Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T05:48:17.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Theory and practice at the ‘Arabic org’: digital technology in contemporary Arab music performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Anne K. Rasmussen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The synthesizer is ubiquitous on the Arab–American musical scene. Heard at every party, and on every recording, the synthesizer sings the lingua franca of international popular music. While the facade and the body of the synthesizer consist of neutral, slick, black plastic and metal technology, the soul of the instrument, when played by Arab–American musicians, is capable of a completely indigenous, if synthetic, musical idiom. In this article I draw on my experience of six performers of the Arabic ‘org’, commonly known today as ‘keyboards’, to present a sketch of a modern musical tradition.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , October 1996 , pp. 345 - 365
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bakan, M., Bryant, W., Li, G. M., Martinelli, D. and Vaughn, K. 1990. ‘Demystifying and classifying electronic music instruments’, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, 8, pp. 37–63Google Scholar
Chambers, I. 1993. ‘Travelling sounds: whose center, whose periphery?’, in Otherness and the Media: The Ethnography of the Imagined and the Imaged, ed. Naficy, H. and Gabriel, T.H. (Langhorne, PA)Google Scholar
Coplan, D. 1982. ‘The urbanization of African music: some theoretical observations’, Popular Music 2: Theory and Method, pp. 112–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coplan, D. 1991. ‘Ethnomusicology and the meaning of tradition’, in Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History, ed. Blum, S., Bohlman, P.V. and Neuman, D.M. (Urbana), pp. 35–48Google Scholar
El-Shawan, S. 1980. ‘The social-political context of al-musiqa al-'arabiyyah in Cairo, Egypt: policies, patronage, institutions and musical change (1927–1977)’, Asian Music, 12/1, pp. 86–128CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El-Shawan, S. 1984. ‘Traditional arab music ensembles in Egypt since 1967: the continuity of tradition within a contemporary framework’, Ethnomusicology, 28/2, pp. 271–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fathallah, L. 1992. ‘Instruments à cordes et à clavier dans les recommandations du Congrès du Caire’, Musique Arabe: Le Congrès du Caire, trans. Vigreux, Pierre, proceedings of a colloquium on the documents of the first congress on Arab music in Cairo, 1932, held in Cairo in 05, 1989 under the direction of Sheherazade Qassim Hassan (Cairo), pp. 99–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maloof, A. 1917. Music of the Orient for Piano (Brooklyn, NY)Google Scholar
Marcus, S.L. 1989. ‘Arab music theory in the modern period’, PhD dissertation, University of California at Los AngelesGoogle Scholar
Marcus, S.L. 1992. ‘Modulation in Arab Music: documenting oral concepts, performance rules and strategies’, Ethnomusicology, 36/2, pp. 171–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naficy, H. 1993. The Making of Exile Cultures: Iranian Television in Los Angeles (Minneapolis)Google Scholar
Porcello, T. 1991. ‘The ethics of digital audio-sampling: engineers' discourse’, Popular Music, 10/1, pp. 69–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Proteus/3 Operation Manual 1993.Google Scholar
Qassim Hassan, S. 1984. ‘Khishba’, The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments (London) p. 423Google Scholar
Racy, A.J. 1991. ‘Historical worldviews of early ethnomusicologists: an east–west encounter in Cairo, 1932’, in Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History, ed. Blum, S., Bohlman, P.V. and Neuman, D.M. (Urbana and Chicago) pp. 68–91Google Scholar
Racy, A.J. 1994. ‘A dialectical perspective on musical instruments: the east-mediterranean mijwiz’, Ethnomusicology, 38/1, pp. 37–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rasmussen, A.K. 1989. ‘The music of Arab Americans: performance contexts and musical transformation’, The Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology, 5, pp. 15–33Google Scholar
Rasmussen, A.K. 1991. ‘Individuality and musical change in the music of Arab Americans’, PhD dissertation, University of California at Los AngelesGoogle Scholar
Rasmussen, A.K. 1992. ‘“An evening in the Orient”: the Middle Eastern nightclub in America’, Asian Music, 23/2, 66–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schuyler, P. 1990a. ‘Hearts and minds: three attitudes toward performance practice and music theory in the Yemen Arab Republic’, Ethnomusicology, 34/1, pp. 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schuyler, P. 1990b. ‘Music and tradition in Yemen’, Asian Music, 22/1, pp. 51–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seeger, C. 1965. ‘Preface to the critique of music’, Inter-American Bulletin, 49, pp. 2–24Google Scholar
Shelemay, K.K. (ed.) 1992. Ethnomusicology: History, Definitions, and Scope (New York)Google Scholar
Vigreux, P. 1992. ‘Le congrès de musique Arabe du Caire dans la press Égyptienne (Janvier–Juin 1932)’, Musique Arabe: Le Congrès du Caire, proceedings of a colloquium on the documents of the first congress on Arab music in Cairo, 1932, held in Cairo in May, 1989 under the direction of Sheherazade Qassim Hassan(Cairo), pp. 437–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar