NEMO-Online Vol. 6 No. 10 is online / Mise en ligne de NEMO-Online Vol. 6 n°10

English

NEMO-Online is delighted to announce the publication of issue No. 10, with three articles by Amine Beyhom (English), Jean During (English) and Hanene Gharbi (حنان الغربي Arabic).

Amine Beyhom: Further Analyses from the VIAMAP,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 6 10 |2021-11| p. 5–36.

The article is a sequel to two already published articles, “MAT for the VIAMAP” and “The Lost Art of Maqām”, with 4 new video analyses and two explicative videos.

“[With this article and analyses, the author has] opened a completely novel way of scientific enquiry in musicology.”

Wim van der Meer

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Jean During: An Indo-Persian musical treatise: The Tebb-e Dārā Shokuhi, 1646,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 6 10 |2021-11| p. 37–46.

The Tebb-e Dārā Shokuhi is a medical treatise written by a Persian scholar of the Mughal court. It includes a chapter on the art of music considered in particular for its therapeutic properties. The article highlights principal points of this text and identifies its many borrowings from earlier music treaties. The author, who was born in India, had the opportunity to compile these sources, which attest of the wide diffusion in Northern India of the Persian musical culture and of the Greater Khorasan.

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Hanene Gharbi (حنان الغربي): تحليل الخطاب الموسيقي لمحمد عبد الوهّاب من خلال أغنية أنت عمري”, Near Eastern Musicology Online 6 10 |2021-11| p. 47–87.

The author proposes a stylistic study of the song “Anta ʿUmrī” composed par Muḥammad ʿAbd-al-Wahhāb and sung by Umm Kulthūm. Through techniques used by the composer along with Kulthūm’s interpretation, she demonstrates the coexistence within the song of traditional and modern elements. Additionally, she proposes the complete score of a performance of this song which is accessible on the web.

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Français

Nemo-Online a le plaisir d’annoncer la publication du n°10 de la revue, avec trois articles par Amine Beyhom (en Anglais), Jean During (en Anglais) et Hanene Gharbi (حنان الغربي en Arabe).

Amine Beyhom: Further Analyses from the VIAMAP,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 6 10 |2021-11(04)| p. 5–36.

L’article est la continuation de deux précédents articles par l’auteur, “MAT for the VIAMAP” et “The Lost Art of Maqām”, avec 4 nouvelles analyses vidéo et deux vidéos explicatives.

“[Avec cet article et ces analyses, l’auteur] a initié une méthode complètement nouvelle d’investigation scientifique en musicologie.”

Wim van der Meer

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Jean During: An Indo-Persian musical treatise: The Tebb-e Dārā Shokuhi, 1646,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 6 10 |2021-11| p. 37–46.

Le Tebb-e Dārā Shokuhi est un traité de médecine d’un Persan de la cour moghole. Il comporte un chapitre sur l’art musical envisagé notamment pour ses propriétés thérapeutiques. L’article fait ressortir les points originaux de ce texte et relève ses nombreux emprunts à des traités de musique antérieurs. L’auteur, qui était né en Inde, avait eu la possibilité de compiler ces sources, ce qui témoigne de la large diffusion en Inde du Nord de la culture musicale de Perse et du Grand Khorasan.

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Hanene Gharbi (حنان الغربي): تحليل الخطاب الموسيقي لمحمد عبد الوهّاب من خلال أغنية أنت عمري”, Near Eastern Musicology Online 6 10 |2021-11| p. 47–87.

L’auteure propose une étude de style sur la chanson “Anta ʿUmrī” composée par Muḥammad ʿAbd-al-Wahhāb et chantée par Umm Kulthūm. Elle démontre, à travers les techniques employées par le compositeur – alliées à l’interprétation de la chanteuse –, une coexistence au sein de la chanson entre phrasés traditionnels et modernes. Elle propose également la partition complète d’une interprétation de cette chanson accessible sur internet.

New article by Ozan Yarman (Nemo-Online Vol. 5 No. 9-1): “Search for an Optimal Tonal-‎System for an Authentic ‎Turkish Soundscape”

English

[French version below]

(Note: the link to the article is for the updated 2020/11/08 version)

NEMO-Online is delighted to announce the publication of Ozan Yarman’s new article entitled: “Search for an Optimal Tonal-System for an Authentic Turkish Soundscape: Weighing several theoretical models on ‎Makam music against pitch-histograms”.

This article has been written in the best spirit of quantitative statistical works on the maqām, it borrows from the results of a previous paper written in collaboration by the author in 2009 in order to achieve better readings about temperament – notably for the instrument qānūn – so as to reproduce with greater accuracy, a maximum amount of pitches of the Turkish scale, in relation to each maqām of Turkish music.

While redacted in the author’s characteristic style, it unfolds significant speculations about a specific quantitative musicology while insisting on the qualitative differences between musicians and maqām of a similar tradition.

Ozan Yarman: Search for an Optimal Tonal-System for an Authentic Turkish Soundscape,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 5 9 |2020-11| p. 73–111.

  • Additional material: Zip file containing relevant MS Excel files

Français

(Note: le lien ci-dessous donne accès à l’article dans sa version mise à jour au 2020/11/08)

Nous avons le plaisir à NEMO-Online de publier ce nouvel article d’Ozan Yarman intitulé: “Search for an Optimal Tonal-System for an Authentic Turkish Soundscape: Weighing several theoretical models on ‎Makam music against pitch-histograms”.

Composé dans la veine des meilleurs études en statistique quantitative du maqām, cet article reprend les résultats d’un précédent article co-écrit par l’auteur en 2009 pour essayer de mieux cerner le meilleur tempérament – notamment pour l’instrument qānūn – à même de reproduire au plus près un maximum de degrés de l’échelle de la musique turque, rapportés à chaque maqām de cette musique.

Rédigé dans le style caractéristique de l’auteur, il déroule les spéculations vertigineuses d’une certaine musicologie quantitative, tout en insistant sur les différences qualitatives entre musiciens et maqām d’une même tradition.

Ozan Yarman: Search for an Optimal Tonal-System for an Authentic Turkish Soundscape,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 5 9 |2020-11| p. 73–111.

  • Matériau additionel: Fichier .zip contenant des fichiers MS Excel relevant de l’étude statistique

Release of Eight Video-Analyses of Byzantine Scales performed by Four Lebanese Cantors

These Eight Video-analyses of the scales of Byzantine chant (for the scales of the Eight modes) are proposed on a dedicated main page. The analyses come originally from the book of Amine Beyhom Théories et pratiques de l’échelle dans le chant byzantin arabe : Une approche comparative et analytique proposant une solution inédite pour le système théorique de Chrysanthos le Madyte and were edited for video.

Four Lebanese cantors of Byzantine chant – Fr. Nicolas Malek, Fr. Makarios Haidamous, Joseph Yazbeck and a cantor who preferred to remain anonymous – accepted to record (among other performances) the scales of the eight canonical modes of their liturgical chant for research purposes. Each of them is a renowned soloist and choir director in Lebanon.

Opening Screen of the video for the First Byzantine Mode

The complete results of the analyses of these recordings are proposed in the aforementioned book, while particular results concerning the first mode were presented on various occasions in Greece and in Cyprus, but also in France, Tunisia and in Lebanon.

The analyses in the videos are based on these presentations, which in turn were based on power point animations proposed in the aforementioned book.

Each video comprises a short theoretical introduction contextualizing the scales of the current mode within the general frame of the 19th-Century Second Reform of Byzantine chant.

Example of a slide with explanations on the scale of the First Byzantine Mode according to the teaching of Thrasyvoulos Stanitsas

Moreover, the first video (for the First mode) features a General Introduction which explains shortly:

  • The solmization of the Byzantine – and equivalences between Byzantine and Western – degrees of the scale
Byzantine chant solmization with transliteration and equivalences with the degrees of the Western Common-Practice scale
  • The accidentals used in the theory of the Second Reform (and in the Western/Byzantine notation proposed by the author)
Accidentals used in the theory of Byzantine Chant (19th-Century Second Reform) with equivalents in fractions of the tone (including cents)
  • The scores and literal notations
Western/Byzantine and literal notations of scales
  • (And) Explanations about the graphic representation of the results
Conventions used for the Graphic notations of scales

The videos on the main page are in High resolution, and also available on the YouTube Channell of CERMAA. An alternate, Low resolution version is proposed for each mode (and the Intro) in a dedicated page.

Call for Papers for NEMO-Online issue No. 8 (November 2019) / Appel à Contributions pour ‎NEMO-Online n°8 (Novembre 2019)‎

English

[French translation below]

Research centres and groups CERMAA, ICONEA and IReMus are delighted to inform you that the main theme for number eight of NEMO-Online will be: Music as science or music as art? This question has brought up controversy for centuries. It seems useful to apprehend what is the current position of music and musicology about this conundrum.

Other themes are also proposed:

  1. The concepts and terminology of musicology and their evolution
    1. Variations on the linguistics of musicology. Have homophonic terms in various languages and different cultures the same meaning ?
      • Collation of a multilingual lexicon taking these linguistic variations into account.
    2. Differing perceptions in different times and spaces for terms such as ‘heterophony’, ‘polyphony’, ‘monody’, or ‘diatonic’, ‘chromatic’, ‘enharmonic’, etc.?
    3. Difference between ‘law’ and ‘rule’
    4. Others
  2. Musicology in the Arabian World aside countries having an established musicological structure such as the Lebanon and Tunisia.
    1. ‎Music and musicology in the Maghrib, countries of the Persian Gulf, Syria.
    2. ‎‎Byzantine and related chanting, such as syriac, coptic, etc.
    3. Others
  3. Common practice of maqām
    1. The Mediterranean and the Balkans
    2. Turkic and Persian worlds
    3. Indian, Chinese and others
    4. Beyond the Western Mediterranean

Articles for this issue will be published according to their evaluation and layout for the internet. NEMO-Online No. 8 will collate articles published and in the course of editing and will be printed in November 2020 as part of the fifth volume (NEMO-Online Nos. 8 & 9).

Languages an rules : click here.
Please send proposals for articles to Richard Dumbrill and Amine Beyhom before end of May 2019.

Deadline for papers: end of July 2019.

Additionally, the Editorial Board will consider special extraneous contributions as long as they fit within the general aim of the publication.

Previous volumes are available here. (Please note that Volume 4, Nos 6&7 is now available in print.) Individual papers are available from the Articles tab on the NEMO-Online site.

 

French

Les centres et groupes de recherches CERMAA, ICONEA et IReMus ont le plaisir d’annoncer le thème principal du no 8 de NEMO-Online : Musique en tant que science ou musique en tant qu’art ? Cette question soulève la controverse depuis des millénaires, et il semblerait utile de faire un état des lieux de la pensée musicologique et musicale à ce sujet.

D’autres thèmes sont proposés, sur le long terme, à partir de ce numéro et continueront de complémenter le thème principal :

  1. Les concepts et la terminologie de la musicologie et leur évolution historique :
    1. Variations linguistiques de la terminologie (les « mêmes » termes veulent-ils dire la même chose dans différentes langues ou différentes cultures ?)
      • Établissement d’un lexique multilingue et/ou d’un dictionnaire critique de la musicologie prenant en compte ces variations
    2. Perceptions différentes dans le temps et l’espace de termes comme « hétérophonie », « polyphonie », « monodie », ou encore « diatonique », « chromatique », « enharmonique », etc. ?
    3. La différence entre « loi » et « règle » dans différentes langues et à différentes époques
    4. Autres
  2. Musicologie du Monde Arabe hors pays ayant des structures établies en musicologie (tels le Liban et la Tunisie) :‎
    1. ‎Musique et musicologie du Maghreb, des pays du Golfe arabo-persique, de la Syrie
    2. ‎Chant byzantin et dérivés, chant syriaque, chant copte, etc.‎
    3. Autres
  3. Tronc commun du maqām:
    1. Méditerranée et Balkans
    2. Mondes turcique et persan
    3. Affinités indiennes, chinoises ou autres
    4. Au-delà de la Méditerranée européenne

Les articles de ce numéro seront publiés au fur et à mesure de leur réception-évaluation-préparation pour la publication internet. NEMO-Online No 8 rassemblera les articles parus et en cours de parution et sera publié en novembre 2020, comme partie du Volume 5 (NEMO-Online Nos 8 & 9).

Langues et normes : voir ici.
Envoi des propositions d’articles à Richard Dumbrill et à Amine Beyhom avant : fin mai 2019.

Date limite d’envoi des articles : fin juillet 2019.

La rédaction acceptera également d’examiner des dossiers spéciaux ou des articles hors-thème, du moment qu’ils concernent la thématique générale de la revue.

Les volumes précédents sont disponibles ici, les articles individuels dans l’onglet Articles sur le site de NEMO-Online. Veuillez noter que le Volume 4, Nos 6&7 est désormais disponible en version imprimée.

 

NEMO-Online Vol. 4 Nos. 6&7 available / Mise en ligne de NEMO-Online Vol. 4 n°6&7

NEMO-Online Vol. 4 Nos. 6&7 is now available for downloading (download link below) / NEMO-Online Vol. 4 nos 6&7 est disponible pour téléchargement (lien ci-dessous).

All pdf articles in this volume are available individually at http://nemo-online.org/articles and bookmarked for titles, subtitles and figures / tous les articles au format pdf de ce volume sont téléchargeables individuellement à http://nemo-online.org/articles et contiennent des marque-pages correspondant aux titres, sous-titres et figures.

Note that minor changes in the layout may occur between individual articles and the binded volume, due to the harmonising of the layouts between No. 6 and No. 7 / Les changements mineurs de la mise en page entre articles individuels et volume collaté sont dûs à l’harmonisation entre les deux numéros 6 & 7 suite aux améliorations apportées à partir du n°7.

Hard and soft copy printed versions to follow shortly / Les versions imprimées seront disponibles prochainement.

 

NEMO-Online Vol. 4 contents / contenu / ملخّص :

Editor’s letter / Éditorial / كلمة الناشرين : Evolution, problems and alternate propositions for musicology and ethnomusicology / Évolution, problèmes et proposition alternatives pour musicologie et de l’ethnomusicologie التطوّر، المشاكل والحلول البديلة لعلم الموسيقى (موسيقولوجيا) وعلم الموسيقى
الإثنية (الإتنوموسيقولوجيا)

NEMO-Online No. 6 :

  • Amine Beyhom : “A Hypothesis for the Elaboration of Heptatonic Scales,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 4 6 |2017-05| p. 5–88.
  • Richard Dumbrill : “The Truth about Babylonian Music,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 4 6 |2017-08| p. 91–121.
  • Bruno Deschênes : “A preliminary approach to the analysis of honkyoku, the solo repertoire of the Japanese shakuhachi,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 4 6 |2017-08| p. 123–143.

 

 NEMO-Online No. 7 :

  • Amine Beyhom“MAT for the VIAMAP – Maqām Analysis Tools for the Video-Animated Music Analysis Project,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 4 7 |2018-11| p. 145–256.

Vol. 4 Nos. 6&7 (pdf).

Previous volumes / Volumes précédents / الأعداد السابقة /

Note: we use at NEMO-Online the CharisSIL font / nous utilisons à NEMO-Online la police CharisSIL / http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/CharisSIL-4.110.zip / also available at / également téléchargeable à / http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/download_win.html.

(Permalink: http://nemo-online.org/?p=1750)

New article/Dossier: MAT for the VIAMAP – Maqām Analysis Tools for the Video-Animated Music Analysis Project

English

[French translation below]

NEMO-Online is delighted to propose this new article by Amine Beyhom on notational tools and graphical analyses of melody and rythm.

Musical notation has been reputed as disqualified for the analysis of “Foreign” musics since – at least – the experiments of Charles Seeger with the Melograph. It is nevertheless still used as the main analytic – and teaching – tool for these musics in most researches in musicology, and today in the teaching of these musics in autochthonous conservatories. Seeger’s experiments brought at his time cutting-edge solutions – and alternatives – to score notation but, surprisingly enough, these solutions seem to have not worked out very well in the long run.

Beyhom proposes a voluminous dossier including three parts and relying on the pioneering works of Seeger – and other ethnomusicologists – as well as on the improvements of his method that we have witnessed in the last decades. The first part expounds the past, and on-going debates about the (mis-) use of score notation as applied to “Foreign” musics, while the second part offers a retrospective of Maqām music notation. The third part of the dossier describes different tools of pitch and spectrum analysis which help understand – and listen better to the analyzed music while exposing, in fine, the author’s work and propositions for the implementation of video-animated analyses in the teaching of ethnomusicology as one major basis for this teaching. The dossier is accompanied by a short power point show (PPS) and 41 video-animated analyses (total time = 2 h 13 m).

Amine Beyhom: MAT for the VIAMAP – Maqām Analysis Tools for the Video-Animated Music Analysis Project,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 4 7 |2018-11| p. 145–256.

Français

Nous avons le plaisir à NEMO-Online de publier ce nouvel article par Amine Beyhom sur les outils de notation et d’analyse graphique de la mélodie et du rythme.

La notation musicale est réputée être disqualifiée pour les analyses de musique “étrangères” et ce depuis, au moins, les expériences de Charles Seeger avec le mélographe. Il n’en reste pas moins que la notation classique reste l’outil principal d’analyse de ces musiques dans les recherches musicologiques, et de leur enseignement dans les conservatoires locaux. Les méthodes de Seeger étaient à l’avant-garde de la recherche pour une analyse –  et une notation – alternative des musiques traditionnelles mais, de manière assez surprenante, ne semblent pas avoir pris racine dans l’enseignement de l’ethnomusicologie.

Beyhom propose un dossier volumineux en trois parties, basé sur l’oeuvre pionnière de Seeger – et d’autres ethnomusicologues – ainsi que sur les améliorations de cette méthode apportées au fil des recherches par ses successeurs. La première partie retrace les débats soulevés par l’utilisation (ou non) de la notation musicale classique pour les musique non occidentales – notamment non semi-tonales – tandis que la deuxième partie est consacrée à une courte rétrospective historique de la notation de la musique du maqām. La troisième partie décrit divers outils d’analyse des hauteurs et du spectre d’une mélodie qui sont une aide à l’analyse – et à la compréhension, sinon à une meilleure écoute – de ces musiques. En conclusion l’auteur appelle à implémenter l’enseignement des analyses vidéo-animées de hauteurs dans l’enseignement courant de l’ethnomusicologie, comme outil principal d’analyse des musiques “autres”.

Le dossier est accompagné d’un fichier Power Point contenant quelques exemples d’analyse avec curseur se déplaçant horizontalement sur l’écran, et de 41 analyses vidéo dont le temps total s’élève à 2 heures et 13 minutes.

Amine Beyhom: MAT for the VIAMAP – Maqām Analysis Tools for the Video-Animated Music Analysis Project,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 4 7 |2018-11| p. 145–256.

Volos conference on Psaltiki 2018

Rosy & Amine Beyhom participated in the 3rd International Musicological and Psaltic Conference on Psaltic Art of the Department of Psaltic Art and Musicology of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies.

The Conference took place in the Conference Center of the Holy Metropolis of Demetrias, in Melissiatika, Volos, Greece, between May 30th (official opening in the evening) and June 2nd (official closing in the afternoon), 2018.

Amine Beyhom presented a paper entitled “Theory and Practice of Psaltiki: Why do they not coincide?“, and assisted Rosy Beyhom for the recording of four Greek cantors who performed Kyrie Ekekraxa (by Petros Byzantios) and Axion estin (Anonymous).

Volos Cantors_lightAbove: Five Greek cantors – Volos (Makrinitsa) 2018/05/31 © Rosy Beyhom. Front row, left to right: Ioannis Tomas, Nikolaos Siklafidis and Michalis Stroumpakis; 2nd row: Conference host Konstantin Karagounis and Emmanouil Giannopoulos.

The video-animated analyses of these chants will soon be published on our site as a further contribution to the development of alternative methods for the analysis of melodic music of the Mediterranean and around (maqām music).

Release of CERMAA Videos of Kyrie Ekekraxa by Petros Byzantios performed, in Greek and Arabic, by Joseph Yazbeck in 2011

Two additional Greek and Arabic versions (below) of the chant Kyrie Ekekraxa, the well known composition by Petros Byzantios in the 19th-century Constantinople (now Istanbul) performed in 2012 by Joseph Yazbeck. The audio recording was first published in Amine Beyhom’s book on Byzantine chant in 2015 (see http://foredofico.org/CERMAA/archives/584).
As with other CERMAA animated analyses, the upper part offers a general view of the analysis (with two dashed lines for the tonic and octave pitches) while the lower part shows the detailed analysis which includes, in this case, an overprint of the Byzantine scale of the 1881 (Second) Reform of Byzantine chant.
Compare with other analyses of the same chant by different performers at http://foredofico.org/CERMAA/analyses/byzantine-chant/kyrie-ekekraxa-by-petros-byzantios.

  • Greek Version by Joseph Yazbeck (below)

  • Arabic Version by Joseph Yazbeck (below)

Release of CERMAA Videos of Kyrie Ekekraxa by Petros Byzantios performed, in Greek and Arabic, by fr. Nicolas Malek in 2011

Release by CERMAA of two additional Greek and Arabic versions (below) of the chant Kyrie Ekekraxa, the well known composition by Petros Byzantios in the 19th-century Constantinople (now Istanbul) performed in 2011 by fr. Nicolas Malek. The audio recording was first published in Amine Beyhom’s book on Byzantine chant in 2015 (see http://foredofico.org/CERMAA/archives/584).
As with other CERMAA animated analyses, the upper part offers a general view of the analysis (with two dashed lines for the tonic and octave pitches) while the lower part shows the detailed analysis which includes, in this case, an overprint of the Byzantine scale of the 1881 (Second) Reform of Byzantine chant.
Compare with other analyses of the same chant by different performers at http://foredofico.org/CERMAA/analyses/byzantine-chant/kyrie-ekekraxa-by-petros-byzantios.

  • Greek Version by fr. Nicolas Malek (below)

  • Arabic Version by fr. Nicolas Malek (below)

New page by CERMAA dedicated to Video Analyses of the chant Kyrie Ekekraxa by Petros Byzantios

A new page, dedicated to different versions of the chant Kyrie Ekekraxa by Petros Byzantios has been added to the site of the CERMAA.
Kyrie Ekekraxa is a well known composition by Petros Byzantios in the 19th-century Constantinople (now Istanbul). The chant is in the 8th mode (on Νη=c)  of the Byzantine Church (equivalent to maqām Rāst in Arabian music), with an incursion (a modulation) in the 2nd mode (“Mild chromatic”).

Most of the audio recordings analyzed in the videos on this page were originally published in Amine Beyhom’s book on Byzantine chant in 2015 (see http://foredofico.org/CERMAA/archives/584), with Power Point animations for four Lebanese cantors, together with Greek versions of this chant (8 versions in all, with detailed analyses of two excerpts each undertaken in the aforementioned book). Two other recordings were undertaken with a fifth Lebanese cantor: it was too late however to analyze them as the book was already under print. The two additional recordings were also published as audio recordings in the accompanying CD-Rom of the book.

All these should be (re)analysed and published on this dedicated page.