Makam Music Intervals,
or The Myth of the Quartertone.

It is a common misconception that Middle Eastern music uses quartertones. This is simply not so. While Middle Eastern musicians (specially in Arab and Persian music) themselves often speak in terms of quartertones, and notate their music as such, it is universally understood to be only a matter of convenience.
Before exploring the actual mathematical value of the intervals in the music of the Middle east, we need to become familiar with a few basic concepts.
First, the whole step in the Makam based music is an interval of 204 cents (not 200 cents as in Western music).
Secondly, the half step is not really a half step but rather an interval of 90 cents (as opposed to the Western half step which is 100 cents).
The most efficient and this common way of describing the theoretical basis of these intervals is to subdivide an octave into finer intervals than the Western description of twelve equal half steps. Some of these finer subdivisions divide an octave into as many as 53 intervals of equal length.
Another way of looking at the construction of the intervals is to divide a whole step into nine equal parts each called a comma (22 to 23 cents). the most commonly used comas and their respective notation on Turkish music are:

So as we can see from the above chart, the quartertone interval of 50 cents id simply not there in Makam based music.
Another concept that is useful in understanding the theoretical basis of Middle Eastern music is to stop thinking of “octaves” in the Western sense. Unlike the Western music, in Middle Eastern music one octave about any note is not considered to be a note of basically the same function and role. for example, the scale of the Makam of Saba, does not include the octave of the tonic. In middle eastern music notes beyond an octave are considered more or less independent entities with their own individual name and function in the scale. While this may seem to be only a finer technical point, it does have major implication in properly understanding Makam based music. thus, unlike Western music, a complete description of a Makam is not limited to the description of the intervals of one octave. Very often a proper description of a Makam will involve statement of the intervals in two or even three octaves.
Here you will find a list of Turkish and Arabic names of musical notes.

 

 

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