seventeen tone temperament developed in the thirteenth century and the primary system till the development of the quarter tone scale.
- Arabian scale may refer to a major scale with lowered fifth, sixth, and seventh4, also known as the major locrian scale.
- Rast (maqam), the maqam, or mode, considered "basic" to Arabic music (as the major scale is to Western music) but is not properly referred to as "the" Arabic scale.
- Any Arabic mode, the simplest of which, however, to Westerners, resembles the double harmonic major scale.5.
Sources
- ^ Stetina, Troy (1999). The Ultimate Scale Book, p.59. ISBN 0793597889.
- ^ "Classical 'Ud Music in Egypt with Special Reference to Maqamat", p.246. Johanna Spector. Ethnomusicology, Vol. 14, No. 2. (May, 1970), pp. 243-257.
- ^ Ellis, Alexander J. (1863). "On the Temperament of Musical Instruments with Fixed Tones", Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 13. (1863 - 1864), pp. 404-422.
- ^ Christiansen, Mike (2003). Mel Bay Complete Guitar Scale Dictionary, p.41. ISBN 0786669942.
- ^ "R. G. Kiesewetter's 'Die Musik der Araber': A Pioneering Ethnomusicological Study of Arabic Writings on Music", p.12. Philip V. Bohlman. Asian Music, Vol. 18, No. 1. (Autumn - Winter, 1986), pp. 164-196.
See also
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