Music Of The Middle East

Front 1

Dastgah

Back 1

The mode or scale of a piece in Persian music

Front 2

Tar

Back 2

A long-necked lute

Front 3

Kamancheh

Back 3

A spiked fiddle played with a small round bow

Front 4

Santour

Back 4

The Persian hammer dulcimer

Front 5

Dombak/Zarb

Back 5

Bowl-shaped drum with a single head

Front 6

Avaz

Back 6

In Persian classical music, the improvised, non metric section, performed vocally or instrumentally, that is central in the performance

Front 7

Majles

Back 7

A private concert event

Front 8

Setar

Back 8

A small lute, played with a flat pick, something like the Western mandolin, but with a longer neck

Front 9

Monophony

Back 9

One melody line is played by all musicians, with no harmonic accompaniment

Front 10

Parallel Polyphony

Back 10

The same melodic line is played at different volumes or pitch levels by two or more performers

Front 11

Heterophony

Back 11

Two or more performers play the same melody, but with small differences in timing or ornamentation

Front 12

Maqam

Back 12

Generic term for mode, or system of composing melody, in Arabic classical music. The term is used throughout the Middle East, and the concept occasionally appears with different names such as dastgah and gusheh in Persian, or mugam in Azerbaijan

Front 13

Musiqi

Back 13

Classical and folk forms of music in the Middle East that have less prestige than the religious Khandan

Front 14

Khandan

Back 14

To sing, recite, or read, literally. In practice, the highest form of Middle Eastern music, used primarily in chanting the texts of the Koran

Front 15

Interval

Back 15

The distance between two pitches

Front 16

Radif

Back 16

In Persian classical music, the body of music, consisting of 250-300 short pieces, memorized by students and then used as the basis or point of departure for improvised performance

Front 17

Gusheh

Back 17

Subdivision of a dastgah, and smallest constituent part of the radif, in persian classical music

Front 18

Rai

Back 18

A modern popular music developed in Algeria and Morocco that combines traditional singing styles and Arabic modes from Western-style synthesized accompaniments