: MaqamWorld Data
: MaqamWorld Maqamt
MaqamWorld.com has tons of Arabic maqams, and almost all of them have the easily read staff notation of flats, "b", and half-flats, "d". They also have notes about arabic ajnas, but I don't have them all written down yet.
'Ajam Family:
'Ajam (Upper Ajam Ending): [C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C] # 'Ajam pentachord + upper 'Ajam tetrachord. Major scale.
'Ajam (Nahawand Ending): [C, D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C] # 'Ajam pentachord + Nahawand tetrachord.
'Ajam 'Ushayran (descends): [Bb, A, G, F, Eb, D, C, Bb] # Nahawand trichord down to Kurd tetrachord down to 'Ajam tetrachord.
Shawq Afza: [C, D, E, F, G, Ab, B, C] # 'Ajam pentachord + Hijaz tetrachord
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Bayati Family:
Bayati (Nahawand Ending): [D, Ed, F, G, A, Bb, C, D]
Bayati (Rast Ending): [D, Ed, F, G, A, Bd, C, D]
Bayati Shuri: [D, Ed, F, G, Ab, B, C, D]
Husayni: [D, Ed, F, G, A, Bd or Bb, C, D] # This has both descending and ascending parts, as written on MaqamWorld, and it has multiple sixth scale degrees. I don't get it. I've just written it ascending.
Muhayyar: Bayati (Rast Ending) but then you emphasize Jins Bayati on the octave?
Hijaz Family:
Hijaz (Nahawand Ending): [D, Eb, F#, G, A, Bb, C, D]
Hijaz (Rast Ending): [D, Eb, F#, G, A, Bd, C, D]
Hijazkar (descends) : [E, Db, C, B, Ab, G, F, E, Db, C] # Also called Shadd 'Araban or Suzidil or Shahnaz
Zanjaran (descends): [C, Bb, A, G, F, E, Db, C]
Kurd Family:
Kurd: [D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb, C, D]
Hijazkar Kurd (descends): [E, Db, C, B or Bb, Ab, G, F, Eb, Db, C]
Nahawand Family:
Nahawand (Hijaz Ending): [C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, B, C] # Nahawand pentachord + Hijaz tetrachord. Harmonic minor scale.
Nahawand (Kurd Ending): [C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C] # Nahawand pentachord + Kurd tetrachord. Natural minor scale.
Farahfaza: (Nahawand transposed to start on G.)
Nahawand Murassa': [C, D, Eb, F, Gb, A, Bb, C] # # Nahawand Murassa pentachord on the tonic, overlapped by Hijaz tetrachord on the 4th degree. And then add on the octave.
'Ushaq Masri: [D, E, F, G, A, Bd, C, D] # Nahawand pentachord + Bayati tetrachord
Nikriz Family:
Nikriz (descends from 9 rather than octave): [D, C, Bb, A, G, F#, Eb, D, C]. Ascending, Nikriz pentachord + Nahawand pentachord.
Nawa Athar: [C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, B, C] # Nikriz pentachord on tonic, overlapping with a Hijazkar Hexachord starting on third degree (centered on fifth degree)
Athar Kurd: [C, Db, Eb, F#, G, Ab, B, C]
Rast Family:
Rast (Upper Rast ending): [C, D, Ed, F, G, A, Bd, C]
Rast (Nahawand ending): [C, D, Ed, F, G, A, Bb, C]
Kirdan: (descending Rast with upper Rast ending)
Sazkar (descends): [C, Bd, A, G, F, Ed, D#, C]
Suznak: [C, D, Ed, F, G, Ab, B, C] # Rast pentachord + Hijaz tetrachord.
Nairuz: [C, D, Ed, F, G, Ad, Bb, C] # Modern transposed maqam Yakah. Weird in that it has A half flat, which none of the other scales do.
Yakah: [G, A, Bd, C, D, Ed, F, G] # Older less common version of maqam Nairuz. Normal in that it has Bd and Ed, which many of the other scales do. Go team Yakah.
Dalanshin (descends): [E, Db, C, Bd, A, G, F, Ed, D, C]
Suzdalara (descends): [C, Bb, A, G, F, Ed, D, C] # Just the descending form of Rast with Nahawand ending.
Mahur: [C, D, Ed, F, G, A, B, C]
Sikah family:
Sikah: [Ed, F, G, A, Bd, C, D, Ed] # Sikah trichord + Upper Rast tetrachord + Rast trichord
Huzam: [Ed, F, G, Ab, B, C, D, Ed] # Sikah trichord + Hijaz tetrachord + Rast trichord
Maqam Rahat al-Arwah: (Huzzam rooted on Bd)
'Iraq: [Bd, C, D, Ed, F, G, A, Bd] # Sika trichord + Bayati tetrachord + Rast trichord
Awj ‘Iraq (descends): [D, C, Bd, A#, G, F#, Eb, D, C, Bd]
Bastanikar: [Bd, C, D, Ed, F, Gb, A, Bb, C, Db, E, F] # "Maqam Bastanikar is effectively Jins Sikah followed by Maqam Saba. Its scale starts with the root Jins Sikah on the tonic, then Jins Saba on the 3rd degree, an overlapping Jins Hijaz on the 5th degree, and finally Jins Nikriz on the octave."
Musta'ar: [Ed, F#, G, A, Bb, C, D, Ed]
No family:
Jiharkah: [Ed, F, G, A, Bd, C, D, Ed, F] # F is the tonic, I think, not Ed. As much as Maqams have tonics, i.e. final notes. Jiharkah hexachord + Upper Rast tetrachord.
Lami: [D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C, D] # Lami pentachord, overlapped with Kurd tetrachord on the fourth, then add on the octave.
Saba ('Ajam ending): [D, Ed, F, Gb, A, Bb, C, D]
Saba (Nikriz ending): [D, Ed, F, Gb, A, Bb, C, Db, E, F]
Saba Zamzam ('Ajam ending): [D, Eb, F, Gb, A, Bb, C, D]
Saba Zamzam (Nikriz ending): [D, Eb, F, Gb, A, Bb, C, Db, E, F]
The one maqam I didn't transcribe, Sikah Baladi, has weird accidentals that I don't know how to interpret. I think its the only one with weird intervals? There's a small chance I saw other weird flats and rounded them off in my head to "the half flat accidental".
Here's the comment on Sikah Baladi from maqam world:
"Maqam Sikah Baladi is arguably the most challenging Arabic maqam. Its scale (and sayr) is something of a hybrid between a transposition of Maqam Huzam to an ordinary non-Sikah note, and Maqam Hijazkar – the intervals are not quite the same as either, but it sounds a bit like both." They also have a silly comment about how the pitches of Sikah Baladi are neither just nor equally tempered - even through just intonation and high division EDOs can approxiamte or exactly represent any frequency ratio. I think we'll just have to learn about Sikah Baladi from another source that isn't salivating with excitement about the magic and mystery of its forbidden unrepresentable tones.
Let's try transcribing it all the same. Maqam Sikah Baladi descends. The accidentals are modified by arrows up and arrows down, which I'm going to ignore at first. After that we have
Sikah Baladi (descends): [C, B/b, A/b, G, Ft, E/b, D, C#, C, B/b, A/b, G]
You might notice that there's both a C and a C# right next to each other. I don't know what to do about that. The notes that are highlighted as tonics or jins roots are [G, B/b, D], but that doesn't line up with the annotated ajnas. The annotated ajnas are a Jins Sikah Baladi hexacord down from the top, [C, B/b, A/b, G, Ft, E/b], overlapping with Pseudo-Hijazkar pentachord [G, Ft, E/b, D, C#] down to C#, and then we pretend we're at C instead of C#, and go down with a tetrachord fragment of the previous Jin Sikah Baladi hexachord, [C, B/b, A/b, G]. So where do B/b and D come from as temporary tonics? I think the answer is just that Jins Sikah Baladi and Jins Psuedo-Hijazkar both have their tonics in the middle of their note sets. When I write "Ft", I'm not positive that their accidenal is supposed to be half sharp. It looks weird.
Anyway. On to the arrow accidentals: All of the "A/b"s have an arrow down to indicate a little flatter than half flat, and all of the "B/b"s have an arrow up to indicate a little sharper than half-flat, and the C naturals have an arrow down, and also the F half sharp has an arrow up.
After a little reflection, here's what I think is really going on. Suppose we start with Maqam Hijaz Kar, which is made of a Hijaz tetrachord + 9/8 + a Hijaz tetrachord. In 24-EDO we can write this as [2, 6, 2] + [4] + [2, 6, 2], specified with relative intervals between steps. Now we slightly alter the Hijaz tetrachord to make the Sikah tetrachord: [3, 4, 3], again stated relatively in 24-EDO. This Sikah tetrachord isn't a jins of Arabic music theory so far as I know, but it's the obvious extension to the Sikah trichord, which is given as [3, 4] in relative steps of 24-EDO.
If we do this, then Hijaz Kar becomes becomes an new maqam with relative commas [3, 4, 3] + [4] + [3, 4, 3]. The septimal spelling of this in absolute intervals is:
[P1, SbM2, SbM3, P4, P5, SbM6, SbM7, P8]
which, when rooted on G, becomes
[G, Ad, Bd, C, D, Ed, F#d, G]
modulo a few acute unisons, which don't show up tuned in 24-EDO anyway.
Simple enough. I don't know if it's right, but it's simple and regular and probably right enough. I still don't know why the original had both C natural and C# though.
And really I don't know how any of the maqamworld stuff is tuned. We could pretend that it's all 24-EDO, except for when there are arrows up and down, I suppose? I'll do a rank-4 / 24-EDO analysis at some point.
: MaqamWorld Ajnas:
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