MENAME Winter 2022 schedule

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short link: http://bit.ly/mename22s

NOTE: The class will meet online at the usual time until further notice. Please email me for instructions if you'd like to join us.

Upload your versions of each song here. Please be sure to name your file as follows: YOURNAME_SONGNAME


MENAME will run every Thursday from Jan 6 until April 7, with the exception of Reading Week (Feb 24).

Classes (6:30 - 9:30 pm) are in 3 parts:

  1. Lectures/presentations (about 30-45 min)
  2. Warm-up exercises (about 15-30 min)
  3. Rehearsals (from about 7:30)

Instructors are usually available by 6 and stay until everything has been put away. Your assistance in setting up chairs, and putting them away afterwards would be greatly appreciated!

On this schedule - to be filled in week by week - we'll summarize what we covered in each class in each of these categories, so you can review during the week.

Assignments (including readings/listenings/viewings), Repertoire, and quiz review sheets, are available online in Google Drive: http://bit.ly/mename22g

Theory resources on maqamat and durub are available via the main course webpage http://bit.ly/mename Also see http://maqamworld.com

Within that folder, assignments are listed this google sheet, with links. Note that all assignments are to be submitted via eClass (http://bit.ly/mename22e) by 6pm - i.e. before the class for which it is due.

UPDATE

  • Class had to shift online until March
  • Our five rehearsals in March will run from 6:30 to 9:30 (or even later) in Studio 27 - in person!
  • We'll do our best to pull together a concert program for April 7 in Convocation Hall.

Week 1: Jan 6: Introduction & Meeting for consent

Note: all enrolled for-credit students are admitted. If you have not yet enrolled but wish to do so, please contact one of the instructors.

Introductions...

Greetings (in various languages)

  • Arabic
    • السلام عليكم as-Salāmu ʿAlaykum (or just Salām)
    • اهلا وسهلا Ahlan wa Sahlan
    • مرحبا Marhaban
  • Persian=Farsi
    • سلام Salam
    • درود Dorud
  • Turkish
    • Salam
    • Merhaba
  • Azerbaijani
    • Salam

The people (all of us!)

  • Greet in any language
  • Then introduce your area of musical interest, expertise, or research
  • Add a short solo performance (music or dance ...) or show your instruments if you'd like!
  • Getting to know each other: breakout rooms! Share more about yourselves.

The course: general

  • Brief history of MENAME from 2004.
  • MENA: Middle East and North Africa
    • Colonial origins (Middle East vs Far East: British/French perspective!)
    • Countries
    • Languages
    • Ethnicity and cultural traditions (food, music)
    • Diasporas, e.g. Arab world
    • Religions
    • Histories (empires, trade routes...)
    • Musical characteristics:
      • "organic diversity" - tremendous variety, but connected
      • centrality of the voice and language; instruments (takht); heterophony; limited improvisation; modes and rhythms; dances
    • Our journey this term: Iran to Greece


The course: nuts and the bolts

  • MENAME website: http://bit.ly/mename - links everywhere else.
  • Please read the official syllabus: http://bit.ly/mename22
  • Other mnemonics:
  • Covid related issues and requirements
  • Arrive and leave on time, participate and pay attention throughout, no side conversations during rehearsals (but enjoy the social break!)
  • Please help set up chairs at the beginning, and help stack them at the end
  • Attendance will be taken each class.
  • Keep break to 10 min. No 3 course meals :) No food in Studio 27.
  • No electronics! (no phones, tablets, computers allowed, whatsoever) Take notes with pen and paper. I will distribute repertoire on xeroxed sheets (lyrics, notations)
  • Arrange these sheets in a notebook, and bring them to every class.
  • Practice exercises and repertoire as part of your homework
  • Credit students also have specific homework assignments, resulting in a writing assignment nearly every week. Submit these assignments on eclass by 6pm
  • Graduate students enrolled in 548 will prepare a research paper on a topic related to our musical journey.
  • There will be 3 quizzes, with review sheets distributed in advance, and no other homework due those days.
  • Calendar: dates to note...
    • Final concert Thurs April 7
    • Quizzes (from 6:30): Feb 17, March 10
    • Take-home final (undergrad only) and final paper (grad only) due April 14


The Music!

Week 2: Jan 13

Homework Assignments

Assignments are listed on the course assignment sheet here.

Remember homework to be handed in is always due on the day it is listed, before class! You must submit reading reviews for each reading, listening, or viewing before class on Thursday! Each review is one paragraph (or, at most, two), in two parts: first, you should demonstrate that you’ve completed the assignment (reading, listening, or viewing) by telling me what it’s about (what are the main points?); second, you should demonstrate that you’ve thought about it, by telling me what you think of it (what are its limitations?). If there's more than one item (reading, listening, viewing) be sure you discuss all of them. You don't have to write much on each. Use the eClass site to submit all assignments. Late submissions will be downgraded (see course outline for details).

All assignments due on a particular day will be submitted together, since eClass provides a single link for each Thursday (note that there aren't assignments for every Thursday). For more details on assignments, see course outline.

Lecture and exercise segment

See course assignment sheet.

Week 3: Jan 20

Homework Assignments

Assignments are listed on the course assignment sheet here.

Remember homework to be handed in is always due on the day it is listed, before class! You must submit reading reviews for each reading, listening, or viewing before class on Thursday! Each review is one paragraph (or, at most, two), in two parts: first, you should demonstrate that you’ve completed the assignment (reading, listening, or viewing) by telling me what it’s about (what are the main points?); second, you should demonstrate that you’ve thought about it, by telling me what you think of it (what are its limitations?). If there's more than one item (reading, listening, viewing) be sure you discuss all of them. You don't have to write much on each. Use the eClass site to submit all assignments. Late submissions will be downgraded (see course outline for details).

All assignments due on a particular day will be submitted together, since eClass provides a single link for each Thursday (note that there aren't assignments for every Thursday). For more details on assignments, see course outline.

Lecture and exercise segment

See course assignment sheet.

Rehearsal segment

warmup:

Songs:

Week 4: Jan 27

Homework assignments

See assignment sheet.

Lecture and exercise segment

Rehearsal segment

warmup:


Songs:

Week 5: Feb 3

Homework assignments

See assignment sheet.


Lecture and exercise segment

  • Admin:
    • How are the reading reviews going? Be sure you prepare them in 2 parts (summary/critique). Behrang can speak more about this.
    • Quiz: Take home short-essay; postponed to Reading Week
    • Classes may go back to in person as of Feb 28. Stay tuned!

Traveling on from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon...

  • Some perspectives on ethnicity, language, music, and nation-state.
    • Identity is always complex and shifting. Ethnicity rooted in language, culture, and presumed genealogical unity ("nation") as the basis for a "nation state" is a relatively new concept.
    • Problematic back-projections of musical (Arab vs Persian vs Turkish vs Greek) and personal identity ("Who was al-Farabi?" Turkish, Afghani, Persian, Arab...)
    • In the past one's identity might depend on many factors other than language: lineage, profession, religion...
    • "Culture" has always been a blurry concept (where are its boundaries?) except where communities lived in isolation - and this was hardly ever the case (esp today!)
    • Empires tended to blur boundaries by enabling flows. The "Islamicate" (Marshall Hodgson's term) is one instance (but not the first for this region!)
    • ... on periods of Islamicate history
    • ... on The history of Islamicate music as a broad category (Hasan Habib Touma's Arab nationalist perspective)]

Defining the The Arab world vs Middle East

  • Map
  • Exonyms vs endonyms
  • territorial, linguistic, genealogical, cultural criteria applied.
  • Arab nationalism, diversity
  • Regionalism: Maghrib, Mashriq

Many languages are spoken in the Arab world, not just Arabic...in multiple families:

  • Afro-Asiatic (includes Amazighiya (Berber) as well as Semitic languages: Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic)
  • Indo-European (includes Persian, Sanskrit, English, French!)
  • Turkic (includes Turkic languages)

Arabic language

Arabic music

  • How to define it? (by maker, sounds, language, place, continuity of tradition?)
  • Informed by nationalism
  • Regional varieties, related in history and through contemporary interactions: Maghrib, Egypt, Sudan, Khalij, Iraq...Levant (Sham)


Arabic music "heritage" (turath) in Egypt and the Sham (Levant - Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine)

Jenny Boutros' playlist

from Samira: https://www.amazon.ca/Formation-Arab-Reason-Tradition-Construction/dp/1848850611

Rehearsal segment

warmup:


Songs:

Week 6: Feb 10

Homework assignments

See assignment sheet.


Lecture and exercise segment

Admin

  • We are back to in-person classes as of Feb 28. Therefore we have 5 sessions (March 3, 10, 17, 24, 31) next month to prepare our concert for April 7! I think the best plan is to return and focus on exactly those songs we've been tackling at home, and see if we can do it. I think we can!
  • (required for credit students) Please submit your versions of each song so I can create the mixes, and more importantly so that you'll learn them
  • Jenny has several ideas for our Lebanese song - let's listen to her selections. Which one would you like to try? (which is feasible!?)
  1. Ba3attelak (Fairuz) (very fun and has that tarab feel to it)
  2. Faye2 ya hawa (Fairuz) (we can remove the mawal to make it shorter)
  3. Folk medley (el arasiyya men men + ah ya asmar el lon would be short and sweet). [1][2]

Arabic music of the Levant or "Sham"

In the MENAME region - and elsewhere - music centers on language - poetry.
So Arabic music of the Shami region is linked to Arabic dialects of the Levant or Sham (eastern Mediterranean: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, parts of Cyprus and Turkey)

How to define Arabic music?

  • Origin in an Arabic speaking area? (covers a wide range including countries where Arabic is an official language
  • Origin in Arab country (e.g. member of the Arab League - 22 countries)
  • Origin in majority Arab-speaking environment?
  • Arab musicians? (but who is Arab? geography, genealogy, culture, language...diaspora?)
  • Arab musical instruments? (but what are they? many are shared in a wider region - like oud)
  • Arab musical style? (but what is that style exactly? varies over time and space)
  • "Invention" of Arab music in the latter 19th / early 20th century along with Arab nationalism (previously was called "musiqa sharqiya" following colonial "Orientalism"...before that, simply "musiqa"), during a period known as the "nahda": "renaissance" of Arabic language and related culture, as against Ottoman domination, and in imitation of corresponding European ethno-linguistic nationalisms.

The usual definition of "Arabic music" (al-musiqa al-ʾarabiyya):

  • Traditional art music ("turath") -- basically elite urban music dating to the 19th century -- in the Arabic-majority speaking region (most of which only became Arabic speaking after the spread of Islam). The unity of this region has been informed by nationalism, and affirming "Arab music" supports that conception.
  • Objectively unity of Arab music, and separation from other regional musics, is only in language.
  • The boundaries of "turath" are shifting, but "art music" tends to be defined ironically with respect to the rise of mediation: those styles that were preserved and supported by the onset of mediation, but then receded because mediated music (as a commodity) immediately headed in new directions (popular music, westernized music, film music, music video...). The "turath" thus appears timeless, as if it had always existed, and was only disrupted by commercial media.
  • Thus another irony: the "asil" (authentic" Arabic music is that which overlaps the pre-mediated and mediated eras, because it appears rooted in a timeless pre-mediated era, but it nevertheless benefited from media amplification, particularly during the early days of media technology (radio, film, TV, disc), when the number of channels was limited. Umm Kulthum is a great example of this phenomenon.

Continuities and differences:

  • Review this map
  • There are internal continuities in the Arabic-speaking region from Morocco to Iraq. But there are also many continuities to neighboring non-Arabic speaking regions! (e.g. Iraq to Iran, or Syria to Turkey).
  • There are also internal differences, though never sharp. Scholars and listeners alike often distinguish regional varieties, related in history and through contemporary interactions: Maghrib, Egypt, Sudan, Khalij, Iraq...Levant (Sham), though within each of those zones are many subvarieties distinguished by subculture, class, time period, etc.

Arabic music "heritage" (turath) in Egypt and the Sham (Levant - Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine)

  • The music of the Mashriq, or Arab Near East is often taken as "the" Arabic music, at least in North America, perhaps due to immigration, but also because the mass media were established in Cairo, which remained the media center of the Arab world until the 90s, carrying this music everywhere in the Arab world (and beyond) and attracting Arabic speaking artists from Morocco to the Gulf.
  • Traditionally this music was traditionally organized in suite form: wasla (akin to the Iraqi maqam suite).
  • The turath persisted longer in the Sham than in Egypt.

Let's now examine this Arab 'turath' music of the Mashriq in greater depth

Rehearsal segment

warmup:


Songs:

Week 7: Feb 17.

Homework Assignments

Assignments are listed on the course assignment sheet here.

Lecture and exercise segment

Special guest: Roy Abdalnour

Week 8: Feb 24 NO CLASS! (Reading Week)

Week 9: March 3. IN PERSON! Our remaining classes will take place in Studio 27, FAB. Take-home quiz due (submit on eClass).

We will minimize talk time for this and the following 4 rehearsals (March 3, 10, 17, 24, 31), in order to prepare for our concert on April 7. Concert repertoire is here.

Note map on http://cce.ualberta.ca

Lecture and exercise segment

Brief warmups.

Rehearsal segment

  • Turkish pieces (Tugrul to introduce)
  • Aghrab-e Zolf

Week 10: March 10. Quiz #2 distributed

Lecture and exercise segment

Rehearsal segment

warmup:


Songs:

Week 11: March 17. Quiz #2 due

Lecture and exercise segment

Rehearsal segment

warmup:


Songs:

Week 12: March 24

Lecture and exercise segment

Rehearsal segment

warmup:


Songs:

Week 13: March 31

Lecture and exercise segment

Rehearsal segment

warmup:


Songs:

Week 14: April 7

Final concert!

Week 15: April 14. Final quiz and papers due

Undergraduates: Final take-home quiz due

Graduate students: Final research paper due

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