Review And Conclusion

This has been a fascinating project to work on with many elements, including learning 3 new instruments, composing new songs, thinking about how I could fuse the Arabic instruments with more traditional genres, and working out techniques to best record these instruments.

In addition to this, the study of Maqam has been a fascinating insight into an alternative musical culture, and it has been refreshing to not think in traditional Western music terms.

Instruments

Each instrument presented it's own challenges. I have detailed this more in the individual sections, but I learned a lot. From new fingering techniques, chords and strumming patterns with the Saz Baglama, blowing techniques with the Ney and reed techniques and circular breathing control with the Zurna.

Compositions

For this module, I wanted to try and fuse a number of quite different genres with Arabic themes. My working approach for this module was firstly to study the particular genre that I was working on, look at any references that I could find where Arabic themes had been fused with these genres, and if not, to create my own interpretations of how Arabic instruments could be included.

I mainly used my own interpretations but used my research as a starting point to develop compositional elements.

Research Elements

Research was a very important part of this module and I tried to investigate as much source material as possible. From musical genre fusion, instrument lessons and Maqam theory, all of which assisted in the development of my compositions.

Lessons learned

In retrospect, I set myself some challenging tasks for this module, but I really wanted to work on something that would make me push myself outside my comfort zone, learn new skills and investigate areas of music that I hadn't explored before.

I write a lot of music outside my University work, so was not worried that I wouldn't be able to create enough pieces, but ensuring that there was variety and that I was working on what I had set out to was more of a challenge.

One of the invaluable elements of creating musical pieces is being able to get peer feedback on work in progress, and new suggestions can be very helpful.

Overall, I have really enjoyed my exploration of Arabic music and genre fusion, with the added bonus of learning new production skills and being able to play other musical instruments, albeit at a fairly basic level.