Arabic Musical Scales: Basic Maqam Notation: Basic Maqam Teachings (without CD's)

The other review for this book seems to be unfairly negative. True, it doesn't ship with the CDs and it doesn't explain that sometimes maqamat can descend differently to how they ascend. However, these are minor points if you are starting out in this area and have no knowledge of maqamat.Before I got this book I knew nothing about the Arabic musical modes. In the West we are generally used to hearing the same kinds of scales over and over, whereas in the Middle East there is a different common set of scales, a lot of which can sound quite mystical or exotic to us. This book will take you through over 40 of them, though it emphasises that just 17 are enough to have a very good grasp of the modal system. This isn't as hard as it sounds because sometimes a maqam can have just one note difference from another in the same family, though others can, of course, be widly different.What I really like about this book is how Cameron gives a brief description of the moods associated with a lot of the maqamat, from certain ones which are bright and happy to others which are sacred and mysterious, to others which express sadness, sorry and grief. This book also introduces the concept of quartertones, something else which the Western brain generally has no knowledge or experience of. It's good to start with those maqamat which don't include them at first, I've found, then gradually move onto the quartertone ones over time. There I was thinking that some Middle Eastern melodies were just 'out of tune' at times, but it was just that I was unfamiliar with quartertone melodies. Shows my ignorance in this area.If you are relatively acquainted with maqamat you would presumably find this book rather limiting, but if you are just starting to get into this area it's an excellent resource for improvisation and taqsim. I have been putting into practise what I have learned from this book every day for months with good results.

This book doesn't ship with the CDs, nor are they available from Amazon. Kind of reduces the usefulness of the book. Also noticed that the maqam notations are incomplete: we get the rising tetrachords, but not the descending ones, which are not the same apparently, in some maqams.