"Often described as "ecstasy" or "rapture" brought on by listening to and producing music, tarab is a central concept within Arab music traditions. With A.J. Racy's Making Music in the Arab World: The Culture and Artistry of Tarab (Cambridge, 2004) came the first book-length examination of the phenomenon in English-language scholarship. Tarab: Music, Ecstasy, Emotion, and Performance in the Middle East is a follow-up to Racy's pivotal work, combining an assortment of geographic and disciplinary focuses to expand beyond the Arab world and into the present day. The volume asserts that the transnational character of tarab and its spread is critical to understanding the concept's historical, geographic, and sociological impact"--
In Arab culture, at the ineffable point where music meets emotion, lies ?arab. Often glossed as the ecstasy experienced and expressed when performing or listening to singing, instrumental works, and recitations of poetry, ?arab is both a practice and an orienting concept central to musical aesthetics and spirituality characteristic of Middle Eastern cultures.
Gathering fifteen essays by scholars of music, affect, literature, religion, and education, ?arab extends the study of ?arab historically, geographically, and sociologically. Historical essays explore ?arabs role in the medieval Middle East and the Ottoman Empire. Turning to the modern era, authors examine ?arab and related concepts in Egypt, Albania, and Iraq, and among Turkish Roma and Lebanese Maronite Christians. The contributors also address contemporary practitioners and the intersections of ?arab and maqam, belly dancing, music streaming, and university music ensembles. Situating this unique cultural concept in a global context, these studies enrich the story of ?arab and provide new insight into musics powerful emotional appeal.
How the concept of ?arab has impacted music and culture across the Islamic world.
Recenzijas
"The field of ethnomusicology is changing, and this volume shows us how by engaging with historical, comparative, music psychological, popular music, and sound studies in addition to other fields. The editors and authors sum up this entire field of study well, but also show that same field in motion. This volume is nothing short of a landmark moment in ethnomusicology." - Martin Stokes, King's College, London, author of Music and Citizenship
A Note on Transliteration
List of Illustrations
An Introduction to arab: Music, Ecstasy, Emotion, and Performance (Michael
Frishkopf, Scott Marcus, and Dwight F. Reynolds)
1. arab in Extremis in Medieval Arabic Sources (Dwight F. Reynolds)
2. The Other arab (George Dmitri Sawa)
3. Judeo-Sufi Musical Intersections (Edwin Seroussi)
4. A Tale of Two arabs: Intercultural Music in the Late Ottoman Empire
(John OConnell)
5. Sayyid Darwish and arab (Virginia Danielson)
6. From arab to Turth: Fifty Years of Arab Music Heritage in Egypt (Salwa
El-Shawan Castelo-Branco)
7. arab in the Grooves: Reconsidering a Transitional Moment in the Arab
American Arts Economy (Anne K. Rasmussen)
8. The Two Tenors: The arab Artistry of Wadih El Safi and Sabah Fakhri
(Sami W. Asmar)
9. The Sufi Source of arab (Michael Frishkopf)
10. From Lament to Prayer: Music and Emotional Shifts in the Funeral Ritual
of the Maronite Christians in Lebanon (Guilnard Moufarrej)
11. Heroism, Desire, Ecstasy: Qamili i VogĖl, Kosova Albanian Urban Song,
and the Cultivation of Elation (Jane C. Sugarman)
12. Sweaty Transcendence and Affect: The Labor of Musical Ecstasy (Sonia
Tamar Seeman)
13. Teaching arab: Embodied Interpersonal Learning in University Ensembles
(Anne Elise Thomas)
14. Songs of the arab Repertoire: Sites for Understandings Beyond Affect
(Scott Marcus)
15. Curating Tarab on Music Streaming Services: The Cultural Politics of
Localization on Spotify, Anghami, and Deezer (Darci Sprengel)
Contributors
Index
Michael Frishkopf is a professor of music at the University of Alberta. He is the coeditor of Resisting the Dehumanization of Refugees; Music, Sound, and Architecture in Islam; and Music and Media in the Arab World.
Scott Marcus is a professor of music (ethnomusicology) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Music in Egypt and coeditor of The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 6, The Middle East.
Dwight Reynolds is Distinguished Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of The Musical Heritage of al-Andalus and Medieval Arab Music and Musicians, as well as coeditor of The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 6, The Middle East.
