A Review of

Maqam Arabic Music and Songbook

by Joseph Fakhouri

Summary

This 62-page book contains sheet music for more than 80 songs which have been popular over the years in the Levant region (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and Jordan).

Fact Sheet

Title	Maqam Arabic Music and Songbook
Author	Joseph Fakhouri
ISBN	None
Publisher	Ishraq
Category	Music education
Rating	for dancers for musicians

Description

This 62-page book contains sheet music for more than 80 songs which have been popular over the years in the Levant region (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and Jordan). For each song, it gives only the melody line. This may look skimpy to someone who is accustomed to U.S. sheet music with guitar chords and full arrangements for both hands, but it is appropriate for Middle Eastern music which does not use the same kind of harmonizing as European and American music. For the most part, the songs included in this collection were popular before 1980, including some traditional songs and songs made popular by Fairuz, Sabah, and Mohammed Abdel Wahab.

The number of songs from Egypt included in this book is small. There are a few, but the emphasis is on songs from other sources.

Songs Included

Is It Right for You?

You Will Probably Enjoy This Book If...

• You're looking for music from the Levant.
• You can read Arabic lyrics.
• You're looking for sheet music for the muwashahat style of music.

This Book Probably Isn't Right for You If...

• You need the lyrics to be transliterated into the Roman alphabet.
• You're looking for sheet music to Egyptian classical or pop songs.
• You're looking for a source for translations of song lyrics.

What I Liked, What I Didn't

What I Liked:

• For most of the songs in the book, the book includes the Arabic script for the lyrics. Unfortunately, if you haven't learned how to read Arabic script, this doesn't help much, but sometimes it's easier to find someone who can help you decipher the script than it is to find someone who can tell you the lyrics offhand.
• The book includes more than 80 songs. This large collection is very helpful to musicians who are attempting to build an Arabic repertoire.
• Many of the songs don't appear to use quarter tones and therefore can be played on Western instruments such as piano.
• The spiral binding makes the book lie open easily, which is helpful when playing an instrument which requires both hands to be busy.
• The book can be a useful educational tool to learn about certain sub-genres of Arabic music. For example, if someone wishes to become more educated about muwashahat, this book identifies artists who performed them and presents sheet music for a large number of them.

What I Didn't Like:

• The lyrics are in the Arabic alphabet, which isn't very helpful to those of us who have not yet learned to read Arabic.
• The spiral binding makes it difficult to identify the book when it is on the bookshelf next to all the other annoying spiral-bound books on the shelf.
• Some of the spellings of the song titles seem odd. It's always challenging to transliterate Arabic words into the Roman alphabet because both Arabic and English have many dialects with different pronunciations of the vowels, and this book does as well as other transliterations I have seen. But of you're accustomed to seeing how Egyptian dialect is represented in the Roman alphabet, it takes some effort to adapt one's thinking to the style used for this book, and sometimes it requires a little imagination to determine whether a given song is in this book.

Conclusion

If you're looking for sheet music for a variety of different songs that have been popular in the Levant, particularly pre-1980 songs, this book is an excellent choice because it offers a large selection.

Disclosures

There is nothing to disclose. I have never had any contact with anyone involved in creating this book.

To Buy It

Available on the web through www.maqam.com

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