"This text presents the basic information constituting the theory of makam music in the early twenty-first century, taking as a basis the way it is performed in Turkey, but being also applicable to the art of maaqām as practiced in the eastern Arabic-speaking lands (Egypt and the Levant, and in a related but distinct tradition in Iraq)"--Page 1.

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.

This volume brings together thirteen case studies devoted to the establishment, growth, and demise of holy places in Muslim societies, thereby providing a global look on Muslim engagement with the emplacement of the holy. Combining research by historians, art historians, archaeologists, and historians of religion, the volume bridges different approaches to the study of the concept of “holiness” in Muslim societies. It addresses a wide range of geographical regions, from Indonesia and India to Morocco and Senegal, highlighting the strategies implemented in the making and unmaking of holy places in Muslim lands. Contributors: David N. Edwards, Claus-Peter Haase, Beatrice Hendrich, Sara Kuehn, Zacharie Mochtari de Pierrepont, Sara Mondini, Harry Munt, Luca Patrizi, George Quinn, Eric Ross, Ruggero Vimercati Sanseverino, Ethel Sara Wolper.

Makam Music Magazine is the representative of the Turkish Music in printed press. Makam Music Magazine addresses a wide range of topics on every page of it, related to Turkish music, including its journey of music over time, its types, performers, educators, instruments and concert venues. In every issue, Makam Music Magazine also aims to increase international awareness about Turkish music by means of interviews with the people and organizations making Turkish Music in foreign countries and by addresing the interaction between the music of that country and Turkish Music.

Dear readers, as Makam Music Magazine, we wish you a happy new year with health, peace and bliss in 2020. We salute our third anniversary with this very issue 9. Once again, we are more than happy for offering you different colors and tastes in music with satisfying and genuine contents. This issue welcomes Ara Dinkjian, a man of music, who is very close but is also beyond the ocean as he continues his career in New York. He opened his heart and showed the courtesy of answering our questions about music. Indispensable for radio and television shows, Mustafa Sağyaşar is our guest for the “Memories” section of the magazine and he told us about his 67 years in art. The doyen researcher and author Murat Meriç told us about “Hayat Dudaklarda Mey”, his praiseworthy book that narrates the stories of the songs from the Ottoman to the present. Mehmet Şükrü Alkan, the head of the mehter platoon, told about “Mehter”, the most ancient military orchestra in the world. We talked with A. İmre Tüylü, who organizes a festival after her late sister and well-known harpist Ceren Necipoğlu who we lost in a plane crash ten years ago. The “Ceren Necipoğlu Istanbul International Harp Festival” will be held on January 15. Go through our pages for details. The researcher Burak Süme released his most recent work on the “Benliyan Troupe and Leblebici Horhor Ağa Operetta”. Our source of pride, the conductor Nisan Ak, Arya Su Gülenç, and Kaan Baysal widely acclaimed for their around-the-globe achievements, Enver Mete Aslan&Ricardo Moyano with their new album, Refik Hakan Talu with his wide range of music knowledge, and Areti Ketime, a prominent singer who sings, with unique renditions, our songs that are common to the neighbor Greece will be all our guests for this issue.

Between 1600 and 1750 Ottoman Turkish music differentiated itself from an older Persianate art music and developed the genres antecedent to modern Turkish art music. Based on a translation of Demetrius Cantemir’s seminal “Book of the Science of Music” from the early eighteenth century, this work is the first to bring together contemporaneous notations, musical treatises, literary sources, travellers’ accounts and iconography. These present a synthetic picture of the emergence of Ottoman composed and improvised instrumental music. A detailed comparison of items in the notated Collections of Cantemir and of Bobowski—from fifty years earlier—together with relevant treatises, reveal key aspects of modality, melodic progression and rhythmic structures.

A “masterpiece . . . one of the 20th century’s notable literary love stories and cultural watersheds”—from Turkey’s most influential writers (Los Angeles Times) A young man comes-of-age in a rapidly-changing Istanbul circa the 1930s, grappling with childhood trauma but finding relief in literature, family, and love “The greatest novel ever written about Istanbul.” —Orhan Pamuk Surviving the childhood trauma of his parents’ untimely deaths in the early skirmishes of World War I, Mümtaz is raised and mentored in Istanbul by his cousin Ihsan and his cosmopolitan family of intellectuals. Having lived through the tumultuous cultural revolutions following the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the early Turkish Republic, each is challenged by the difficulties brought about by such rapid social change. The promise of modernization and progress has given way to crippling anxiety rather than hope for the future. Fragmentation and destabilization seem the only certainties within the new World where they now find themselves. Mümtaz takes refuge in the fading past, immersing himself in literature and music. But when he falls in love with Nuran, a complex woman with demanding relatives, he is forced to confront the challenges of the World at large. Can their love save them from the turbulent times and protect them from disaster—or will inner obsessions, along with powerful social forces seemingly set against them, tear the couple apart? A Mind at Peace, originally published in 1949 is a magnum opus, a Turkish Ulysses and a lyrical homage to Istanbul. With an innate awareness of how dueling cultural mentalities can lead to the distress of divided selves, Tanpinar gauges this moment in history by masterfully portraying its register on the layered psyches of his Istanbulite characters.