just found
for hard core historians only.....
http://www.muslimheritage.com/uploads/Music2.pdf
arab roots of western music
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- KVRAF
- 6377 posts since 8 Jun, 2009
"Various wars, especially with the Barbarians, destroyed manuscripts and the substitution of the Greek language with the Latin made the few Greek works spared destruction unusable..."
And yet Boethius, in Italy in the 6th Century, was able to translate Pythagoras for De institutione musica, among others. How strange. Equally strangely, absolutely no mention of Boethius in this history.
Later on it talks about the influence of Spain on Charlemagne's taste in music: and it was certainly there. He also imported musicians from Byzantium but wound up favouring the Roman form of plainchant over the others. There is just one mention of Byzantium in the whole piece.
I wonder how many other bits of history were edited out.
There is also this cracker: "Meanwhile, all that might have existed of popular music from Romain times had disappeared or was incorporated in church music..." Erm, got proof of that? People stopped singing in the street in the Dark Ages? Who knew? (I'm being oppressed; I'm being oppressed.)
It continues: "...This type of music consisted mainly of what is known as the Gregorian Chant, which was used to captivate and subdue the populations to the will of the church."
And yet, the authors are claiming credit for Gregorian Chant - as it was Charlemagne who set the ball rolling - elsewhere in the text. Make your mind up guys: is it the root of European music or a tool of oppression?
And yet Boethius, in Italy in the 6th Century, was able to translate Pythagoras for De institutione musica, among others. How strange. Equally strangely, absolutely no mention of Boethius in this history.
Later on it talks about the influence of Spain on Charlemagne's taste in music: and it was certainly there. He also imported musicians from Byzantium but wound up favouring the Roman form of plainchant over the others. There is just one mention of Byzantium in the whole piece.
I wonder how many other bits of history were edited out.
There is also this cracker: "Meanwhile, all that might have existed of popular music from Romain times had disappeared or was incorporated in church music..." Erm, got proof of that? People stopped singing in the street in the Dark Ages? Who knew? (I'm being oppressed; I'm being oppressed.)
It continues: "...This type of music consisted mainly of what is known as the Gregorian Chant, which was used to captivate and subdue the populations to the will of the church."
And yet, the authors are claiming credit for Gregorian Chant - as it was Charlemagne who set the ball rolling - elsewhere in the text. Make your mind up guys: is it the root of European music or a tool of oppression?
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- KVRAF
- 1585 posts since 13 Nov, 2005 from St. Paul
Indeed, this reads far more like propoganda than serious scholarship. That's unfortunate, because there is a great Arabic and Persian influence on western music, but it's clearly and massively overstated here.
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- KVRAF
- 26033 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
Arabic music influence can be heard in Spain's music quite a bit (Andaluz, 'flamenco'), and some Romany styles.
not really hearing it in context of Roman Catholic Church etc...
In terms of the paper, I see an argument here that basically says: 'the idea that Arab influence is lost because modern connection with the Greeks music is absurd, because the idea that Arab music is inherited from, then carried forward by the Greeks is absurd'.
which is a sound argument IME. Arab theory while referring to or even based on Pythagoras et al (and the general idea that music is a branch of philosophy), is its own school(s) of thought after it gets going, and to say it's carried forward by anyone but Arabs is very absurd and wrong. It's quite the other way round, which the paper goes on to argue.
Eventually you get to a later medieval period and you find for instance a basic dispute over the Guidonian Hand as the basis for solfege in the West, and it's an interesting question I think. (Have always thought actually...) It mentions LaBorde, of course and his finding of *striking resemblences*, which I think isn't that wise to dismiss. Because they are obvious. Mi Fa Sad La Sin Dal Ra? "Naw, cain't be."
So, one can just as easily argue, up to this point, that there is a sort of anti-Islamic area of propaganda at work determining what we "know", ie, Writing History.
You get to instrument-building, eg., the lute, and this is also an interesting question: does the lute, the whole area of guitar-like things with frets, does this idea come from the easterly direction or not? Is this a western european invention? Because, I don't_think_so.
Tbh, and I have looked from time to time at this area of inquiry, I think that this paper has valid points to bring to light in terms of scholarship, albeit trying to cover a lot of ground quickly and in a more/less cursory manner.
I wonder why one would be so ready to dismiss it as propaganda.
The point of 'is it music of the oppressor or the oppressed' is an amazingly broad stroke, seemingly beside the point(s) of the paper altogether and a strange interpretation of some particulars expanded in a practically polemical manner; also I think to characterize the authors have having taken credit for Islamic music for Gregorian Chant equally a broad and somewhat polemical stroke, in fact all of these points...
and I'm a little suspicious to be frank.
not really hearing it in context of Roman Catholic Church etc...
In terms of the paper, I see an argument here that basically says: 'the idea that Arab influence is lost because modern connection with the Greeks music is absurd, because the idea that Arab music is inherited from, then carried forward by the Greeks is absurd'.
which is a sound argument IME. Arab theory while referring to or even based on Pythagoras et al (and the general idea that music is a branch of philosophy), is its own school(s) of thought after it gets going, and to say it's carried forward by anyone but Arabs is very absurd and wrong. It's quite the other way round, which the paper goes on to argue.
Eventually you get to a later medieval period and you find for instance a basic dispute over the Guidonian Hand as the basis for solfege in the West, and it's an interesting question I think. (Have always thought actually...) It mentions LaBorde, of course and his finding of *striking resemblences*, which I think isn't that wise to dismiss. Because they are obvious. Mi Fa Sad La Sin Dal Ra? "Naw, cain't be."
So, one can just as easily argue, up to this point, that there is a sort of anti-Islamic area of propaganda at work determining what we "know", ie, Writing History.
You get to instrument-building, eg., the lute, and this is also an interesting question: does the lute, the whole area of guitar-like things with frets, does this idea come from the easterly direction or not? Is this a western european invention? Because, I don't_think_so.
Tbh, and I have looked from time to time at this area of inquiry, I think that this paper has valid points to bring to light in terms of scholarship, albeit trying to cover a lot of ground quickly and in a more/less cursory manner.
I wonder why one would be so ready to dismiss it as propaganda.
The point of 'is it music of the oppressor or the oppressed' is an amazingly broad stroke, seemingly beside the point(s) of the paper altogether and a strange interpretation of some particulars expanded in a practically polemical manner; also I think to characterize the authors have having taken credit for Islamic music for Gregorian Chant equally a broad and somewhat polemical stroke, in fact all of these points...
and I'm a little suspicious to be frank.
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- KVRAF
- 6377 posts since 8 Jun, 2009
I've no argument with the idea that there is an Arabic influence on Western music, but people such as Peter van der Merwe have made more compelling arguments. The paper is so full of holes that it does a disservice to the idea they are trying to get across. It displays a high-school understanding of European history that's just laughable. It's like they cribbed it from the Horrible Histories.
It's so determined to hammer home any point that it just gets stuff wrong, which makes me question many of the claims made in the paper. Guido of Arezzo didn't use 'Do' for solfeggio but 'Ut' - it's where the word 'gamut' comes from - because that's the first line of Ut queant laxis. And he only defined a hexachord (no 'Si' or 'Ti). It's entirely possible that he got the idea from a Middle Eastern source and then altered the solmisation to better fit the latin he was using but, by glossing over this kind of detail the paper's authors don't do themselves any favours. Certainly the later solmisation better fits the Arabic model but that's not the point they try to make.
On organ construction: "The works on organ construction of Muristus [Murtas] were only obtained from a preserved copy in Arabic." That may well be true but it's not very relevant because organs were in use in Italy and central Europe from Roman times and well into the Dark Ages. That's known because the metal parts from an 2nd Century organ in Budapest were preserved after a fire destroyed the wooden bits. It also wasn't a hydraulic organ of the kind described by Muristus because the Romans had moved on with pneumatic designs. Nero, for that matter, was a keen organist. So, to say that the Greeks could not have influenced European instrument design without authors such as Muristus is just plain wrong. There was a continuous link through the Roman Empire and its eventual breakup.
It's so determined to hammer home any point that it just gets stuff wrong, which makes me question many of the claims made in the paper. Guido of Arezzo didn't use 'Do' for solfeggio but 'Ut' - it's where the word 'gamut' comes from - because that's the first line of Ut queant laxis. And he only defined a hexachord (no 'Si' or 'Ti). It's entirely possible that he got the idea from a Middle Eastern source and then altered the solmisation to better fit the latin he was using but, by glossing over this kind of detail the paper's authors don't do themselves any favours. Certainly the later solmisation better fits the Arabic model but that's not the point they try to make.
On organ construction: "The works on organ construction of Muristus [Murtas] were only obtained from a preserved copy in Arabic." That may well be true but it's not very relevant because organs were in use in Italy and central Europe from Roman times and well into the Dark Ages. That's known because the metal parts from an 2nd Century organ in Budapest were preserved after a fire destroyed the wooden bits. It also wasn't a hydraulic organ of the kind described by Muristus because the Romans had moved on with pneumatic designs. Nero, for that matter, was a keen organist. So, to say that the Greeks could not have influenced European instrument design without authors such as Muristus is just plain wrong. There was a continuous link through the Roman Empire and its eventual breakup.
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Aroused by JarJar Aroused by JarJar https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=191505
- KVRian
- 1048 posts since 16 Oct, 2008
Well it is clearly a propaganda piece, which is unfortunate because this will put people off of the legitimate historical points. The whole area of study is plagued with this kind of stuff, from many different slants. 18th and 19th century European musical theory writing is sometimes really funny/scary in this culture-centric kind of way.
The lack of mention of Byzantium, as Gamma-Ut pointed out, is a wildly blinking red light of warning.
The lack of mention of Byzantium, as Gamma-Ut pointed out, is a wildly blinking red light of warning.
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- KVRAF
- 6377 posts since 8 Jun, 2009
Saoud cites the book by Henry Farmer quite a lot (and from a cursory reading seems to have borrowed the basis for the essay from it). If anyone's interested, because the Farmer book was published in the 1920s (not 1970 as indicated in the references), it's available at the Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/historic ... f030523mbp.
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- KVRAF
- 26033 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
and that point is what exactly? Would you interpret it for me? Because that is what you are doing.Gamma-UT wrote:I've no argument with the idea that there is an Arabic influence on Western music, but people such as Peter van der Merwe have made more compelling arguments. The paper is so full of holes that it does a disservice to the idea they are trying to get across. It displays a high-school understanding of European history that's just laughable. It's like they cribbed it from the Horrible Histories.
It's so determined to hammer home any point that it just gets stuff wrong, which makes me question many of the claims made in the paper. Guido of Arezzo didn't use 'Do' for solfeggio but 'Ut' - it's where the word 'gamut' comes from - because that's the first line of Ut queant laxis. And he only defined a hexachord (no 'Si' or 'Ti). It's entirely possible that he got the idea from a Middle Eastern source and then altered the solmisation to better fit the latin he was using but, by glossing over this kind of detail the paper's authors don't do themselves any favours. Certainly the later solmisation better fits the Arabic model but that's not the point they try to make.
The point in the solmisation example in the pdf does not claim that Guido used Do. That isn't there. So it would appear you are characterizing it incorrectly. It does not claim that this was anything but what it is.
I am well aware since years of the guidonian hand, and even in the late '70s there was some dispute in academia as to the validity of the ut queant laxis story as the utter origin of a practice. Which *is* how it's presented by and large. Some would argue, with perhaps more of a dog in this hunt than have I, that this is a Eurocentric myth.
When one starts looking at scholarship as propanda, either way, one tends to set out to satisfy that premise. IMO it's a kind of fallacy to do this.
I am really not getting a 'hammer home any point' or propagandist tone from this paper. IMO this is your personal interpretation of it, which has a much stronger tone to me that does this paper.
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- KVRAF
- 6377 posts since 8 Jun, 2009
Saoud, p10: "The notation, which consists of the syllables...do, re, mi, fa, sol, la and si, is widely known as Latin, borrowed from the syllables of the Hymn of St John [Ut queant laxis]. The Italian musician, Guido of Arezzo is the one who is credited with its invention..."jancivil wrote:The point in the solmisation example in the pdf does not claim that Guido used Do. That isn't there. So it would appear you are characterizing it incorrectly.
'Do' and 'si' are not Latin or derived from it because they're not in the hymn that Guido used to teach the solmisation. That is my point - the paper claims there is a one-one correspondence between syllables used by Guido and those used in Arabic music. I've no strong preference on whether the hymn came first or was written around the solfeggio, or the original source of the idea. But, for some reason Guido chose to use only six notes and develop a more complex system for solmisation based on three overlapping hexachords when, for the purposes of singing plainchart, he would have been better off using, had he encountered it or realised how it worked, the heptachord system attributed to Arab sources. And the natural, soft and hard hexachord systems lasted a long time - more than 500 years - because it turns up in Gradus ad Parnassum as an aside about the couplet "mi against fa is the devil in musica".
Saoud goes on to cite a Channel 4 documentary for some reason as being authorative even though sources such as the Grove Dictionary have conceded for that Guido may only have "set forth the principles" (ie might have ripped it off from somewhere or invented it).
Saoud continues: "Farmer in his monograph [no specific reference given] provided detailed analysis and critics of such views credibly demonstrating the Muslim origin of the use and invention of the notes."
Farmer, p81: "In the various claims for the origin of the syllables of solmisation, two only would appear to be deserving of consideration - the time-honoured hymn theory, and the Arabian. That we have "well authenticated data" for the former, as Miss Schlesinger [a critic of Farmer's] thinks, is unproven. The Arabian claim also lacks documentary proof, but it certainly looks quite as real as the hymn theory."
I'm sorry that pointing out these rhetorical tricks comes across to you as polemical. But I guess that's the way it's going to be.