8.1 Notating and hearing quarter tones

Since the 1930s and 1940s, Arab musicians and theorists have used Western-style staff notation to transmit music (Marcus, 1993, p. 52). There are a number of specialist symbols representing musical elements employed in the Arab music tradition. For example, the half flat symbol indicates that a note is approximately a quarter of a tone flatter than the given note.

The symbol is used three times in Example 10; see the second, tenth and fourteenth notes. You can distinguish the half flat from the flat because its ‘belly’ faces left rather than right. The half flat symbol indicates that the note is higher or ‘less flat’ than a flat: it is (approximately) a quarter step rather than a half step below the modified note.

Example 10 Pitches used in the opening 01:32 of the performance of Samai Bayātī: Set 1 contains B flat and Set 2 contains B half flat

Performances of Arab music rarely make use of all 24 notes of the gamut, and in any given section of music it is not unusual for only seven or eight notes to be in play.

Video 4 is a performance of Arab music by the Classical Arabic Orchestra of Aleppo. It comprises a composition and two improvisations. The composition is Samai Bayati (also spelled Sama‘ī Bayyātī) by the Egyptian composer Ibrahim al-‘Uryān. The opening of this performance – the material from 00:00 to 01:32 – makes use of eight of the 24 notes of the overall pitch system shown in Table 3 on the previous page.

Video 4 Samai Bayati performed by the Classical Arabic Orchestra of Aleppo (make sure to open the link in a new tab/window)

These notes are presented across the two halves of Example 10, comprising two sets of notes that differ in only one respect: in the first set the sixth note (marked in blue) is a B flat and in the second set it is a B half flat. The notes are separated into two sets because the improvising musician uses B flat in some parts of the opening and B half flat in others, but does not use them in close proximity to one another.

The pitches have been notated within a single octave for the sake of simplicity, but they appear in more than one octave in the performance.

Activity 12

Allow around 30 minutes

Part 1

Listen five or six times to Audio 5, a representation of the notes in Example 10. Start by listening for the second note, E half flat. To musicians familiar with the Western gamut, this will probably sound lower than E but higher than E flat. Next, listen for the sixth note in each half of the example, and notice how this changes slightly from the first set of notes to the second. The note in blue is slightly higher in the second set of notes.

Audio 5 Simplified representation of the two collections of notes heard at the beginning of the performance (00:00–01:32)

Part 2

In this next part of the activity, you will listen to short extracts from the opening of the performance of Samai Bayātī to get a better sense of how the notes of the pitch system may be used.

First, listen closely to 00:00–00:53 of the recording of Samai Bayati in Video 4. You will hear the beginning of an improvisation, called a taqsīm, played on a plucked stringed instrument called an ‘ūd (see Figure 12). During this first part of the improvisation, the musician uses the notes shown in Example 11 below. Some of the notes are below D and some are above it, and these groups of notes are distinguished with the help of curved lines called slurs.

Video 4 Samai Bayati performed by the Classical Arabic Orchestra of Aleppo (make sure to open the link in a new tab/window)

Figure 12 Samir Joubran from Le Trio Joubran playing an ‘ūd, a short-necked lute (guitar-like instrument) whose strings are plucked

Comparing Example 11 with Example 10 reveals that the ‘ūd player is using notes from Set 2, the group of notes containing B half flat. However, several of these notes are in a lower octave than in Example 10. You will need to count down several ledger lines to verify the identity of the lowest ones.

Example 11 Notes from the ‘ūd taqsīm from 00:00–00:53. All of the notes can be found in Example 10, Set 2, although some are in a higher octave

Next, listen to 00:53–01:26. The player of the solo ‘ūd continues the taqsīm here, this time using the notes in Example 12. As the slurs indicate, all but one of the notes are above the lower D. Further, as comparison with Example 10 reveals, all of the notes belong to Set 1, the group of notes containing B flat.

Example 12 Notes from the ‘ūd taqsīm from 00:53–01:26. All of the notes can be found in Example 10, Set 1

Finally, listen to 01:26–01:32. This contains the notes shown in Example 13. They correspond exactly to the notes in Set 2.

Example 13 Notes from the ‘ūd taqsīm from 01:26–01:32. The notes correspond with those in Example 10, Set 2

The preceding activity demonstrates how an improvising musician makes use of the possibilities of the 24-note Arab gamut. In this case, the musician employs two collections of notes that are alike except for one difference. In the first set, heard in 00:00–00:53 and 01:26–01:32 of the performance, the accidentals are E half flat and B half flat. In the second set, heard in 00:53–01:26, they are E half flat and B flat. It is a subtle difference, but one that is significant to musicians and to those who love the music.