Music with Arabic Scale/Influence

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Both Flamenco and Arabic music use the Phrygian (mode 3) with a raised or lowered 3rd and 7th (with resulting aug 2nds in the melody).

You mean lowered 2nd, not lowered 3rd? Not a big deal though.

[atardecer]

While Spanish music uses flattened 7, the Arabic music often sounds like using natural 7.

I think the 7 is sometimes raised in both. The exotic sound in these scales comes from the step and a half leap. In the phrygian w/ raised third that comes between the 2nd and 3rd scale degree, in the harmonic minor it happens between the 6th and 7th scale degrees creating a similar sound. If you play phrygian with a raised 3rd and 7th, you get two of those exotic jumps in the same scale.

This said harmonic minor and phrygian with raised 3rd tend to sound similar because they contain the same notes. If you play the harmonic minor scale in A, it contains the same notes as phrygian w/ raised 3 in E (or phrygian dominant).

In reality I think composers are usually not too strict about staying within the confines of one particular scale in these kinds of works. You often get multiple modes appearing in the same work. For example the Ravel I mentioned uses both regular phrygian and phrygian w/ raised 3.

[atardecer]

The phrygian w/ raised 3 and 7, Brett referred to in post #98 Rick Beato calls 'double harmonic major'. According to Rick it is the darkest sounding scale.

[Daverz]

Perhaps Joel Bons, Nomaden:

[asin]B07MCDY1KT[/asin]

https://bis.se/performers/queyras-jean-guihen/joel-bons-nomaden

Ugh, all the links are broken.  Here it is on Youtube:

[Roy Bland]

"Kazakh Khanate Diamond Sword"by Abulhair Zharaskan

[71 dB]

The phrygian w/ raised 3 and 7, Brett referred to in post #98 Rick Beato calls 'double harmonic major'. According to Rick it is the darkest sounding scale.

Also called Byzantine, Arabic (Hijaz Kar), Gypsy major, Bhairav Raga,...

By the way, as a non-native English speaker I have never understood the w/ abbreviation for with. As if a four letter word was so long you needed to abbreviate it! Even without isn't that long of a word. 

Maybe it's because my own language, Finnish, is an agglutinative language resulting often longer worlds expressing a lot of encoded meaning. For me words like with and without are relatively short and do not require abbreviation unless you have next to no space to write them out in full.

[Roy Bland]

Attia Sharara was a very gifted violinist and composer egyptian

[Roy Bland]

[Scion7]

Sort of obvious, but gibbet me! :

[Roy Bland]

Generic orientalism

[Roy Bland]

AHA

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

AHA

Very good music! Very atmospheric.

[Roy Bland]

Vaguely arabic

[Roy Bland]

IMHO impressive

more about him
https://the.akdn/en/how-we-work/our-agencies/aga-khan-trust-culture/akma/mohamad-osman

[71 dB]

C Phrygian dominant: C D♭ E F G A♭ B♭
C Byzantine/Double harmonic: C D♭ E F G A♭ B

The combination of these scales ( C D♭ E F G A♭ B♭ B )
has the same notes as the 8 note scale

F Algerian: F G A♭ B♭ B C D♭ E

If we instead combine C Phrygian dominant with

C Phrygian : C D♭ E♭ F G A♭ B♭,

we get

C Spanish Phrygian : C D♭ E♭ E F G A♭ B♭

This scale uses C major as the tonic chord and E♭ & E as melodic alternatives.
When using this scale, one has to avoid tonicizing the four chord Fm by giving
emphasis on the tonic chord C.

[Opus131]

I think because Arabs already have their own "classical" music this is a difficult question to answer as Arabic composers would likely default to their own tradition.

I recently discovered an Egyptian composer who seemed to have an amazing melodic gift, one of those composers who just have the ability to come up with melodies that get stuck into your brain and never leave:

However he was also a master of the oud and as expected this is where most of his "serious" work is to be found, much like many other Arabic composers.

This arragenment of one of his songs as an instrumental piece with an oud improvisation in the middle is likely my favored thing of his i found on youtube:

[Roy Bland]

Brief summary
https://pressbooks.cuny.edu/apiza/chapter/chapter-3-the-music-of-the-arab-world/

[Roy Bland]

web composer page
https://www.gamal-abdelrahim.com/

[Opus131]

Brief summary
https://pressbooks.cuny.edu/apiza/chapter/chapter-3-the-music-of-the-arab-world/

My go to reference is The Music of Islam set by Celestial Harmonies, but now we are talking about actual Islamic music which i think is beyond the context of this thread.

[Roy Bland]

Any good music/recording with Arabic, or Middle-eastern, theme/scale?

By the founder of topic it doesn't seems OT