Re: I have always loved Arabic music

Date: 6 Jul 2003 18:21:41 -0700
Newsgroups: rec.music.arabic
Size: 3,308 bytes

meeso <email-address-deleted> wrote in message news:<email-address-deleted>...
> On Sun, 06 Jul 2003 10:09:30 -0700, DeRayMi wrote:
>
> > meeso <email-address-deleted> wrote in message news:<email-address-deleted>...
> >
> > <<edit>>
> >
> >>
> >> what you are talking about is probably the pure Turkish music, which was
> >> very powerful indeed, however, its influence over these places came
> >> because of political & cross cultural effects caused by the Turkish empire
> >> made in the big majority of the middle east. Turkish music unfolded
> >> simultaneously with its political & colonial achievements. & became the
> >> formal music of all the middle east (so called - until now, Arabic music).
> >>
> >> so actually one could say: nothing fit into the term Arabic/Turkish music
> >> except Turkish music itself.
> >>
> >> I hope that was any help.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Maysara
> >
> > Your explanation is very difficult to follow, but more to the point:
> > you are trying to convince us not to use the term the way it is
> > commonly used by Arabs and by ethnomusicologists alike. You can
> > prescribe a new way of speaking about this music, but good luck
> > convincing the rest of us to change our terminology.
> >
> > Are you telling me that Oum Kalthoum's music, for instance, is
> > essential Turkish? I haven't heard anything in Turkish music that
> > sounds a whole lot like it. Just about all Turkish music employs a
> > very different vocal technique than what I hear in Arabic music.
>
>
> I just like to remain scientific & faithful, emphasizing to the origins of things, however, that's what a musicologist do.
> yes there is Arabic music, but it's not what YOU call Arabic music.
> Arabic music is the music performed by Arabs, the people of the Gulf & the Arabic peninsula. any music outside that is *not* Arabic.
>
> Maysara
But that's not how the word is commonly used. You are posting to
rec.music.arabic. If you take a look through the archives, you will
see that most people don't use ther term "Arabic music" the way you
do. If enough people use that phrase to mean something other than
what you think it ought to mean--guess what?--that's what it means.
The Arab who introduced me to this music called it Arabic music, and
the people selling it online call it that, as do some musicologists
(e.g., Ali Jihad Racy).
Musicologists with a social science slant (and you were the one to
invoke anthropology earlier) to their work don't tend to fetishize
origins so much. They recognize that social groups are in a state of
flux and recreation. Elsewhere you've said something to the effect
that, yes, "real" Egyptian music would be whatever was the most
ancient. You ignore the way cultures define themselves. There is a
recognizable sound to Egyptian modern Egyptian music, and it has been
used as an expression of national identity. It functions that way
regardless of whether substantial parts of it are Turkish or even
European in origin.
I think you are the one who is not looking at things according to
mainstream anthropological approaches. (But maybe there is a cultural
difference between western anthropology and the anthropology you study
in Egypt. You did say you are in Egypt, correct?)