28 May 2020 – Shavuot is almost here
Yes! This week this message reaches you one day before because Shavuot begins tonight. Let’s start to create the atmosphere for this time for study and reflection with a piyyut sang on nouba Raml Maya.
In this occasion I have to thank once more the team of Darké Abotenou as the piece that accompanies us today is from their Youtube channel.
Once again the Sephardic legacy has the lead role in this diggest. Not the Eastern one, but the North African, with a piyyut sang on the nouba or makam?Raml Maya.
What is a makam? Very basically, in the Arabic, Persian, Turkish… music a makam is a scale, like a guide for performance, that defines a mood.
And what is a nouba? A nouba is a collection of chained pieces, like a suit with different parts and those parts are called mîzân.
The concept of nouba (also written as nawba) is deeply related to the Andalusi classical music and to Ziryab, musician in the court of Abd al-Rahman II in Cordoba in the IX century. He came from Persia and he put the seeds for this music to develope during the following centuries. The noubas developed in the North of Africa and nowadays there are kept eleven noubas in Morocco and sixteen in Algeria. In the web site Hazanout.com, dedicated to the hazanout in Morocco, they are mentioned 16 and the terms of makam and nouba are both used without further clarification.
| ? Special announcement: later today, 28th of May at 17h (Central European Time), Yan Delgado and me will make an interview with Jako el Muzikante, who will talk in Ladino and I will translate into English. Check here in advance ? |
Where does my turmoil comes from? Let me explain.
The Raml Maya is a nouba of which you can find many renditions of its parts (note that a complete nouba with all its parts can last six or seven hours) by artists of Andalusian music, like this or this. This recording that we will listen today is named Makam Raml Maya and you can listen at the beginning of the recording how Shavuot is mentioned and the piece is announced as “makam”. So my inference is that in the last years the terms of makam and nouba are been used indistinctly at least in the context of the sang piyyutim. Any further clarification about this would be really appreciated! In the meantime, let’s continue with what is clear like water: Shavout starts tonight and we have this beautiful piyyut (the lyrics are from the Machzor) to listen to warm up.
Clic the picture to enjoy the piyyut for Shavuot:
I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up
Shavuot sameach
Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música