Re: Name that Mode!(Re: Jewish music connection w/ old jingle?)

[Owen Davidson <owend...>]

So!  Man I hope we're not boring the pants off of everybody else, because this 
is great stuff.

Makam Nikriz, then, is the same as the Mi She Berakh mode so familiar to 
klezmorin from here to the orbit of Pluto, if not beyond.

I will insist that this mode is called in Greek "Rasti," an apellation which 
predates the 1932 Cairo Congress to which you refer.  I find differences in 
usage and definition to be rather slippery.  As soon as you cross into Asia, 
all frets are lost,
and your temperament becomes most uneven indeed.  The Greek rendition of the 
Sabah mode, for instance, takes on a horrifyingly shifty character when the 
half-flat second moves up to the next fret.  In Persian or Turkish music, the 
mode speaks of the
mysterious, ambiguous moment of dawn.  In Greek music, it seems more properly 
suited to questions of drug-addiction, murder, and the loss of one's soul.

Joshua Horowitz wrote:

> > Josh, I'll have to confess that I'm not at all familiar with the makam 
> > Nikriz.  Can you spell it out?
>
> Hi Owen,
>
> sure: N - I - K - R - I - Z
> bad joke.  The scalar form of Nikriz is,
> starting on C:  C D Eb F# G A Bb C
>
> > As for the mode I'm trying to pin down here, it is most resolutely makam 
> > Rast.
>
> I'm equally convinced it's not Rast. When the Cairo Congress convened in
> 1932 on the subject of standardizing the Turko-Arabic Makamat, they
> divided them into 3 categories according to how their tetrachords or
> pentachords begin. The 3 categories are:
>
> 1) diatonic (using whole tones and semitones)
>
> 2) Chromatic (using augmented seconds and 2 smaller intervals within the
> same tetrachord)
>
> 3) Special (those that fit into none of the above, some of which have
> trichord structures)
>
> Rast was put into the diatonic category because it has a diatonic
> primary tetrachord (C D Eb F G, whereby the Eb is raised a quarter tone)
> It's actually a fairly bland makam, not as colorful as the makam we're
> looking at here.
>
> The makam you're talking about has as it's main characteristic the
> augmented 2nd in it's first tetrachord. That would immediately put it
> into the category of a chromatic makam. In fact there is one Arabic
> chromatic makam called sipahr, which has this pentachord exactly:
>
> C D# E F G
>
> which could actually be the makam you're talking about.
>
> I have no idea what the Greeks or Romanians call it. They probably call
> it something like the *Makam that we use to see Grandma off when she
> drives the diesel truck to church on Sundays*. Josh
>
> As used in Greek music, it has a definitely major tonality.  The flatted
> third is an accidental or ornamental tone which always resolves to the
> major third.  The same
> > applies to the minor fifth.  By the major seventh, I mean not the 
> > hypotonic, but the note immediately below the octave, which again is an 
> > ornamental rather than a scalar tone.  You could make a case that the 
> > skeletal mode is (in C for piano
> > people):
> > C (Eb) E F (Gb) G A Bb (B) C D
> >
> > Note that the D is missing from the lower tetrachord. This mode is much 
> > used in Smyrniot music.  A wonderful example is  Roza Eskinazi's 
> > tsifte-telli "Ksanthi Evraiopoula (the Blonde Jewish Girl)."  The overall 
> > feel of the mode is light and
> > playful, you might even say sexy, as opposed to the heavy and miserable, or 
> > even shockingly stark tone that so often characterizes Greek song.  (Which 
> > I guess is why I love it so.)
> >
> > Joshua Horowitz wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Owen,
> > >
> > > > That's the one!  I was put off at first by the wide interval between 
> > > > the first and
> > > > second degrees, until I played with it for a while.  I think of that C# 
> > > > not as the
> > > > second degree of the mode, but the flatted third.
> > >
> > > But if you stick a C in there, what do you do with the D that follows? I
> > > think when you interpolate the C, you create another mode (Mi Shebarakh
> > > or Nikriz, or Altered Dorian, as you wish) with a different set of
> > > parameters (In the Mi shebarakh mode you have a sub-tonic tone group
> > > which in this case would be: F G A Bb. This tone group doesn't exist in
> > > the mode in question whereby the scale starts with Bb-C# but there seems
> > > to be no sub-tonic group.
> > >
> > > > Greek music also sometimes uses the major
> > > > seventh degree as another melodic "stepping stone," though the actual 
> > > > seventh degree
> > > > of the mode is quite clearly the minor seventh.
> > >
> > > Yes, if, by the major seventh note you mean BELOW the tonic, that's what
> > > I mean. But that's Makam Nikriz, isn't it?
> > >
> > > >  Since the mode, in a scalar sense,
> > > > remains the same across all the borders, physical and cultural, but in 
> > > > terms of melodic use, is distinctly different in each ethnic group, it 
> > > > seems logical to use each groups terminology when referring to it.  
> > > > Pretty convoluted sentence, huh?
> > >
> > > I totally agree there on both counts, we should use local terminology
> > > and your sentence was convoluted, but what if there is no Romanian term
> > > for the mode? Josh
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Owen Davidson
> > Amherst  Mass
> > The Wholesale Klezmer Band
> >
> > But in the Wine-presses the Human grapes sing not, nor dance
> > They howl & writhe in shoals of torment; in fierce flames consuming,
> > In chains of iron & in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires.
> >
> > Wm. Blake
> >
>

--
Owen Davidson
Amherst  Mass
The Wholesale Klezmer Band

The Angel that presided o'er my birth
Said Little creature formd of Joy and Mirth
Go Love without the help of any King on Earth

Wm. Blake


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