maqam

Maqam (plural maqamat) is the system of melodic modes used in traditional Arabic music and in related musical cultures of the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Central Asia. The term derives from Arabic maqām meaning place or position, reflecting the idea that each maqam locates a melody within a distinct tonal space. In practice, a maqam combines a scale with customary melodic patterns and emotional character, providing rules for how melodies typically move and resolve.

A maqam's scale often includes intervals that diverge from the western equal-tempered scale, with microtones between certain adjacent steps. Each maqam has a final note or tonic, a dominant pitch on which melodies often conclude, and a particular color or mood. Melodic progressions are guided by common sayr (melodic ascent and descent) and characteristic phrases that signal the maqam’s identity and transitions.

Performance within a maqam serves as a framework for improvisation and composition. Singers and instrumentalists explore the scale and its motifs within established rules, creating variations while maintaining the maqam’s characteristic direction. In Turkish classical music, the analogous concept is makam, with its own set of rhythmic modes (usul) and distinctive phrases. In Persian music, related systems are organized as dastgah and avaz, each with its own expressive conventions.

Common examples include Maqam Rast, Bayati, Hijaz, Nahawand, Ajam, Kurd, Sikah, and Saba. The maqam tradition remains central to many forms of traditional, folk, and contemporary Middle Eastern music and has influenced composers and world music broadly.