Arabic Orchestral Music

Its funny that this style of music has drawn so much criticism from the scholarly community revolving around Arabic music.

So, I am a little disappointed that the orchestra doesn't contain any "traditional" middle-eastern bowed lutes such as the rabab or even a yayli tambur. Of course, you could make the argument that the Violin family of instruments are just rababs that grew up in Europe and they are finally coming home.

That aside, this does seem to be a somewhat typical arrangement of the recent Arabic orchestras over the last century. We have European bowed lutes (violin, cello, D. Bass), some winds (flute and ney), middle eastern plucked zithers (Kanoon) as well as plucked lutes (oud and some kind of saz) and of course, percussion (darbuka, daff, riq and so on).

Harmonically speaking the texture is quite thin. Although, I wouldn't quite say "heterophonic." Yes, its true that the ensemble plays in what we could call "decorated unison," but there are also very poignant question and answer dialogs going on between the various players, and often there is even something of an argument as instruments periodically interject motivic ideas. Another consideration is that there are also accompanying ostinato figures in both percussion and melodic parts over which the flute may improvise.

So what has the connoisseurs so upset? I wouldn't say that it s quite the same mentality as critics of counterpoint in the 15th through 16th centuries in Europe, or those who complained about popular melodies being used in religious music (Une Jeunne Fillette - and the like). I do believe that mindset exists, however I think we have to look a little bit beyond just the obvious.

Music is often one of the biggest staples of a core cultural identity, but we also have to remember that cultural identity is almost always measured against the "other" - as if to say: "we don't know exactly who we are, but who we are NOT is you." But why? over history musics and musical instruments have been exchanged and evolved/adapted often greatly in the course of just one generation. The same phenomenon takes place linguistically. Indeed, virtually every time humans interact the net result is a change (sometimes minor) in identity and culture. It is one of the major caveats to being a herd/pack species.

Of course, in our day where economic and cultural imperialism seems to overshadow any attempts in history of the same adaptation, it looks like some who hold a protectionist mindset are saying "enough!" There may not be a place for western style-orchestras adapting Middle-Eastern musical styles, because to do that would be tantamount to saying "we still think they are better than us." And do they have a point? The European mindset has always felt, at least a little, as though the rest of the world looks on them as being the most evolved, the most cultured and the most free. It is a mentality that has filtered all the way to the United States where every child in America is taught from their first day in school that all other children all over the world go to sleep at night dreaming of being Americans, eating hot dogs and watching baseball games. Needless to say, its pretty insulting to the rest of the world, isn't it? And in the end is it better to work on preserving and exalting traditional styles?