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Arabic key signatures

In addition to the minor and major key signatures, the following key signatures are defined in arabic.ly: bayati, rast, sikah, iraq, and kurd. These key signatures define a small number of maqam groups rather than the large number of maqams that are in common use.

In general, a maqam uses the key signature of its group, or a neighbouring group, and varying accidentals are marked throughout the music.

For example to indicate the key signature of a maqam muhayer piece:

\key re \bayati

Here re is the default pitch of the muhayer maqam, and bayati is the name of the base maqam in the group.

While the key signature indicates the group, it is common for the title to indicate the more specific maqam, so in this example, the name of maqam muhayer should appear in the title.

Other maqams in the same bayati group, as shown in the table below: (bayati, hussaini, saba, and ushaq) can be indicated in the same way. These are all variations of the base and most common maqam in the group, which is bayati. They usually differ from the base maqam in their upper tetrachords, or certain flow details that don't change their fundamental nature, as siblings.

The other maqam in the same group (Nawa) is related to bayati by modulation which is indicated in the table in parenthesis for those maqams that are modulations of their base maqam. Arabic maqams admit of only limited modulations, due to the nature of Arabic musical instruments. Nawa can be indicated as follows:

\key sol \bayati

In Arabic music, the same term such as bayati that is used to indicate a maqam group, is also a maqam which is usually the most important in the group, and can also be thought of as a base maqam.

Here is one suggested grouping that maps the more common maqams to key signatures:

maqam group key finalis Other maqmas in group (finalis)
ajam major sib jaharka (fa)
bayati bayati re hussaini, muhayer, saba, ushaq, nawa (sol)
hijaz kurd re shahnaz, shad arban (sol), hijazkar (do)
iraq iraq sisb -
kurd kurd re hijazkar kurd (do)
nahawand minor do busalik (re), farah faza (sol)
nakriz minor do nawa athar, hisar (re)
rast rast do mahur, yakah (sol)
sikah sikah misb huzam

Selected Snippets

Non-traditional key signatures

The commonly used \key command sets the keySignature property, in the Staff context.

To create non-standard key signatures, set this property directly. The format of this command is a list:

\set Staff.keySignature = #`(((octave . step) . alter) ((octave . step) . alter) ...) where, for each element in the list, octave specifies the octave (0 being the octave from middle C to the B above), step specifies the note within the octave (0 means C and 6 means B), and alter is ,SHARP ,FLAT ,DOUBLE-SHARP etc. (Note the leading comma.)

Alternatively, for each item in the list, using the more concise format (step . alter) specifies that the same alteration should hold in all octaves.

Here is an example of a possible key signature for generating a whole-tone scale:

     
     \relative c' {
       \set Staff.keySignature = #`(((0 .  3) . ,SHARP) ((0 . 5) . ,FLAT) ((0 . 6) . ,FLAT))
       c4 d e fis
       aes4 bes c2
     }
     

[image of music]

See also

Notation Reference: Key signature.

Learning Manual: Accidentals and key signatures.

Internals Reference: KeySignature.

Snippets: World music, Pitches.

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