[HANASHIR:5496] Re: minor/major?

[Judah Cohen <jcohen...>]

It is possible that maqam Rast somehow became the HaShem Malakh mode as it
switched from one tradition to another, but it is unlikely an Classical
Arabic musician would identify it with the HaShem Malakh mode if he heard
it.  Maqam rast can be identified by a "half flatted" third and seventh
degree (check out Habib Hassan Touma's "Music of the Arabs" (1996), or
D'Erlanger's major study from 1932)--and I've always identified it by the
half-flatted third.  Nonetheless, I think this is a great example of how
professional pedagogy links the Jewish traditions.

Judah.
----------
>From: BZcantor (at) aol(dot)com
>To: hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
>Subject: [HANASHIR:5493] Re: minor/major?
>Date: Mon, Mar 13, 2000, 8:25 PM
>

>>
>>  Just for the record, an A scale with a flatted seventh
>>  is a mixolydian scale,
>>
> and, it happens to also be Makaam Rast, an Arabic
> musical mode (Makaam) which we Jews use as the
> HaShem Malach mode, and which is the basis of the
> "Lithuanian-Jerusalem tradition" for Torah chant
> as taught by Rosowsky at JTS and Binder at HUC.
>
> A good way to remember the scale of Mixolydian -
> Makaam Rast - HaShem Malach mode is to think
> of the ascending passage in "If I were a Rich Man".
> This shows the "Major" scale with the flat seventh.
>
> BTW, when we use this mode during the first part of
> Kabbalat Shabbat services (such as "Arbaim Shana"),
> the resting point is the fifth degree of the scale, which
> also appears in this song from "Fiddler".
>
>                         Cantor Neil Schwartz
>

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