Maqam Bayati

A maqam is more than a scale: it is built from ajnas (small blocks of 3 to 5 notes), it rests on some notes more than others, and it follows a melodic path (sayr). Below is what the cited sources say, not a full account of practice.

Notes and steps

The names are the tradition's, on its usual tonic. One step is 50¢. 24 equal quarter tones: a textbook approximation; neutral intervals vary by region and player. ^{[1, 2, 3]}

Family and modes

Family: Bayati · Shur. N/M/S/T = 7/7/1/24. 24-EDO.

• Bayati / Shur (Persian) / Abu Ata · Dashti · Bayat-e Kord (Persian) 3·3·4·4·2·4·4
• Bayat-e Tork (Persian) 4·4·2·4·4·3·3
• Nava (Persian) 4·2·4·4·3·3·4

Building blocks

• Bayati, 4 notes from D ^{[1, 2, 3]}
• Nahawand, 5 notes from G — d'Erlanger's Būsalīk on G ^{[1, 2, 3]}
• Rast, 5 notes from G (alternative) — the other upper jins (maqamworld, Abu Shumays) ^{[3, 4]}
• ʿAjam, 3 notes from B♭ (alternative) — a secondary jins on the sixth ^{[1, 4]}

Key notes

• D: qarār (tonic) ^{[1, 2]}
• G: ghammāz (dominant) — G; in Aleppo the opening stresses G, reached from D ^{[2, 3, 5]}
• F: pivot note — F, with D and G the nucleus of Bayati ^{[2, 6]}
• A: strong note — A: the ghammāz for al-Hilu, the strongest note for al-Kurdi ^[2]

Melodic path

Begins around G, rises to the upper D and F, comes down through Nahawand on G or ʿAjam on B♭, touches the B½♭ below the tonic and ends on D. ^[1]

Modulations

• Shuri (Hijaz on G), Rast on G ^[2]
• Saba or Hijaz on D ^[2]
• ʿAjam on B♭ ^[4]
• Husseini and Bayati Shuri, both very popular ^[7] ⚑

Variant notes

• B♭: +1 quarter tone (B½♭) with Rast on G instead of Nahawand ^{[2, 3, 4]}
• A: −2 quarter tones (A♭) just before a cadence; with B as well it leads to the Shuri path ^{[2, 4]}

Remarks

• Muhayyar uses the same scale, with a path starting on the octave. ^[3] ⚑
• The path is d'Erlanger's, informed by 1930s practice in Aleppo and Cairo: a historical and regional description. Marcus found that Cairo teachers in the 1980s knew no path specific to a maqam beyond going up, then coming down. ^{[1, 2, 5]}

Where the sources disagree

• The ghammāz: G (Cairo institutes, d'Erlanger, Aleppo) or A (al-Hilu; al-Kurdi), and the Cairene view gives Bayati more than one. ^{[2, 5]}
• The upper jins: Nahawand only (Cairo table, old maqamworld) or Nahawand or Rast (maqamworld, Abu Shumays, who calls it a minor dispute; the Rast form, Husseini, matches Turkish, Iraqi and older Syrian usage). ^{[2, 3, 4, 7]}
• The low register: Bayati has no lower tetrachord for d'Erlanger (1933); 1980s Cairo musicians used the low range as freely as in Rast. ^[2]

Sources

1. R. d'Erlanger, La musique arabe, t. V: Essai de codification des règles usuelles de la musique arabe moderne, Paris, Geuthner, 1949 (primary treatise) — cited: p. 232
2. S. L. Marcus, Arab Music Theory in the Modern Period, PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1989 (academic) — cited: p. 546, table of the Cairo institutes; p. 272; p. 560; pp. 542–543, 561; p. 767; pp. 762–764, 767; p. 622; pp. 699–701; p. 702
3. J. Farraj, maqamworld.com (companion site of J. Farraj & S. Abu Shumays, Inside Arabic Music, Oxford University Press, 2019) — https://www.maqamworld.com/ (secondary)
4. S. Abu Shumays, "Maqam Analysis: A Primer", Music Theory Spectrum 35(2), 2013, 235–255 — https://maqamlessons.com/analysis/media/MaqamAnalysisAPrimer_2013WebFormat.pdf (academic) — cited: p. 237; p. 247; pp. 244–247; p. 237 and n. 7
5. L. Iino, "Inheriting the Ghammāz-oriented Tradition: D'Erlanger and Aleppine Maqām Practice Observed", Ethnomusicology Forum 18(2), 2009, 261–280 — https://doi.org/10.1080/17411910903141932 (academic) — cited: pp. 268–270; pp. 267–270; p. 263
6. H. H. Touma, "The Maqam Phenomenon: An Improvisation Technique in the Music of the Middle East", Ethnomusicology 15(1), 1971, 38–48 — https://www.jstor.org/stable/850386 (academic) — cited: p. 43
7. J. Farraj, maqamworld.com, older pages (2001–2005), archived copy — https://web.archive.org/web/2015/http://www.maqamworld.com/maqamat/rast.html (secondary)

⚑ marks an item that only a secondary (popular) source supports.