Ten pieces on Arabic rhythm, scale, instruments and production, and one personal one. The theory is read off the standard references rather than remembered, and where a claim is mine rather than a source's, it says so. Written by an Egyptian producer working in London.
Maqsum, baladi and saidi written out stroke by stroke. All three share an identical second half — the difference between them is two beats, and the rests turn out to be doing more work than the hits.
The jins it is built from, the augmented second that carries the whole character, and the two genuinely different scales hiding in its upper half — one that plays on a keyboard and one that does not.
Most Arabic scales contain a note with no key on a keyboard. What the three-quarter tone is, why the 1932 Congress of Arab Music could not agree on how to measure it, and the four things a producer can honestly do about it.
Tempo that solves itself by doubling, the seventh degree that makes a loop sound out of tune when it is not, the doum fighting the 808, and the arrangement habit behind most of it.
One of the most common maqamat in Arabic music. Two three-quarter tones that no piano key can play, two different upper halves, and the one-note change that turns it into Bayati Shuri.
Seven instruments, not just the darbuka: what each is made of, where it is played, who runs the rhythm — and where each one sits in a beat.
The short rhythms that run, written out stroke by stroke. Three of the five hit the same three points in the bar and differ only in which stroke lands where — and they hand over to each other mid-song.
Two fast Egyptian rhythms under a half-time beat: why a 2/4 cycle fits a trap bar, and the Ayyub MIDI from Egyptian Drumkit taken apart bar by bar — the fixed pulse, the ghost teks, and what changes when the kick and hats come in.
Breakdowns, fighting alone, and slowly living again. Why I believe a person is his own doctor, why young men need to talk, and where to call if you need someone right now.
Nura Nura, Ba'id 'Annak, Ah Ya Hilu, Sama'i al-'Aryan and Mihtaar Ya Naas, read one phrase at a time: the loop between D and G at the heart of bayati, and the turns it takes away from home.
The same scale as bayati, played two other ways: one leans on the 5th before it settles, one starts from the octave and comes down. Where you hear them, and what the sources do not say.