What Are You Listening To Right Now (Part 15)

This is from a CD I found in Barnes and Noble in Delaware about 20 years ago. It takes a few repeats to get your ear attuned to the strange keys and the quarter tones, but the more I listen the more I've come to appreciate it.

 
John K said:
This is from a CD I found in Barnes and Noble in Delaware about 20 years ago. It takes a few repeats to get your ear attuned to the strange keys and the quarter tones, but the more I listen the more I've come to appreciate it.
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Arabian scales do differ a lot from the Western Ionian/Chromatic/... scales, which sound strange to us as we hear very different note patterns than what we're used to.
Presumably it's this?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_maqam
 
dragulagu said:
Arabian scales do differ a lot from the Western Ionian/Chromatic/... scales, which sound strange to us as we hear very different note patterns than what we're used to.
Presumably it's this?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_maqam
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There are 11 tracks on the CD, from Iraq. I'm pretty sure it's all Maqam because the term is used in several of the track descriptions. It's improvised music, and it seems to me to have parallels with raga music from India, but also some of the deeper jazz improvisations from people like Ellington, or Oscar Peterson. These all sound very different on the surface, but they seem to me to have a lot in common too. The actual musical theory looks fascinating, but I keep away from finding out too much - I'll start analysing and thinking about it instead of listening if I get too deep into the scales and concepts. I do enough of that elsewhere without looking inside the music box too :D.
 
John K said:
I used to go to Wilmington maybe 4 or 5 times a year on business - the company I worked for had a research site there. Not on your tourist trail lol - but a pleasant enough place.
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did you notice that the horses there are always wearing little jackets? haha :relaxed:
 
neko said:
did you notice that the horses there are always wearing little jackets? haha :relaxed:
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No lol - there weren't any horses at our company's site, nor in the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Wilmington which is mainly where UK folks stayed. You don't get to see too much of the country on business trips. But - I think I saw a different side of American culture than we'd get on the tourist trail. The guys we worked with there were great - and nothing like the US stereotypes we pick up from the media, nor anything like the Americans I met on a Norweigian cruise who probably all voted Trump. I liked the guys I worked with and would have been happy to have a secondment there if my home life hadn't prevented it.

Wilmington itself is Ok but dead boring :D I prefer some hills near where I live.
 
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