Finding and performing perfectly harmonious note intervals in Arabic music maqam systems. Knowledge of quartertones is not enough. This book explains how the maqamat follow the laws of acoustic physics and provide a history of clues given by traditional musicians which demonstrate that this knowledge was available by tuning with deep listening.

How to play Arabic music. Maqam structures with traditional quarter-tone intervals presented in easy-to-read formats. This book has become a widely-used standard for instrumentalists and singers who wish to enter the magical world of Arabic music.

What makes hundreds of listeners cheer ecstatically at the same instant during a live concert by Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum? What is the unspoken language behind a taqsim (traditional instrumental improvisation) that performers and listeners implicitly know? How can Arabic music be so rich and diverse without resorting to harmony? Why is it so challenging to transcribe Arabic music from a recording? Inside Arabic Music answers these and many other questions from the perspective of two "insiders" to the practice of Arabic music, by documenting a performance culture and a know-how that is largely passed on orally. Arabic music has spread across the globe, influencing music from Greece all the way to India in the mid-20th century through radio and musical cinema, and global popular culture through Raqs Sharqi, known as "Bellydance" in the West. Yet despite its popularity and influence, Arabic music, and the maqam scale system at its heart, remain widely misunderstood. Inside Arabic Music de-mystifies maqam with an approach that draws theory directly from practice, and presents theoretical insights that will be useful to practitioners, from the beginner to the expert - as well as those interested in the related Persian, Central Asian, and Turkish makam traditions. Inside Arabic Music's discussion of maqam and improvisation widens general understanding of music as well, by bringing in ideas from Saussurean linguistics, network theory, and Lakoff and Johnson's theory of cognition as metaphor, with an approach parallel to Gjerdingen's analysis of Galant-period music - offering a lens into the deeper relationships among music, culture, and human community.

By combining details of ancient Middle Eastern Musical Maqam teachings and the physics of Just Intonation, which describe perfect harmony, Powers is able to present a simple solution to these musical mysteries. These dozens of ancient musical scales can give a huge palette of musical colors with which to improvise and compose.

Neuroscientist and New York Times best-selling author of This Is Your Brain on Music Daniel J. Levitin reveals the deep connections between music and healing. Music is one of humanity’s oldest medicines. From the Far East to the Ottoman Empire, Europe to Africa and the pre-colonial Americas, many cultures have developed their own rich traditions for using sound and rhythm to ease suffering, promote healing, and calm the mind. In his latest work, neuroscientist and New York Times best-selling author Daniel J. Levitin (This Is Your Brain on Music) explores the curative powers of music, showing us how and why it is one of the most potent therapies today. He brings together, for the first time, the results of numerous studies on music and the brain, demonstrating how music can contribute to the treatment of a host of ailments, from neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, to cognitive injury, depression, and pain. Levitin is not your typical scientist—he is also an award-winning musician and composer, and through lively interviews with some of today’s most celebrated musicians, from Sting to Kent Nagano and Mari Kodama, he shares their observations as to why music might be an effective therapy, in addition to plumbing scientific case studies, music theory, and music history. The result is a work of dazzling ideas, cutting-edge research, and jubilant celebration. I Heard There Was a Secret Chord highlights the critical role music has played in human biology, illuminating the neuroscience of music and its profound benefits for those both young and old.

3NPS (three-note-per-string) scales, as used by legions of guitarists but popularized mainly by Joe Satriani, are one of the most efficient ways to navigate the fretboard and get your scales down IF you follow the guidelines in this book. As the name suggests, a 3NPS scale is any scale that contains three notes on each string, and as you'll see in this eBook, this makes for a very consistent way to map out scales on the guitar fretboard. What we’ve done here is revamped the 3NPS scale system and turned it into an incredibly effective means to learn a wide variety of scales all over the fretboard by streamlining the number of patterns, as well as the picking system. This is not a scale theory book, and contains no pentatonic scales. This is a quick and dirty (and very effective) method for learning 3NPS scales all over the fretboard; something to work on in the woodshed. It will improve your picking technique and speed. It does not require a great amount of thinking as you only need to learn two picking patterns, which is really one in two directions, and only three scale patterns instead of the usual seven per scale.