8.2 Taqsīm and composition

The performance you have been listening to alternates episodes of taqsīm, or improvisation, with sections from Samai Bayati, the composition being performed. As you have heard, the performance starts with a taqsīm (played on the ‘ūd) that makes use of a collection of notes that sometimes includes B half flat and sometimes B flat.

Table 4 outlines the entire performance, including parts not yet discussed. Three sections follow the opening improvisation. The full orchestra comes in at 01:32, introducing the composition Samai Bayati per se. At 03:29, there is another taqsīm, this time performed on the qānūn, an instrument whose plucked strings are laid out across a sounding board (see Figure 13). Then at 06:11, the orchestra enters again and plays the remainder of the composition.

Figure 13 The qānūn, an instrument whose plucked strings are laid out across a sounding board

As you have learned, Arab music theory divides the octave into 24 notes. However, performers typically only use a subset of these notes in any given performance or section of a performance. (This is also true of other traditions. In many pieces and passages of Western music, for example, musicians only use seven of the twelve notes available to them.)

While following Table 4 in the previous activity, you may have noticed that from 01:32 onwards the column entitled ‘Note set’ occasionally contained a dash rather than the name of a note set. This is because, while the recurring melody at 02:03, 03:01, 06:39 and 08:01 makes unambiguous use of the collection identified as Set 1, the pitch content of the other sections is more complicated.

For example, the material from 01:32 to 02:03 employs both B half flat and B flat (albeit in different octaves). From 02:32 to 03:03, the music also uses the two versions of the B (this time in the same octave) as well as F half sharp and E natural. The qānūn taqsīm introduces some new notes, too.

Don’t feel daunted if you find it difficult to hear such details; the key thing is to be able to hear something of the use of E half flat, B flat, and B half flat in the opening minute and a half of the performance. It may be an encouragement to know that the author of these teaching materials needed to draw on the guidance of an expert (Saeid Kordmafi) to be able to point out certain nuances of the performance!