It is not easy to define the Arabic music, since the principles on which it’s based have been taken from peoples non-Arab: moors, Byzantines, Iranians, etc. However, we can make a distinction between the pure Arabic music, which was practiced, and practiced even today, in it primitive form well before the advent of Islam, and the other, more recent, formed under the Arab domination, in the course of the Muslim expansion.
In the conquered countries the Arab elements have been adapted to the regional music in a balance different each time; to put it more clearly, we should say “Andalusian Arabic music”, “Egyptian Arabic music”, etc; by the above, the regional differences are more prominent than those that might be found in the European music between, French and Italian art and it with the German art and obliges us not to forget this variable nature.
The two small kingdoms of Gassan and Hyra located in the border of Byzantium and Persia, served as containment barriers to the Arab thrusts from the desert. Gassan, satellite of the Byzantine Empire of East and Hyra of the Empire Sassanid Persian, were influenced by these two powerful empires and by them went ,toward the interior of the Arabian Peninsula, a stream of cultural influence of that not escaped the music. Influence, which, coming from India, had penetrated in Asia minor and Greece. The Mecca pilgrims to visit the temple of the Kaaba and then the forced visit to the nearby county fairs of Ukaz, were held with music and songs that were an essential part of the social and religious life. In Ukaz held true festivals of poetry and the chosen formed in a splint with golden letters and hung around the Kaaba, to be read by everybody and also everybody known its author.
Before the revelation, Muhammad had to necessarily have been present at such ceremonies. If the Prophet approved or disapproved the music was raised after, but the truth is that in the Quran there is not one word against it. Toward the year 661, which corresponds to the death of Ali, the fourth orthodox caliph, the Arabs executed only a melody based on the rhythmic values of the spoken language; this litany, knew two forms of pace: the due to the passage of camels and trotting of horses. In addition to the songs of caravan, the Arab pre-Islamic music possessed also funeral elegies, warriors songs, travel songs and love songs. For the Arabic people, the music accompanying him from cradle to grave; for every moment of his life was a special music: in the pleasure, in the pain, at work, in the game in the heat of the battle and in the religious devotion.
Among the 661, establishment of the Caliphate of Umayyad Damascus and the 833, time of the Abbasid dynasty, the Arabic music evolves through the Greek and Persian influence; they learn to rid themselves of pace imposed by the spoken language and acquiring the meaning of the proper musical measure. Ziryab, great musician and theoretical, which is installed in Al Andalus, achieves that Cordoba and Granada be erected in centers of Arabic musical art giving a character to the west Arabic music, opposed in part, to the school of Baghdad since, while in Baghdad the music is based on the technique, the Ziryab school is based on the psycho physiological action that exerts the music as a therapy.
It was during there stay in Spain when the Arabs led to the perfection the music art, setting the characteristics of the great Cantatas, still called Nauba Ghernata (Naubas of Granada). Despite the fact that the music and musical instruments were legally banned, the effects of spiritual music were clearly recognized. That is the Sufism causing that music acquires respectability, but who gives the final backing, is the intellectual and theologian in the 12th century, Al Gazzali, who wrote: “Ecstasy means the state reached when you hear the music,” setting the rules so that the concert provide the auditor a spiritual profit:
1) A well chosen time
2) a well chosen place
3) A convenient auditorium
Where is directed the look in the East, is seen the influence of the Arabic art. In Persia and Turkey were translated works of the Arab and other were inspired by their work. There are Arab works known also in India but for whom the profits from the context of Arab culture are larger is without doubt for the Western Europe, which received the legacy of the Arabs by two channels: the political contact and the literary and the intellectual contact thanks to the Arab translations and to the oral teachings by students who studied in the Muslim schools in Spain and other countries.
It is possible that is the measure of the music the greatest legacy left by the Arabs in Europe; the “cantus mensurabilis” was unknown before of Franco Cologne (Franco Teutonicus) approximately in 1190. The Arabs used it since the 7th century. As regards the musical instruments, the Arab heritage is a very important; there is no doubt that the names and current models of a large number of instruments comes from the Arabs. In a first contribution, came all the string instruments that make up the family of lute, the group of the bandola and guitar. Then came the instruments of arc of different types. The transcendental fact was that the lute, the bandola and the guitar brought the place of the notes marked on the neck by means of frets to determine the pitch. The European troubadours, when they began to contact the Arabs, should only tune by the ear their instruments that were the sitar and harp.
Another benefit provided by the Arabs was the melodic ornamentation, which would be the counterpart of arabesque in other arts, which in Europe gave, probably, the first impetus to the harmony. In science and philosophy, both in the music as in other arts, the contributions of the Arabs were considerable. You can say, without overstatement that, they returned by far to the medieval Europe, which had taken from the ancient Europeans. They collected, amalgamated and enriched the ancient culture contributing with his own label, making it original and thus, as a true gift, they gave it on inheritance to the West.
Tags: music art