مقام
Arabic Maqam Scales: How the Maqam System Works
Arabic maqam scales are the foundation of traditional Arabic music, but a maqam is more than a simple scale. Here is how the maqam system works, from its jins building blocks to quarter tones.
What Are Arabic Maqam Scales, and How Do They Differ from an Ordinary Scale?
A maqam is a type of melody and a technique for improvisation. It defines pitches, characteristic phrases, important notes, melodic development, and modulations. It has no rhythmic component of its own, so the same maqam can be played in different rhythms. That is what sets it apart from a scale, which describes only a set of notes. A maqam also defines how the melody moves among those notes.
The term maqam first appears in treatises from the 14th century by al-Safadi and Abdulqadir al-Maraghi. Most maqamat are based on a scale of seven notes that repeats at the octave. Wikipedia lists 72 heptatonic note rows for maqamat, built from augmented, major, neutral, and minor seconds. Each row contains seven notes, but the distances between them vary from one row to another.
The Maqam System and the Jins: How Is It Built?
The maqam system is built from smaller groups of consecutive notes, each called a jins (plural ajnas). A jins is usually a tetrachord. Every maqam has a lower and an upper jins, and maqamat are usually grouped into families according to the lower jins. That lower jins is therefore the key to recognizing which family a maqam belongs to.
How many maqamat are there? It depends on how you count, because the 72 rows mentioned above represent a theoretical count. Most sources instead list 9 basic ajnas, which form 9 main families: Ajam, Bayati, Hijaz, Kurd, Nahawand, Nawa Athar, Rast, Saba, and Sikah. This classification organizes the whole maqam system and makes its variety easier to navigate.
Comparisons with familiar scales can help listeners from Europe or the US. Ajam corresponds to the major scale, Nahawand to the minor, Kurd to the Phrygian, and maqam Hijaz to the Phrygian dominant. These comparisons make it easier to hear why some maqamat sound familiar while others may surprise you. This is especially true of maqamat with quarter tones, which we cover below.
Quarter Tones in Arabic Music: What Are They Really?
Quarter tones in Arabic music are usually explained this way: the octave is theoretically divided into 24 quarter tones of 50 cents each. The quarter tone itself does not appear in the scale as a separate step, though. The characteristic interval is the neutral second, which spans about three quarters of a tone. In Western notation, lowering a note by a quarter tone is indicated with a crossed or reversed flat.
This distinction has practical consequences. Maqamat without quarter tones, such as Nahawand and Ajam, can be played on a piano, but tempered instruments do not capture their microtonal nuances. Fretless instruments such as the oud and the violin reproduce those nuances faithfully. Precisely tuned instruments, namely the ney and the qanun, also handle them well. You can learn more about the instruments heard in this tradition in our article on Arabic music instruments.
Maqam Rast, Bayati and Hijaz: What Mood Do They Carry?
Traditionally, certain moods are associated with particular maqamat. Maqam Rast is linked with pride and strength, maqam Bayati with liveliness and joy, Sikah with love, and Saba with sadness and pain. Maqam Hijaz evokes the image of a distant desert. Keep in mind that there is no consensus on these associations, so treat them as suggestions rather than rules.
Modulation, or a shift to another, related maqam, also matters. A long piece can move through many maqamat, but it usually ends in the maqam where it began. This gives the listener a sense of returning to the starting point after moving through the others. That return brings order to a piece that explores many maqamat, making each modulation feel like an excursion from the place where the music began.
How to Get Your Ear Used to Arabic Maqam Scales
The best way to learn is by comparison. Listen to one maqam in several recordings and compare how the phrases, important notes, and melodic movement change with the instrument. The same maqam can sound different on a fretless instrument and on a tempered one because each brings out the microtonal nuances to a different degree. After a few listens, a maqam family stops being an abstract concept and becomes a sound you can recognize.