The Influence of Maqāms and Maqām Classification Theories Revisited: towards a Maqām Affect Theory
The Influence of Maqāms and Maqām Classification Theories Revisited: towards a Maqām Affect Theory

Summary/Abstract: The mode is the central topic in the relatively few sources of Arabic Music Theory written between the ninth and the early twentieth century. An important passage, often overlooked by musicologists, is Ta’thīr An-Naġam, or the influence of modes. The passage is devised to serve as the pinnacle of the previous fastidious calculations, while assigning an affect, an ethnicity, a social rank, to a certain maqām or a group of maqāms. This paper presents a quick survey of the theory of ethos or the influence of modes on Arabic Music and proposes a preliminary approach of the maqām based on the constituent intervals and the feelings they induce. The study and practice of the maqām, besides other modal systems, reveals a principle that can explain how some modes sound more contracted, darker, and more melancholic than others. The placement of the minor second in relation to the tonic provides a key to the understanding of the mode’s affect. The analyses here illustrate how a Maqām Affect Theory can be linked to other theories of musical affect.

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