Are Arabic and Iranian Music the Same?
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- Опубліковано 27 січ 2022
- This video is my attempt at providing a comprehensive breakdown of Middle-Eastern musical cultures, and how they differ from one another as much as, for example, Russian and Irish music differ from one another. Within the popular worldview, the Middle-East is often presented as a culturally monolithic region with little awareness to its immense diversity and the differences between individual cultures. My attempt is to get people to visualise the Middle-East in the same way they think of the West-nobody thinks of "Western music" as a homogeneous reality where American folk music and French folk music are near identical or interchangeable. This video can act as a "beginner's guide" for conceptualising how Iranian and Arabic music are as individually distinct from one another as Ukrainian and Italian music are, and, in the case of viewers unfamiliar with the Middle-East, hopefully reshape their vision of the region into one that better takes into account its diverse, homogeneous nature; one of individual cultures with distinct and unique identities.
Sources used:
Ancient Greek Music, Martin L. West
Vocal Technique in a Group of Middle Eastern Singers, American University of Beirut
This video is my attempt at providing a *very general, high level*, yet comprehensive, extremely general breakdown of Middle-Eastern musical cultures, and how they differ from one another as much as, for example, Russian and Irish music differ from one another. Within the popular worldview, the Middle-East is often presented as a culturally monolithic region with little awareness to its immense diversity and the differences between individual cultures. My attempt is to get people to visualise the Middle-East in the same way they think of the West-nobody thinks of "Western music" as a homogeneous reality where American folk music and French folk music are near identical or interchangeable. This video can act as a "beginner's guide" for conceptualising how Iranian and Arabic music are as individually distinct from one another as Ukrainian and Italian music are, and, in the case of viewers unfamiliar with the Middle-East, hopefully reshape their vision of the region into one that better takes into account its diverse, heterogeneous nature; one of individual cultures with distinct and unique identities, each of these with its own distinct regional styles which I’ll cover.
Alrighty
diverse and homogeneous? don't you mean heterogeneous?
@@theodiscusgaming3909 oops thanks for pointing that out!
@@faryafaraji Uncle Farya, would you be so kind and point me to the epic bağlama play at 25:27? Tireless searching on youtube has not borne fruit for me.
@@gutemorcheln6134 Sorry about the late response! There you go mate ua-cam.com/video/1NGSPr9rjYo/v-deo.html
As a North African who's accustomed to Andalusian and Arabic music. the first time I listened to classical Iranian music through the miracle of the internet 20 years ago. it felt so alien and unintelligible.
You Tunisian right?
@@Hanible Algerian
@@mansmo9513 kifkif 😘
@@Hanible ههه متشرّفين
As an American whose formal musical education largely began and ended learning the recorder in 2nd grade, I’m on a binge on these videos and they are SUPER helpful, and I’ll tell you why:
For 15 years, I’ve been studying various forms of traditional and modern Middle Eastern/Mediterranean dance, which means I’ve actually been steeped in a diversity of “middle eastern” music for awhile. Now, while I’ve learned the names of some of the instruments and obviously the cultural and emotional importance of certain songs, when it comes to formal discussion of the music theory, most of my dance teachers mostly talk about the different RHYTHM structures of the different musical traditions (like I took a whole 3 class series just about how to dance to Turkish 9/8 and woooo boy 😅🫠). So I’m in a weird position where I can be like, “well this song SOUNDS Egyptian, but like I can’t really explain why…?”
But this-and your other videos-have given me a lot more specific vocab to identify what I hear and appreciate it more fully ☺️
From an Irish perspective, the opposite of "ornamented" is "boring" (it's how beginners play).
Oh my gosh I thought the exact same thing! haha Cheers!
I'm five minutes in and loving the informal yet direct style of the video. Seriously, looking forward to more of these. This channel is going to get to 100k in no time. All the best Farya! Ok, back to the video, this is so interesting and I love this topic!
Coming from a master of informational videos that means a whole lot man! Thanks so much!
A few days, and there he is at 100k! :)
Well deserved!
Dude, if someone asks me to imagine a Persian, you look exactly the part. It's as if you jumped out of a Taq e Bostan relief
Haha thanks man, I'm honoured!
My thoughts exactly!
little did this mans Persian ancestors know he would be both a musically trained bard and also trained in the sacred art of mw2 quickscoping
One must honour the ancient art of mw2 quickscoping mastered by the ancient Achaemenids. The only reason they lost to the Greeks was because they didn't have their snipers
Umm, aktually 🤓☝That was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Not Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
@@TimtheEnchanter1121 They all sound the same to me. They have guns and they are played on a PC. Can't see any difference.
I love the humour of this man
I'm from Germany and have a background in church music, and this video helped me realize that "Western" music shows a lot more similarities to "Near Eastern" music (as broad as those terms are) once you strip back a few centuries of separate development. I can't speak for the instrument side of things, but some of our oldest vocal church music is far richer modally and made far heavier use of melismata than younger Western music. I believe these can be called relics from a time when Western music was significantly more similar to Near Eastern music (superficially, of course!), coming out of that ancient Roman-Greek-Iranian cultural sphere; and only in the last couple hundred years did we kind of go insane regarding harmony and instrumentation.
Came by way of polýMATHY's recommendation, and I have to say that this is a fantastic video! I really like the way you teach with that levitous attitude and your channel appears to be a goldmine! Thank you for this video, I will definitely subscribe.
You hit the nail right on the head, that’s precisely it. As you say, the oldest forms of Christian chant are almost indistinguishable from “oriental” singing, Marcel Péres’ works on Old Roman Chant are the best example of that due to the heavy use of melismata. Interestingly, Timothy J. McGee made the case that ornamentation and melismas lasted much longer in the West than the early Middle-Ages, and that possibly even 1300’s troubadours singing might have been more similar to “Oriental” singing, which would be fascinating
And thanks alot for the kind words!
@daisybrain9423 I think to a certain extent with certain dialect, scale and rhythm differences, this type of singing is somewhat universal in ceremonial situations. For instance I’ve heard melismatic singing in some traditional far eastern music of Asia. The traditional psalms singing of the Scottish highlands called (presenting the line) is is another example. This call and response style is rich with ornaments and improvisation. But yet a lot more regional in the sense it is often sung in major and minor pentatonic and some Dorian. It was a style sung in England at one time as well and became one of the major backbones of American music styles including gospel. It was said that Melodie’s were written at Westminster to be sung then repeated by the largely illiterate population through out the British country sides, but the melodies soon changed reflecting local folk music traditions.
As an Iranian, I can totally feel the differences between Persian and Arabic music (or other Iranian and Middle Eastern music), not just the playing style, but their feelings, vibes, colors, emotions, and moods are completely different🙃
دمت گرم داداش واقعا یکی از بهترین ویدئو هایی بود که تابحال در این زمینه دیدم❤️
Dude, after watching your 'Epic Talking' videos, I will never look at music the same way again... and I'm very happy about that.
I've never thought that I'd watch a 40 minute lecture on Middle Eastern music. This content is really unique and professional, and you are clearly very knowledgeable in this subject, I hope your channel will grow and get the deserved attention.
Thanks alot my friend!
I would never have expected a forty minute video on a topic I have no knowledge on would actually be fun to watch.
Thanks alot my man! I definitely want these vids to be accessible to everyone, and not even need any knowledge of music of theory.
Same.
OK I’ll say this, as someone from Saudi Arabia this is one of the best videos that explains the differences between Arabic Persian Turkish and Greek music. Even in Arabic music there are some differences depending on the region as well. I just want someone to list the samples of the Arabic songs because I know the songs but I don’t know The voice is because they are probably covers but I like the samples.
عداك العيب يا ميلاد عبدالباقي ما قصرت
Fascinating lecture, those 40 minutes went by in a flash. Also, compared Russian and Texan folk just after I finished, and it's really uncanny how similar they are!
Interesting! There's an exercise I often do with my Western musician friends when they want to think in more universal terms: I ask them not to listen to Western music at all for a few days and just listen to other musical languages. When they return to Western music again, initially, they realise it all sounds very similar. Your experience pretty much follows the same line-how we experience difference vs similarity is very subjective to what headspace we're in :)
Kind of unrelated to the original comment, but I would like to add to 27:10 (or adding to 19:00 instruments and 26:21 how they are played) that the šargija/saz in Bosnia is an instrument that is (presumably) brought over by the Ottomans, however (despite my very limited knowledge on the subject, but based on a comparison of a few performances of both Bosnian and Turkish performances) I think it is played differently than the Turkish saz/bağlama and I think the instrument itself might be a bit differently made.
As well as the accordion - as you said the first association for Americans would be French music (the theme song for 'Allo 'Allo comes to mind even though it is composed by a English composer and is an English show, the show is about the French in WW2 and it is made in the style of French music to ,of course, match the show's atmosphere/theme) or Polka (or Weird Al Yankovic), however I think it is used regularly used in the Balkans in folk/turbo-folk/sevdalinke - and this is maybe more of a proper example of how the instrument can be played differently to match a certain region's music or style of music.
(Peđa Predrag Krnetić has some accordion covers here on UA-cam)
And maybe an even better example of the accordion and the saz is the violin - i.e. it's use in concert music of Europe, Turkish, Arab, and Disco music - due it being fretless it lends itself to be very adaptable to all styles since you can play any note precisely - for example quarter-tones which are usually not present in Western Music.
Well Russian folk music is not western. East slavic music in general uses less string instruments and has more modes. Russian folk music sounds more from the middle eastern musical provinces due to far more minor scales used
@@TheAnticlinton Er, who is arguing that it is, actually?
@@Vitalis94 You said texan and Russian folk music sound similar when theyre absolutely not similar at all or even in the same musical province
Mentioning Spanish, Turkish and Arabic music while skipping North African music was a bit disappointing, but still one of the best videos on musicology I ever seen. bravo.
This happens to us Galicians a lot! They say our music reminds them of North African music, while we consider oursleves quite celtic influenced and are far both linguistically and culturally even from Andalusians in South Spain, which one could say it's very influenced and is a part of North African music.
This is the exact content that UA-cam has been needing! I was entertained through the whole video and learned so much! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you for making such a brilliant video! Cheers
Absolutely loving this vid! It's so eye opening to see the complexity of musical cultures. Makes me appreciate it a lot more!! Thanks for your work and for sharing your knowledge with us!
Watching your videos has been a true lesson. Thank you!
I didn't expect your first video of this kind to come so quickly and appear so professionally. It was very interesting to see how music is structured on a geographic level and would love to see/hear more about. I understood most of the video, to a surface level at least, which is great.
Your presentation, the humour and casual nature is really enjoyable and grounding. The structure of the video is also really easy to follow, I didn't feel lost in the discussion at anypoint.
In short, awesome. Also, I always found your turkic songs to be the most enjoyable, I think Iranian ones following them, which I guess makes sense if thats the preferred vocal style and your own background respectively.
I'm glad to hear that, I definitely want everyone to be able to follow the information. I'm a folk musician myself, I never studied Western theory like sheet music etc, so I always find it easier when music is explained without complicated musical vocabulary.
Funny enough I probably enjoy singing Turkish the most-I love the sound of the language and I prefer using the bass part of the voice when I can, and throat singing is my second favourite. For some reason I actually sing in tune more consistently with throat singing than "normal" singing
I love this new style of video. You have lots of knowledge to share.
I'm really happy they're not the same so we can enjoy to types of amazing music
I found it hilarious when you started sounding snobbish :) An interesting and informative video.
As for the internal, Eastern part of Croatia being different from that of the Dalmatian coast, maybe there are historical and hence cultural reasons for that. Plus, you had an interesting point on Greek and Roman architectural order.
Good points! From what little I know of Croatian music, I've gathered that the Western coastal part was under heavy influence of the Venetian Republic for centuries, so the music that developped was Italian-derived. The same thing happened to the Ionian Islands of Greece, where their secular and religious music is disconnected from the rest of Greek tradition, and is evolved from Italian influence.
Interestingly enough I met Croatians here in Canada who told me the recent military conflicts helped in pushing Dalmatian music as the national norm of Croatian music-the more eastern styles were deemed closer to Serbian culture, so there was a tendency to want to differentiate themselves given the tragic political climate of the time. Greece had something similar too: the authorities of the newly formed nation-state in the 1800's tried making the music of the Ionian Isles the standart form of Greek music in order to differentiate themselves from the Turks, but in the case of Greece that failed.
Awesome video! Greetings from Poland! Thanks for mentioning our acordeon tradition :)
Τhe "accordions walking down the street" really got me for some reason
The accordions are walking down the street, and they hear somebody playing americans
Very informative video! Really nice comparisons to grasp the differences! Thank you :D
Very informative video
Very Kurdish flag
32:02 I exploded in laughter when I saw PANTENE when the guy threw his head and hair around 😂. I love your humour!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and helping us to understand better similarités and differences , your présentation was outsanding🎉
Amazing video mate! I intended to watch about ten minutes and ended up watching the whole thing!
Este canal merece llegar al millón de seguidores muy pronto. ¡Es fantástico! Me encanta tu trabajo Farya. Muchas gracias por todo lo que nos enseñas.
Gracias por tu apoyo José :)
Honestly those in depth and long Videos that explain music and the difference between cultures are just great to watch even for those who dont know much, keep up the great content 👍🏼
Thank you for the interesting information which I didn't know.I learned something new today.
Very nice to hear explicitly what I somewhat grasped intuitively about the differences.
Hey Farya, amazing video. I'm an Indian guy and since the past year started listening to a lot of Turkish baglama music also some of Sinan Cem Eroglu and Muhlis Berberoglu's music and really loved it. This video really gave me a lot of insight into the differences between the countries from a musical standpoint. Keep up the amazing work. Would be amazing to se a deep dive into any of the South Asian styles of music someday. Have a great one. :)
you make something ive never really had a interest in very interesting to listen to, keep up the work!
I sat down and watched this in its entirety and was focused the whole time. Mr. Faraji, I could listen to to you explain music for ages. Thank you
You have a commanding voice for this sort of thing. Good content, my brother. I love all of the Eastern musical variants and subdivisions.
I could watch and rewatch this on a loop. I hope your channel grows even more 🌱
Great video, thank you very much, also huge props for including other regions to explain better!!!
I've been meaning to make ethnomusicology videos and videos about just traditional music from all around the world on youtube for long but haven't really started, so it's no surprise that I'm more than glad I found your channel. That was a very educational 42min with many things I didn't know before. In the vicinity I'm most familiar with Greek music and mentally I did lump them into modal music before, but after I dug into regional Greek music and Greek music from different time periods I found that there are so many subtly different styles within it and it's really a mishmash of a lot of musical traditions. For example, music from Epirus/Ipiros would emphasize seventh a lot when music from Macedonia and Thrace use tons of compound 'irregular' meters and close intervals like Bulgarian. Though I've been reasonably exposed to it, I've never *studied* Iranian music before and the video made me more than interested in it and I'd like to know more.
I think you also shed great light on the role of familiarity with regard to categorization. I'm Chinese and I practice various different styles of traditional Chinese music - there are so many different genres, languages, instruments, vocal styles, you name it, involved, but most westerners just go like 'it's pentatonic it's all the same' and envision it as the single style of lion dancing music or New Year music in Chinatowns. That's why the works of you (and potentially myself) are important and people (especially only trained in western music) should know about how varied the musicscape really is across the world.
One thing I like of you is that you actually explain all the meaning and the context behind your songs. And obviously I like your songs.
What a great video. Love it!!
Just discovered your content. Your just awesome thank you 🙏🏾
Geez. I watched one of your videos and couldn't get enough. I'm up to the fifth video and I think I've learnt more about music in the last two hours than I have in a lifetime. Thanks.
Very interesting video. Congrats! It's also quite funny.
Nice channel, thanks for the music and the good content.
Your voice is so soothing. I love these educational videos. They add variety to your creativity and talent. Keep up the good work. Proud to be Canadian!!
Haha thanks! Where are you in Canada? I'm in Québec
@@faryafaraji Ah, vous parlez Français, alors? I'm from Ontario!
@@weloveTM123 Ouais, ma langue d’usage courante est le français, en fait j’emploie rarement l’anglais :p
That was great information. Thank you so much for your Insight.
man you are so articulate in the way you explain things, freaking love it!
One of the things I mostly enjoy in the modal traditions is the transition from one mode (maqam) to another. IMHO, as easy as it sounds when listening to it, to really tackle this transitioning is one of the most difficult things to do. I really like your explanation of syllabic and melismatic singing, I always thought of it as something discrete versus continuous (I could never describe it accurately). And I also love the Greek Orthodox liturgical chants. Another example of melismatic singing I also love to listen to is Kurdish singing (could it be close to Iranian singing?), melismatic singing adds an emotional dimension to music if you ask me. Thanks again for making these videos, I really apprciate it, you add the necessary musical vocabulary that I lack to describe the music I listen to.
I'm looking forward more educational videos now. This one was really good
Thanks alot!
Your video lectures are making my slow work day fly by 😂 As a westerner i’ve always been fascinated by eastern musical traditions but never knew how to approach learning about them. Your videos have been a great primer!
I absolutely love the santoor, it's such an elegant sounding instrument. To hear the differences in how it's played in iranian music vs. indian music is an eyeopener. Learning so much through your videos!
Interesting video, Thank you
❤️❤️❤️❤️so eloquent and interesting thank you for making this video and making me think
Very well done sir and it's really informative. Never thought about these topics before. Thanks for the video😊
Thanks alot Eugene!
Fantastic video! To me, an historian amateur that know very little about music tradition around the world, this is really a gold video. I didn't know anithyg about the ties of greek and what we call middle eastern music. Really thanks, Farya.
By the way, as Italian, gold moments when you have to resort to Italian to explain stuff ahaha good appoggiatura, I say.
I swear it's impossible to talk for more than 5 minutes about music without using one of your words, it's insane haha
This is so fascinating thank you :)
Deeply appreciate of this unique way to analyse music...
The differences are striking ! Thank you your videos are great
J'ai trouvé ta chaîne y'a quelques semaines et je suis tout simplement estomaqué par la qualité et le réalisme des musiques. Je cherchais juste des musiques avec une vibe cool et j'en avais trop marre que ce soit les mêmes créateurs mient en avant et là pfiou quelle révélation. Je viens d'écouter 42 mn de musicologie alors que j'y pige absolument rien mais c'était fascinant. Et même d'un point de vue anthropo-politique, ça montre bien comment les gens font des généralités énormes sur les cultures qu'iels ne connaissent pas !
Merci encore pour ton fabuleux travail !
J'ai hâte des prochaines sorties :)
Merci beaucoup! Je suis content de savoir qu'il y en a comme toi qui aiment et la musique et les vidéos de ce genre; personellement j'adore faire les deux alors c'est cool!
@@faryafaraji Dude how many languages do you speak?!
Thank you so much for this!
This was an amazing and you are amazing! I learned so much.
Awesome video! greetings from Brazil
You are such an inspiration to me as a person and as a nerd and I have so much of your content left to devour.. Keep on doing you, my man.
You are a very talented musician, composer and teacher. I really learn a lot from your videos. The content is great. It makes you think, and you keep it interested and the audience attentive. Thank you.
Thank you Luke for your suggestion :) Very good and informative video
super cool! Love this kind of videos. Really interesting to see historical connections through musical similarities - like the regions with melismatic singing. Salutations from Brazil :)
Amazing breakdown. I've had limited exposure to Arabic, Iranian, and Turkish culture. Such a pleasure 😉
Really a fantastic video. Excellent. I learnt a lot. I will still have trouble telling them apart, but the journey has started (Thank to Luke Ranieri for the suggestion)
I really appreciated this style of video! Keep on with the good work!
This is awesome! I learned a ton.
Excellent, informatve and analytic !
Very fun and informative video!
Loved this! Would love to see more of this style of content from you
Man, can't wait to see what my favourite mw2 epic quickscope compilation UA-cam channels just uploaded!
the dopest killstreak montages 👌👌
Dude.. Dudeee.. DUUUDEEE! Yes please! Love the channel! You are filling a hole that is lacking in academic music youtube channels!
Thanks alot!
dude i love this video tf very nice job
Your channel is both informative and entertaining😊
Thank you for explaining this so thoroughly. I know it when I hear it but could not explain it. This will help me associate it better and why. Wish I had known back when I taught dance.
Just discovered this channel. Definitely not disappointed. Excellent video essay, thank you!
Thanks alot!
دمت گرم بالاخره یکی به این سوال پاسخ داد🌹
It's my pleaser to be your compatriot
Que hermoso video, tendre que verlo varias veces para aprender todo
OBJECTIVELY great video.
Playing a taksim Segah (Sikah) rn for you my friend
There's nothing like a magnificent Greek taksim on the Bouzouki!
Man I love your music: big thank you for posting these videos too. I've always had musings and questions about music in my own part of the world, but I've never even had the vocabulary to even know how to ask. Thank you for making music theory accessible to the average person the way you do.
Thank you for the knowledge my dear kind Sir!
Melismatic!
So THAT's the word!
Thank you!
Where I come from there's a traditional music called DANGDUT, and the reason I love it so much is because of its melismatic character. We call it "cengkok".
This sort of cengkok is also to be found in Malay music, and even Javanese songs.
I've always told other people that the "normal" mainstream music nowadays sounds flat for my ears. Apparently the technical term for that is simply Syllabic. 😄
An example of the so called "cengkok" can be heard here: ua-cam.com/video/GITcE8AG80c/v-deo.html
The cengkok there is not that strong, but you can still nevertheless hear it.
Spas Mr. faraji, it Was very informative and interesting.
I really learnt a great deal. Thank you very much.
Потрясающе ясно объяснили то, что ощущалось только на уровне интуиции! Большое человеческое спасибо) Жаль, нельзя поставить тысячу лайков.
Что касается русской музыкальной традиции, то культовой пение у нас такое же мелизматическое как у греков. И лирические вокальные композиции абсолютно наследуют ему - для меня некоторые сербские мелодии абсолютно повторяют колыбельные бабушки.
Ну и то что на Ближнем востоке канун, у нас гусли. Они есть в различных модификациях и много сотен лет это был базовый фольклорный инструмент, а вовсе не балалайка или гармонь. Так что мы посередине (как обычно)
Came here thanks to the recomendation of Luke from polymathy, youre funny and informative as hell 👍🏻
Please do more videos on music history. The one on Greece and Japan was excellent. Bravo!
Thanks alot!
Very informative he was very good a using expressive words to describe & interpret music. And of course his music demos .
Glad to see your channel growing, keep up the great work man!
I'm totally 'music-blind', still loved the video: its presentation and informativeness. Keep up the good work. Respect from Russia.
Great and infomative speach. Also very good Greek pronounsation!
Excellent video!
Sometimes I wish I could just soak knowledge into my brain. This video comes close enough. Awesome work.