NEW SITE: Makam Music – Beauty and Diversity (with audio collection)

[fernandoamartin]

Hi.
After years of extensive research on Middle-Eastern music I decided to take a large collection of maqamat / makamlar and write a short piano piece using each one of them. (I know that it's hard to play Eastern music on a 12-tone piano but in the computer everything is possible. )
All the pieces were written using Rosegarden from the beginning to the end and Timidity to covert them to audio along with a soundfont based on Clavinova samples.
The main sources for my work were La Musique Arabe by D'Erlager, the turkish music section of Encyclopie de la musique by Rauf Yekta, scores at neyzen.com, makamlar at eskd.org.tr, Arab Music Theory in the Modern Period by Scott Marcus, Tableau Comparatif des Intervales Musicaux by Alain Daniélou, maqamworld.com and many others...
Then after taking the best of Arabic and Turkish music I wrote 100 pieces using 100 different maqamat / makamlar.

Here is the link to my site:
http://fernando-a-martin.wixsite.com/makam-music

But please, be patient. It's hard to host a large collection of music today than I uploaded all the audio files to clyp.it and linked them at my site on wix.com. So there's no provision to "play all" songs. You need to click on each one to open. Depending on the speed of your internet connection or device the site may be a little slower to load, but it does.

After all, right from the start you'll see that my site is not made of canonical recordings. It's built based on many studies and is intended to be not a canonical work but a unique work.

Thank you very much for the attention.

[jonetsu]

Hello,

This is interesting and comes at a time when I barely just start to look into microtunings (using for instance u-he's ACE synthesizer on Linux). I will take a listen to some of your pieces.

Meanwhile, you might be interested by Makám, a Hungarian band that plays along the same lines although in such a way as to blend instrumentation and rhythms for a wide reach... At least they've been doing that since many, many years now. They're using standard tuned instruments.

Here are a few links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rac36o6ZIRI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqYvW9_J9bo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEwX6e7h_A4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFnx5QYq1l8

These two with lesser audio/video quality, in a small venue, but very good music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffCd50NP_os
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExmpBj7xSQQ

Cheers.

[fernandoamartin]

Hello,

This is interesting and comes at a time when I barely just start to look into microtunings (using for instance u-he's ACE synthesizer on Linux). I will take a listen to some of your pieces.

Meanwhile, you might be interested by Makám, a Hungarian band that plays along the same lines although in such a way as to blend instrumentation and rhythms for a wide reach... At least they've been doing that since many, many years now. They're using standard tuned instruments.

Here are a few links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rac36o6ZIRI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqYvW9_J9bo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEwX6e7h_A4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFnx5QYq1l8

These two with lesser audio/video quality, in a small venue, but very good music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffCd50NP_os
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExmpBj7xSQQ

Cheers.

I have liked the music of Makam group very much. It's creative and inspiring.
You said they use regularly tuned instruments. But their instruments are able to be adjusted to microtonality. I just can't tell by ear if they do it because I don't have perfect pitch.

If you're new to microtonality here's a wonderful software for it: http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/
You can compile it to run in linux on run windows version in wine.
It's very powerful. And for midi sequences you can go to options, synth, choose option 107. Then create a new equal temperament file, edit its tuning however you like and then export as midi. The small pieces of midi Scala exports may be copied and pasted anywhere in a midi file to retune it instantly. Then if you play them using Timidity you'll hear all the tuning changes.

[jonetsu]

I have liked the music of Makam group very much. It's creative and inspiring. You said they use regularly tuned instruments. But their instruments are able to be adjusted to microtonality. I just can't tell by ear if they do it because I don't have perfect pitch.

I have based my observation mostly on the guitar which is fretted, and, on the notion - maybe incorrect - that fretted instruments would not accomodate microtunings so much. For the bass and the violin, there should be no problem. Wind instruments are undoubtly already built to be in a such a scale. Players of fretless instruments can also play slightly besides the notes, coloring the tuning (1). Same with reed and brass instruments.

I also wonder about the interplay between instruments tuned in a standard way and perhaps solo instruments tuned in a slightly different way.

If you're new to microtonality here's a wonderful software for it: http://www.huygens-fokker.org/scala/
You can compile it to run in linux on run windows version in wine. It's very powerful. And for midi sequences you can go to options, synth, choose option 107. Then create a new equal temperament file, edit its tuning however you like and then export as midi. The small pieces of midi Scala exports may be copied and pasted anywhere in a midi file to retune it instantly. Then if you play them using Timidity you'll hear all the tuning changes.

Thanks, that seems to be quite a tool for tonal explorations !

Although what I like is a direct approach to start with, eg. to try it and hear if I find it worthwhile to research further. Regarding a direct approach I got an archive file of .tun microtunings that are ready to be used, from the u-he KVR forum.

The archive is at: https://app.box.com/shared/exiuj0sp9b

Then I use a simple synth that can load .tun files and play around. I like at this early stage to try and play around even though I do not know what the names of the tun files mean. Such as the ACE synth from u-he. If you wish, you can get the ACE synth demo Linux version (not offered on the official web site, but works perfectly, in Ardour and Carla host)

The ACE synth:

https://www.u-he.com/cms/ace

Where to get the current Linux version from:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 1&t=424953

A video introduction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YgUhNaWtN0

There is also a utility offered by u-he to create .tun files:

http://www.u-he.net/scripting/Arprestrictor.php


Cheers.


(1) Eastern European countries can have a blend, using variations in pitch, which is very nice. For instance, this violin solo from Szarka Tamás (Ghymes) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMqhRlfMEro

[fernandoamartin]

It's said that flamenco singers use microtonality even thought the guitar is equally tempered. Something similar is said to happen in blues with the blue notes, while the piano is 12-tone ET. And there are eastern european countries as you mentioned too. I also wonder how some turks keep their acoustic pianos tuned in a way that they can accompany solos in microtonal modes like segah and others.
It's a very deep and impressive topic.

And there's the just intonation subject too. (I used a kind of just intonation in the tracks of my site.) Even if you want to play with the eastern harmony and 12 tones, if you want to make them sound perfect to the ear, you need small tuning adjustments. And since what sounds like perfect harmony doesn't fit to the octave division, just intonation is another endless topic.

We have a world of music beyond the 12-tone ET. And once we are into microtonality we find endless subjects to study and sources of inspiration.

[jonetsu]

As a sidenote, makes me think of gamelan orchestra which are actually tuning to each other member in the orchestra, making each orchestra unique.

In general it means, why do we feel compelled to stick to the scale we have learned since childhood ?

Cheers.

[barbouze]

Thanks a lot for this tremendous work! I've always kept in the back of my mind that there were other scales than the equal temperament and that I should try to do something with that and you provide us a great way to explore this
If you still have the Scala files you might have used to create those pieces, could you please consider to share them too?

[fernandoamartin]

Thanks a lot for this tremendous work! I've always kept in the back of my mind that there were other scales than the equal temperament and that I should try to do something with that and you provide us a great way to explore this
If you still have the Scala files you might have used to create those pieces, could you please consider to share them too?

Thank you very much for the commendations.
I attached the scala files to this message. I hope you may download it. But please, examine carefully the content of each file, because one tuning file may be used effectively in several maqamat.
Here are some links where you can download some research books that help guide us on how to use the maqamat. They're old and probably in public domain.
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AvzM2CpJtL6lg2BJSuRUoccMTaVn
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AvzM2CpJtL6lg2OsR560UD_ASL10
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AvzM2CpJtL6lg2FOxaM0TGopznPg

And at last, here's a thread where I explained how I use these scala files.
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=15199

[barbouze]

Thanks a lot!