Music of Syria
Lying near Egypt and Israel, and connected to southern Europe by the Mediterranean, Syria became host to many distinct cultural musics through trade and route.
There can be a rich texture created if multiple instruments playing the same melody with slight variations or rhythmic ornamentations.
This gives the player the freedom to bend or mold the notes[4] causing an improvisational effect on the structure of the music.
This style of song in Syrian music creates a feeling of excitement for how the musician will play the upcoming sections.
A significant part of Syrian music is sung in prose that participates in the distinctness of the Middle Eastern sound.
These elements are: Throughout time, history, and cultural amalgamation, the Syrian musical style has been constructed as a platform to create the perfect sonic environment for the listener to fully emerge in the stories told in the poetry.
A particularly influential group in Syrian music and specifically values, ideologies, folklore, and the poetic customs of the Levant are the Bedouin tribes.
This written work had a great effect on southern Syrians bringing Shruqi and other Bedouin ideologies and practices to urban areas.
[8] Due to the geopolitical climate of the Middle East, urbanization has caused many of the nomadic cultures and rural regions to cluster or move altogether.
[8] This has brought more modernized musical instruments and oral poetry together which collaborate and are currently played throughout regions of the Middle East.
Performed by a lead singer or a choir, it consists of a classical form of Arabic poetry set to music.
[4] The monophic style allows most songs to be sung or played with the expectation that the melodic line will have improvisation or musical ornamentation.
[4] Arabic music is made up of small scales called jins/ajnas which are melodic motifs that have three or four pitches attributed to them.
The notation used in maqamat systems is divided into twenty-four intervals creating a distinction of the whole-tone, halftone and quarter-tone.
[8] This is due to the amalgamation of culture that happened from the French mandate rule and its effects on Bedouin nomadic tribes losing their ability to travel freely.
[24] Also, reporting on the events was made illegal with punishment of jail time making Syrian song the only platform of which to tell any source of information.
[4][23][8] This use of culture resembles possibly another influence that the Bedouin people have had on Syria as they have turned to ataba music to comfort and mourn their losses.
However, the most direct similarity is between the types of music that the Syrian refugees play and a traditional Bedouin genre.
In the YouTube video Songs of Syrian Refugees – Documentary | Recording Earth written about in Alex Petropoulos's article in the Guardian, there are two men who sing in a traditional Bedouin genre known as ataba.
[8] The YouTube video plays in this style of music varying only in the musicians use of the oud[24] and not the Bedouin traditional rababah.
[8] Due to the rise in geopolitical conflict in the Middle East,[24][21][22] there has been an amalgamation of cultures in the urban centres of the Levant.
Famous singers are Assala Nasri, Farid al-Atrash, Fahd Ballan, Sabah Fakhri, Mayada El Hennawy and George Wassouf.
