Maqamlessons.com

This site hosts 3 major maqam analysis projects:

  1. The Maqam Analysis website companion to the article "Maqam Analysis: A Primer," published in Music Theory Spectrum Fall 2013. This website analyzes 29 songs, breaking them up into segments by jins, to present an overall picture of the structure of the Maqam System.
  2. The Network Demo site, developed in 2010 to demonstrate the network structure of Maqam. Contains some lesson-style audio samples (call and response on the violin) illustrating each jins. Intended as the prototype for a larger version representing the entire maqam system.
  3. The Vocabulary of Maqam Rast: Part 1, Early 20th Century Egypt . Sentences in Maqam Rast taken from improvisations recorded in Early-20th Century Egypt, the source material for my next major analysis project, to parse and catalogue the vocabulary of Maqam Rast during this period.

Note: all three sites are cross-tabbed via the navigation bar at the top of the page: e.g. where possible (because none of the sites are complete in presenting all of the maqamat and ajnas used in Arabic Music), a jins or maqam on one site links to the same jins or maqam on the other two sites, and vice-versa, for easy cross-reference of the content presented, by Maqam.

I've also launched a Forum on maqam, to invite discussion and questions on all topics related to maqam and the content of this site. Please visit and post your feedback & questions.