Weekly maqam

Jewish and Israeli music
Religious
Contemporary Piyyut Zemirot Nigun Pizmonim Baqashot
Secular
Klezmer Sephardic Mizrahi Mainstream and jazz Classical Jewish art music
Israel
Hatikvah Jerusalem of Gold We Are Both from the Same Village
Dance
Israeli folk dancing Ballet Horah Yemenite dancing
Music for holidays
Shabbat Hanukkah Blessings Oh Chanukah Dreidel song Al Hanisim Mi Y'malel Ner Li Passover (Haggadah) Ma Nishtana Dayenu Adir Hu Chad Gadya Echad Mi Yodea L'Shana Haba'ah Lag BaOmer Bar Yochai
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In

share the same practice of conducting services using the maqam, but differ substantially in many ways.

Application of the maqam system

The maqam that is used each Shabbat depends on the theme, story, or main message of the Sabbath weekly Torah portion. The cantor, or hazzan, of the congregation leads the worshippers with the melodies of the particular maqam, which is preset and standardized on an official list.

Widely different lists of maqam are found in different communities, e.g. the Aleppo list does not always agree with the Damascus and Beirut lists, and the Egyptian and Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Sephardic) lists are different again. Even within the Aleppo tradition there is not total agreement among the written sources, though the underlying pattern of the lists is usually the same. Other determinants of the maqam include whether or not there is a holiday approaching in the upcoming week: when this is the case, or there are two Torah portions for the week, the hazzan has some discretion which maqam to use. As a general rule, the same maqam will never be used two weeks in a row. Also, the list tries to rotate the maqamot in such a fashion that the ten maqams are spread out almost equally in time as to avoid the redundancy of hearing the same maqam within a short period of time.

Most of the prayers in the Shabbat morning service are rendered in a prose recitative, the exact tune of which varies with the maqam of the week. However, certain important passages, such as Nishmat and Kaddish, are sung to the tunes of specific Pizmonim, which are chosen according to a rota so as to fit the maqam of the week.

The cantillation of the Torah does not follow the maqam of the week, but is almost invariably performed in maqam Sigah. Similarly the Friday night service is usually in maqam Nawa or Nahawand.

Thematic patterns

There are a few patterns that determine which maqam will be used on a given week. There are some very obvious patterns and some not so obvious ones (which are disputed as a result).

Maqam Rast

Maqam

, this maqam is applied. Another application of Rast is for the Afternoon Services of the Sabbath when Jews read the new parasha of the upcoming week; thus beginning a new week.

Maqam Mahour

Maqam

when the main characters, Esau and Balak respectively, are angered. This maqam is used in other instances according to the manuscripts of Hakham Moshe Ashear and Cantor Gabriel A. Shrem.

Maqam Ajam

Maqam

or major mode was described as modus lascivus and not favoured in medieval church music.

Maqam Nahwand

Maqam Nahwand, named after Nahāwand/Nahāvand, a city in Iranian Hamadan province, is applied when there is disharmony between parties and fights, in general. A related maqam is Rahawi Nawa (see below), but this has sunk in popularity and therefore most cantors almost always replace Rahawi Nawa with Maqam Nahwand, due to the surplus and variety of more Western-oriented songs in Nahwand, which closely resembles the western minor scale. Until the 20th century, this maqam was never used for the purpose of prayers by either Jews or Muslims. (Similarly in the Middle Ages, the minor or Aeolian mode, though acknowledged to exist, was never used in Gregorian chant.)

Maqam Bayat

in those maqams. Some say that Bayat symbolizes an oath between two parties (as is the case with Bar Mitzvah – an oath between man and God).

Maqam Hoseni

Maqam

, when the Torah is given to Israel (though not on Shavuot itself).

Maqam Rahawi Nawa

Maqam

), while Nawa is used for reciting the Mishnah (hence its use for Friday night, as this service contains a long excerpt from the Mishnah known as Bammeh madliqin.).

Maqam Sabah

Maqam

Ki Tetse

), since the word saba in Hebrew means 'army'. Kligman notes that the Jewish association of Sabah with the aforementioned themes differs drastically from the rest of the Arab world, who associate Sabah with sadness.

Maqam Sigah

Maqam Sigah, or Sikah, from the Persian for 'third place',^[2] is applied when there are special readings in the parasha. It is also applied on holidays. This maqam is linked to the holiday of Purim due to the abundance of pizmonim related to the holiday in this maqam (no doubt because the maqam is of Persian origin, and the events of the book of Esther take place in Persia). This maqam is also of importance because it is the maqam that is used for the cantillation of the Torah. For Parashas Bo, Beha'alotecha, and Eqeb, parashas that are the "third" in their respective books, maqam Sigah, which means 'third [place]', is used.

Maqam Hijaz

Maqam

ahavah rabbah steiger, synagogues in Israel sometimes use it when there are Ashkenazi guests.

See also

• Ades Synagogue
• Arabic maqam
• Baqashot
• Jewish prayer modes
• Pizmonim
• Sephardic Judaism
• Sephardic Pizmonim Project
• Shabbat
• Syrian Cantors
• Syrian Jews
• Weekly Torah portion

External links

• The Sephardic Pizmonim Project
• [1]

References

• Kligman, Mark, "The Bible, Prayer, and Maqam: Extra-Musical Associations of Syrian Jews", Ethnomusicology, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 443–479
• Kligman, Mark, Maqam and Liturgy: Ritual, Music and Aesthetics of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn, Detroit 2009