아랍 음악의 이해

Understanding of Arab Music

Arab music which has a advanced long history is not familiar with us and we have not sufficient informations about it. Therefore I start to trace the history of the developments of Arab music from the pre-Islamic epoch till the present time. In the pre-Islamic epoch, the Arabs have special concern to the singing and music and liked it. In the first century of Islam, the impact and influence of the foreign music, such as Persian and Byzantine music, has started to appear among Arab society. Under the Umayyads, music and songs became very popular among all people and new melodies and motifs had been introduced to the Arab music. The first century of the Abbasid Caliphate saw a big increase of Persian influence. During the Abbasids era, people from different cast of the society has high tendency to embark singing and has developed the music to the highest position. We can say that Arab music have influenced the Indian & Persian music. In view of that Arabs in Andalusian territory have developed a special musical forms such as the song-poem, Muwashshat, it is no doubt that Europe has been affected by the Arabic-Islamic musical system.