Скачать или смотреть Amin Chaachoo - A New Arab-Andalusian Music Theory

Amin Chaachoo - A New Arab-Andalusian Music Theory
Freelance musicologist
The Rhythm Project (2014)

The Arab-Andalusian music is a musical tradition that can be traced back to the 9th century in Al-Andalus, to the muslims and christians living in Moorish Spain. After the fall of the last Andalusian Kingdom in Granada (in the year 1492), this art music tradition has been preserved and kept alive as an oral tradition in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Hence, even though many songs, poems, musical instruments and andalusian traditions have been preserved, there has been few or no effort in studying and maintaining the music theory that governs the melodies and rhythms of this music. Musicians interpret Arab-Andalusian music by memorizing its melodies, and the masters pass on the music to future generations without any theoretical knowledge.

In this presentation, we aim to provide an Arab-Andalusian musical theory, which we believe was accurate at the Arab-Andalusian era, and inspired by the musical theories that were present and active in the Iberian Peninsula during the Andalusian period: the medieval western theory, the eastern arabic theory, the eastern byzantine theory and the classical greek theory.

The result is a theory based on the following elements: scale, principal degrees, policordes, centonisation, medieval rhythmic structure and local stylistic trends. A theory which makes possible the analysis and assimilation of all the modes of andalusian music, including their melodies and rhythms, as wells as different forms of improvisation and particular Arab-Andalusian music structures.