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Why Listen to Arabic Music?
Youtube ^ | 3/2/2015 | Sacra Pizza Man

Posted on 03/02/2015 10:33:28 AM PST by CharlesOConnell

 Why bother to listen to this music?

 How can we come to understand these people in war, if we don't listen to them in peace?

 They're on the other side of a divide from us—very high illiteracy rate, if a person who can't read sees a scrap of printed matter from a newpaper on the ground, they will pick it up in case it might be the Holy Quran.

 Music has the ability to transcend this divide.

 It's great music, one of its influences is Roman culture—this instrument, the Qunan, the name comes from Greek, "Canon", a ruler or tuning measuring rod. They have influenced us in return, in Spanish, Italian & Greek music. It's very easy to listen to, some of what they do is the best in the world.


 youtube.com/watch?v=px9alEwBo48


TOPICS: Current Events; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: culture; music
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To: BunnySlippers

Hi Bunny,

I didn’t see you here.

Hope things are well with you.


21 posted on 03/02/2015 10:52:17 AM PST by Zeneta (Thoughts in time and out of season.)
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To: CharlesOConnell
Loreena McKennitt has successfully incorporated elements of traditional near-eastern music with some pretty stunning results.

Loreena McKennitt - Caravanserai

22 posted on 03/02/2015 10:52:36 AM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: AnalogReigns
I thought Islamists, both Shia and Sunni hated all music except the Islamic call to prayer?

Why would you think this?

There are countless massively popular Arabic pop stars whose music gets airplay on radio stations and video channels throughout the region.

Off the top of my head, Lebanon's Nancy Ajram is pretty good.

نانسى عجرم - أنا يللي بحبك (Ana Yalli Bahebak)

23 posted on 03/02/2015 10:52:37 AM PST by Drew68
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To: BunnySlippers; Pearls Before Swine

” Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs!”

Wooly Bully......kinda reminds me of an Imam.


24 posted on 03/02/2015 10:53:07 AM PST by stephenjohnbanker (My Batting Average( 1,000) (GOPe is that easy to read))
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To: CharlesOConnell

Blew Saudis minds when they would listen to the radio on the national station ( oddly enough named MBC with a similar looking logo to NBC ) and I would “translate” the song. I would tell them that’s it’s an Arabic country song about how a man’s goat left him, his Nissan pickup broke down, and he’s crying in his tea.


25 posted on 03/02/2015 10:54:15 AM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult (Liberals make unrealistic demands on reality and reality doesn't oblige them.)
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To: CharlesOConnell

Sounds like that Ravi Shankar they tried to peddle us back in the 60s and I didn’t like that either.


26 posted on 03/02/2015 10:56:23 AM PST by circlecity
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To: CharlesOConnell

Thanks for the vid. The guy is good.


27 posted on 03/02/2015 10:58:45 AM PST by arthurus (it's true!)
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To: CharlesOConnell

scrap of printed matter from a newpaper on the ground, they will pick it up

If that were true Iraq would not be a filthy as it is.

I tried to listen to Arabic music when I was in Iraq. The constant talking in the middle of songs was too annoying.


28 posted on 03/02/2015 10:59:26 AM PST by rfreedom4u (Do you know who Barry Soetoro is?)
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To: CharlesOConnell

I was vacationing in Thailand once and a group of us were having dinner at a restaurant on the river.

A lot of tour boats went by with music and singing and dancing and looked like great fun

Then a boat went by with this screeching devil music, and on board you could see all the women sitting in the back dressed in black burka’s, and all the men line-dancing and swinging swords through the air...

EVERYONE in the place got real quiet and stared at it- it was like you were looking at a vision of escaped demons from hell..

It was about 10 minutes before the quiet murmuring stopped and the pleasant restaurant chatter resumed.


29 posted on 03/02/2015 11:01:26 AM PST by Mr. K (Palin/Cruz 2016 (for 16 years of conservative bliss))
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To: CharlesOConnell

The instrument looks like a zither.

The music is not to my liking.


30 posted on 03/02/2015 11:02:02 AM PST by paterfamilias
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To: RoosterRedux

where’s her burka?


31 posted on 03/02/2015 11:04:48 AM PST by Mr. K (Palin/Cruz 2016 (for 16 years of conservative bliss))
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To: CharlesOConnell

>>The hands of the Chinese, the mouths of the arabs, the minds of the French.<<

SO stolen as a tagline!!


32 posted on 03/02/2015 11:05:36 AM PST by freedumb2003 (islam: The hands of the Chinese, the mouths of the arabs, the minds of the French.)
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To: CharlesOConnell

Three quick observations.

First, this would be considered old-fashioned by most of the Arab world, the same way pre-rock-n-roll popular music, much less pre-rock-n-roll classical music, is considered old-fashioned by most of the Western world.

Second, Arab music is based on a musical scale (IIRC it’s called the double harmonic) which is more subtle than the 12-tone-equally-tempered scale used in the West since the mid 1700s. This is not simply because the Arab scale represents frequency ratios more similar to those found in nature, but also because there are ratios that are neglected in the major/minor distinction in the West. A significant example of this is what we call the ‘blues third,’ which at 11/9 is about halfway in ratio width between the Ptolemaic major (5/4) and minor (6/5), and provokes an emotion that is about halfway between happy (major) and sad (minor). Getting used to listening to the Arab-scale-based music is like spending your whole life eating nothing but Midwestern food, and then discovering kebab, kibbeh, and curry, but the aural expansion is well worth it.

Third, one of the problems of contemporary popular music is that everything that can be done in 12-tone-equal-temperament has been done, so that there is no such thing as a “new sound” available. This leads to only one of three options: live in the past musically (old people do this, and I say this as an old person), stop worrying about melody or harmony (most of the drivel that passes for music today does this), or...expanding the melodic universe to include the notes that aren’t on a piano or fretted guitar. That is what I predict will happen in the next generation, an amalgam of Arab-Asian-African-Euro/American sound. The foundation for it has already been laid, beginning with the rise of worldbeat/ethno-pop in the 1980s. All it would take would be a Lady Gaga to begin to promote it, and for all her clown-act style she has the musical background to do it—Paul Simon tried, but he is perceived as too esoteric for the masses to accept.


33 posted on 03/02/2015 11:05:59 AM PST by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: CharlesOConnell

Muslim music reminds me of sentences without periods, streams of thought that aren’t phrased in, like poetry that never begins nor ends, and then I go find something good to listen to, or read.


34 posted on 03/02/2015 11:12:03 AM PST by pallis
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To: CharlesOConnell
The only Arab music I like is Kashmir by Led Zeppelin.
35 posted on 03/02/2015 11:13:36 AM PST by Cowboy Bob (Isn't it funny that Socialists never want to share their own money?)
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To: Cowboy Bob

Does “Walk Like An Egyptian” by The Bangles count?


36 posted on 03/02/2015 11:15:08 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: LadyBuck

I recall dining at a Lebanese restaurant up in Boston in the mid-90s... and it was AMAZING.


37 posted on 03/02/2015 11:21:22 AM PST by Rodamala
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To: chajin

The harmonic minor scale has a flat third, and a flat sixth, but also a raised seventh, causing a jump of three semitones between the sixth and seventh notes of the scale. This augmented interval is traditionally recognized by most American listeners as “ middle eastern.”


38 posted on 03/02/2015 11:21:59 AM PST by ez (Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is... - Milton)
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To: CharlesOConnell

Arabic music? It makes my ears bleed.


39 posted on 03/02/2015 11:22:40 AM PST by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: Rappini
The only way you could get me to like this music would be it you add a half dozen belly dancers.

And then its still better with the volume turned off.

40 posted on 03/02/2015 11:23:51 AM PST by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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