Struggling to compose Arabic music

[O-Start]

Hi all,

Im trying to expand my palette, but arabic music, and world music I should say, is giving me problems. I just keep going up and down the scale! What sort of harmonic movement do you have in this style? Tonic dominant, drone kind of thing? Struggling to make good melodies and fresh sounds, it all seems like a child learning his grade 1 piano arabic scale. Ooooph... Help please!

[reddiesel41264]

Do you want to compose traditional arabic music? or more like hollywood movie arabic music?

For the latter you need to think more about creating a piece of western music using scales and progressions that sounds 'arabian' rather than trying to write a piece of arabic music that sounds western.

[O-Start]

Yep, Im trying to write traditional arabic music, or authentic I should say, using same sort of instruments or sound alikes. I am not very familiar with this sort of idiom, I listened to some music on youtube but I lack the theoretical knowledge behind this style.

[MPDmike]

There is a lot of useful information about Arabic music on this site.

[jspencer]

Originally Posted by O-Start

Hi all,

Im trying to expand my palette, but arabic music, and world music I should say, is giving me problems. I just keep going up and down the scale! What sort of harmonic movement do you have in this style? Tonic dominant, drone kind of thing? Struggling to make good melodies and fresh sounds, it all seems like a child learning his grade 1 piano arabic scale. Ooooph... Help please!

Do you own Goliath? If so, there are some excellent melodic patches under the "Middle East" sections. They are basically pre-recorded runs and short melodies, and they work great for this genre.

[flickerflix]

In RA there are a number of instruments in the Middle East group including performances (melodies) on the Dudek. Voices of Passion have vocals from Syria. Silk has a lot of performances on instruments in the Persian Empire section. Plus, many of these instruments can have their micro tuning set to switch from standard Western tuning to a tuning more appropriate to the region.

[jspencer]

Originally Posted by flickerflix

In RA there are a number of instruments in the Middle East group including performances (melodies) on the Dudek. Voices of Passion have vocals from Syria. Silk has a lot of performances on instruments in the Persian Empire section. Plus, many of these instruments can have their micro tuning set to switch from standard Western tuning to a tuning more appropriate to the region.

Oops! My bad. I meant RA, not Goliath.

[flickerflix]

Ah, I wondered about that - I didn't see any in Goliath. If you like the melodies in RA and don't have Silk you should check it out. Many more great performance patches to help inspire you.

[Aakash]

As long as my knowledge is concerned ,Arabic music does not really follow a harmonic structure much ( in most cases, I am not sure) instead its the Tonic-Dominant and the Drones.

Here is a link of a track of mine with a bit of traditional Arabic and a little Indian feel.

http://soundcloud.com/aakashrijia/the-call

Hope you'll like it.

Aakash Rijia.