I was eleven when I started learning Santoor (Persian hammered dulcimer).
Back then, I didn’t know the difference between scales.
My teacher would play one scale for me, and then play a different one, and I couldn’t really tell what the difference was. The only thing I knew was… it sounded cool!
When you play the Santoor, you are stuck in one maqam for a long time because you have to do a lot of tuning. So it was a big deal for me when my teacher told me I would be moving onto a different one.
I started to hear the difference a little bit then, but still, the world of maqam felt immensely deep, mysterious, and very hard to grasp.
Fast forward today, I can tell apart not only different maqams and modulations, but nuances of maqams in Persian, Arabic and Turkish music. But it didn't come easy.
It took (and is still taking) years of dedication because each type of music approaches maqam in slightly different ways.
If you're reading this far, you are very likely trying to master Arabic maqams so you can understand the music better and play them authentically. (But you may be frustrated with lack of information as well.)
You might be asking:
- How are there no chords?
- How do you improvise properly instead of just hitting random notes in a scale?
- How do you modulate between maqams smoothly and convincingly?
- How do you remember all these scales?
- How do you make sense of all this?
If you're feeling like this about maqams right now, it's okay. You're not alone.
In fact, in a survey I did a while ago, over 50% of OudforGuitarists subscribers responded that they are struggling to tell apart or understand different maqams.
But don't worry. Let me show you 1 simple technique that will change the outlook of your maqam learning.
1 simple technique that changed the way I hear scales forever.
It all started to change when I was in my teens learning music.
I started to associate different feelings with different pieces of music. Some made me feel melancholic, some made me sense joy and energy.
After a while, I started to recognize that certain sounds or melodies created a mood or feeling.
As I began to remember the sound of my favourite songs on the radio, they would pop into my head every once in a while and I could sing the melody exactly as I heard it.
Around the same time, I was forced to learn how to tune my instrument my Santoor without the help of my teacher. After using a tuner to tune, I realized I could predict (with the help of my voice) how the note I was trying to tune was supposed to sound.
I was learning relative pitch. The ability to recreate a pitch based on a reference note.
Using my voice, and feeling how my throat muscles moved was when I really understood what an ‘interval’ is. It’s the distance between one note to another.
So… accidentally, by singing my favourite songs and notes to tune my instrument, I started to learn relative pitch. Relative pitch is one of the most helpful skills to help you learn and master maqams, and learning how to play a taqasim.
As Oud players, or as instrumentalists, we often focus too much on playing a maqam on our instrument, BUT, we are missing out on using our primary instrument in learning music: our voice.
When you use your voice, your body can feel the difference between one note to another note, and the idea of 'interval' is imprinted in your mind.
But your voice alone can only get you so far.
There are 3 important elements that make this learning process a lot smoother and faster.
I didn't know these elements when I was starting my maqam education...which resulted in long years of struggle.
But now that I learned these elements and many of my students have had success with them, I want to share them with you.
These 3 crucial elements that will help you get a nice overview of the maqam system more quickly, enable you to understand middle eastern music, and eventually play a soul-stirring taqsim.
Here's what you need to know.
