Levantine-Egyptian wasla

Ensemble: takht

Voices:

• mutrib or mutriba (vocal soloist)
• madhhabgiyya (chorus)
• qanun (plucked zither)
• nay (reed flute)
• kamanja (spike fiddle; later violin)
• riqq (tambourine)

Genres:

(see http://www.maqamworld.com/forms.html for more details on the following)

Instrumental:

• taqsim, Instrumental improvisation in maqam bayati, performed on the oud by Gomâa Muhammad Ali. Taqasim tend to serve musical functions, either preparing the maqam in the ears of the other performers (especially the singer), or effecting a transition from one maqam to another. Usually the taqsim is non-metric, but can also be performed "on the beat" (`ala al-wahda), i.e. with a regular meter, usually performed on percussion. The taqsim may also be accompanied by a drone on the tonic.

• Dulab. A short instrumental introduction; like the taqsim, designed to display and establish the maqam.

• Sama`i el-Aryan, in maqam Bayati. Note the "rondo" form: a taslim (refrain) in the home maqam follows each of 4 khanat (variable melodic sections), each of which appears in a different maqam. The sama`i iqa` (rhythmic cycle) is sama`i thaqil in 10/8, except for the last khana, which is often in triple meter. The sama`i was introduced by the Ottomans, probably in the 19th century.

• Bashraf. Another Ottoman form, similar to the sama`i, but deploying a long rhythmic cycle , e.g. of 56 beats (al-dawr al-kabir)

• Longa. A fast instrumental composition in 2/4, again in "rondo" form.

• Tahmila. A composition incorporating improvisations on various instruments, featuring each one in turn.

Vocal:

• layali and mawwal, performed in maqam Bayati, by Ibrahim el-Haggar & Sami Nussair, Cairo (1991). From UNESCO AUVIDIS.
  Mawwal text: "I try to smile, though my heart weeps. How could I but weep under such tribulations? but I smile to conceal my tears."
  

The layali ("nights") is a non-metric vocal improvisation, analogous to the instrumental taqsim, using textual formulae: "ya layl" (oh night), "ya `ayn" (oh eye). The mawwal, which typically follows, is a non-metric vocal improvisation on a colloquial text called mawwal, though the same word also refers to vocal improvisations on a text that is not technically a mawwal.

• Muwashshah. A metric vocal genre, putatively based on the textual genre of the same name (invented in Andalusia, the muwashshah broke from the older qasida model by introducing strophic rhyme schema), though in fact the poem may be a qasida (classical Arabic monorhyme).

The distinguishing features of the musical genre are: classical Arabic, use of a wide variety of meters, strophic setting, use of vocables ("aman", etc.), use of responsorial chorus. A prelude (badaniyya or dawr) is followed by a series of srsophes (khana or silsila) introducing new rhymes, and ending in a qafla (which may also repeat the opening melodic material).

Even in the mashriq the muwashshah is often treated as a direct Andalusian heritage; in fact many poems and their settings were composed in 19th century Egypt and Syria; others are anonymous, but evidence for a direct Andalusian linkage is lacking.

• • example #1: Lamma Bada
  • example #2: Fika kullima ara hasan
• qasida
• dawr

Wasla

Cyclic compound form in a single maqam, analogous to the North African nawba or Iraqi maqam, usually following roughly the following form:

• • taqsim
  • dulab
  • taqsim
  • sama`i
  • layali
  • mawwal
  • series of muwashshahat, perhaps with intermediary taqasim
  • closing with climactic dawr or qasida