Ricardo -> RE: Looking for good book on music theorie (Oct. 14 2020 17:38:33)
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I want to give more details, but I don't want to hijack the topic, but let me do it anyway, the post can be deleted if it is considered too off topic. Personally I feel it is quite relevant to discuss this, plus people get to watch me learn something rather than spout off the same old diatribe I always do. So rhythm first. I am glad I was correct about the down beat. I did consider (because the 7 wasn’t super clear and it was cuadrao or square groups of 2 always) combining into 14, but having lived with some Turks they never mentioned a 14 beat, so my guess was close. Same for the 3/4 I sketched I knew it was cuadrao which opens the door to both 6 and 12 beat structures. 6/4 not really because of the prominent accent on count 4 out of 6, so 6/8 is cool with me...it’s just slower than I normally think of 6/8. So seems my sketch and your score align pretty well in this regard. Makams Ok, so I looked it up and started learning about Turkish Makam from the brief wiki descritption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_makam So referring to that and comparing your score to mine, I will from now on speak in the “transposed from my C key to his G key” terms for clarity. 1. Most important relevant piece of info I want to put out is that the Turkish modal system of notes are dealing with 53(!) notes per octave. Less than the ancient Chinese (60) but significantly more than Greeks (24) or Indians (22). This is significant because it means the system is further limited in doing tonal type modulations because they really want to differentiate between the various “notes between the notes” with, as many as 9 varieties in some cases between a whole step! (In rock guitar, we know about 1/4 tones, so we might accept target bending 4 different pitches between C-D...but 9???lol). So understanding which note is TONIC is super important if you are gonna name any one of those 53 not so obvious notes. 2. Ok, pretending the above doesn’t matter and trying to relate their scales or modes to western concepts we first see they have everything based on combinations of pentachords and tetra chords. A western equivalent CONCEPT is the “melodic minor” scale which would be like say A B C D E F# G#, is a result of combing the “aeolian pentachord” ABCDE with the Ionian “tetra achord” ABC#D....but the pentachord is transposed such that it begins on the 5th degree (EF#G#A). Finally the important “dominant” note is identified, which sometimes is the 5th but can ALSO BE THE 4th, because it splits or overlaps the pentachord and the tetrachord in the middle ish, and last thing is the leading tone. So that means, in A melodic minor, we can think of the E note is an important note, and the G# is important. Finally, each “mode” or Makam will allow for development rules above or below tonic. The equivalent concept here is the “rule” that the melodic minor will DECEND from tonic as a natural minor scale (AGFE). Now we know from tonal rules of western music the reason for that change is the tension and release factor of V-I in minor, where you sharps are pulling and once the minor i is established, you wold descend in the natural scale as a “resolution” of sorts. I can’t help but think the Turkish rules of “development” are serving a similar aural function of tension and release? But that’s my own idea. 3. Despite the 53 tones per octave options, and all the fun implications of the above (they use 6 different tetrachords and 6 pentachords), they end up most of the time only using A handful of makams! Well, I guess that’s better than Chinese that mainly only use major or minor pentatonics with their 60 note system! [:D]. However one category names the “compound Makam” which can have hundreds of variants. So on the wiki page they only describe a couple of the main makams. I decided then to compare our score with those and see which fits the best. So the major key Makam or C ionian seems to have a bad rep, and no accidentals. So skip that. Next is Buselik makam. This is like A natural minor but they use the G# sometimes, so harmonic minor, and a decending variant with F# and 1/4 E note, so an A dorian type sound. Interesting but not in our example. The the one you call Bayati they call Ussak...so it’s like A natural minor but with a B note slightly flat. In deed the “dominant” note is the D that splits the two chords, so our song would be starting on the dominant and desending to tonic using the tetra chord mainly. (Could NOT find a pentachord equivalent of the E note, or ABCDE where both B and E are slightly flat as the key signature of your score indicates. However a normal E note version does exist as a pentachord, but not used specifically in THIS makam I guess?). The development allows the use of the Rast pentachord (DEF#G) which is exactly the walk up to G major I was hearing. So all that follows the correct “rules” for Ussak based on A note tonic. But the next section takes on the RAST makam development...That being the Rast tetra ascending from dominant (DEF#G) but descending Buselik tetra (GFED), assuming that E is not half flat. (My ear can’t tell sorry, but your score shows this). I have pointed out this move throughout the piece. However your score is in error for not pointing this exact thing out in the first 14/8 section. It is CLEARLY doing this. Perhaps the writer of the score felt it was not important or an embellishment? But by NOT including the change of note there, F#->F natural, then it very much looks still like Ussak. The 6/8 section DOES correctly notate the Rast development I pointed out above when it occurs. The E# awesome note is not accounted for in any of the tetra or penta chords they show, so I assume it is some cool out note permitted? The mode you describe as based on the semi flat B note, I can’t find here...infact I don’t even see ANY pentachord nor tetra chord ever to be based on a relatively flattened nor raised note...which makes sense actually. Now I am sorry I am not going to dig much further than this wiki page, but I admit that in the family of compound makams anything might be going on. But for everybody following, I would take that score in G major key signature, and detune your B string a hair such that the string rings out in a G chord with less violence than normal. Now read the score and play the melody on the 3rd and 4th strings, EXCEPT, whenever you see a B note, play that open string. You can also hear when doing this if you just play around with it, how the “phrygian” sound is affected if you pretend your B string is tonic and only play that open version as you fiddle with the other 6 notes of the scale. Fun stuff. EDIT:one thing I forgot to add about your score. Please note that both the ussak based on A and the Rast based on G, share the SAME “dominant” note which is D. Further both of these makams have a similar concept in the development, that being, the variable F or F# note depending. This leads us straight to ambiguity in this piece a person like me will be trapped by in this piece at a superficial glance. One thing I would do as the transcriber to eliminate this ambiguity on paper for a guy like me, is to use the correct key signature. By that I mean if the Makam is meant to be A ussak, I would use zero sharps or flats (not talking about the semi flat B note, that’s of course fine), so that in my development section the F# appears as an accidental to the fundamental construction. Conversely if wanted to express Rast based on G as the tonic or fundamental construction, then I would include the F# in the key signature and use F natural when it occurs as the accidental to illustrate what is the development section. In this case, our score used F# expressly and therefore I am getting more push towards the G Rast than the A ussak. Hope you get my drift.
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