What makes hundreds of listeners cheer ecstatically at the same time during a live concert by Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum? What is the unspoken language behind a traditional taqsim (traditional instrumental improvisation) that performers and listeners implicitly know? How can Arabic music be so rich and diverse without resorting to harmony? Why is it so difficult to transcribe Arabic music from a recording? Inside Arabic Music answers these questions from the perspective of two insiders to the practice of Arabic music, by documenting a performance culture and a know-how that is largely passed on orally.
Arabic music has spread across the globe, influencing music from Greece to India in the mid-20th century through radio and musical cinema, and global popular culture by Raqs Sharqi, known as Bellydance in the West. Yet despite its popularity and influence, Arabic music, and the maqam scale system at its heart, remain widely misunderstood. Arabic Inside Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Arabic Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers Pers makam traditions. Inside Arabic Music 's discussion of maqam and improvisation in the general understanding of music, by bringing in ideas from Saussurean linguistics, network theory, and Lakoff and Johnson' s theory of cognition as metaphor, with a parallel approach to Gjerdingen 's analysis of Galant - period music - offering a lens in the deeper relationships among music, culture, and human community.