Middle Eastern / Arabic
Located in 1 route
This family spans maqam-based art song, Gulf dance-pop, Levantine folk-dance music, Israeli Mediterranean hybrids, Persian pop and radif-based classical music, and Turkish arabesk’s melodramatic string moan. What unites it is the centrality of melodic ornament, speech-shaped phrasing, and modal feeling, even when the beat is fully electronic.
History
Court, coffeehouse, village, wedding, cinema, radio, and diaspora circuits all shaped these musics, while the 20th century added recording, film, national broadcasting, migration, and new pop infrastructures across Cairo, Beirut, Baghdad, Tehran, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, the Gulf, and diasporic hubs such as Los Angeles; classical repertoires remained foundational even as local pop variants and cross-border commercial sounds multiplied.
Sub-genres in this family
9 sub-genres · 9 written up
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Encyclopaedia Iranica
- Middle Eastern music histories