This video is my attempt at providing a *very general, high level*, yet comprehensive, extremely general breakdown of Middle-Eastern musical cultures, and how they differ from one another as much as, for example, Russian and Irish music differ from one another. Within the popular worldview, the Middle-East is often presented as a culturally monolithic region with little awareness to its immense diversity and the differences between individual cultures. My attempt is to get people to visualise the Middle-East in the same way they think of the West-nobody thinks of "Western music" as a homogeneous reality where American folk music and French folk music are near identical or interchangeable. This video can act as a "beginner's guide" for conceptualising how Iranian and Arabic music are as individually distinct from one another as Ukrainian and Italian music are, and, in the case of viewers unfamiliar with the Middle-East, hopefully reshape their vision of the region into one that better takes into account its diverse, heterogeneous nature; one of individual cultures with distinct and unique identities, each of these with its own distinct regional styles which I’ll cover.

As a North African who's accustomed to Andalusian and Arabic music. the first time I listened to classical Iranian music through the miracle of the internet 20 years ago. it felt so alien and unintelligible.

As an American whose formal musical education largely began and ended learning the recorder in 2nd grade, I’m on a binge on these videos and they are SUPER helpful, and I’ll tell you why: For 15 years, I’ve been studying various forms of traditional and modern Middle Eastern/Mediterranean dance, which means I’ve actually been steeped in a diversity of “middle eastern” music for awhile. Now, while I’ve learned the names of some of the instruments and obviously the cultural and emotional importance of certain songs, when it comes to formal discussion of the music theory, most of my dance teachers mostly talk about the different RHYTHM structures of the different musical traditions (like I took a whole 3 class series just about how to dance to Turkish 9/8 and woooo boy 😅🫠). So I’m in a weird position where I can be like, “well this song SOUNDS Egyptian, but like I can’t really explain why…?” But this-and your other videos-have given me a lot more specific vocab to identify what I hear and appreciate it more fully ☺️

I'm five minutes in and loving the informal yet direct style of the video. Seriously, looking forward to more of these. This channel is going to get to 100k in no time. All the best Farya! Ok, back to the video, this is so interesting and I love this topic!

From an Irish perspective, the opposite of "ornamented" is "boring" (it's how beginners play).

Dude, if someone asks me to imagine a Persian, you look exactly the part. It's as if you jumped out of a Taq e Bostan relief

OK I’ll say this, as someone from Saudi Arabia this is one of the best videos that explains the differences between Arabic Persian Turkish and Greek music. Even in Arabic music there are some differences depending on the region as well. I just want someone to list the samples of the Arabic songs because I know the songs but I don’t know The voice is because they are probably covers but I like the samples.

I love the humour of this man

As an Iranian, I can totally feel the differences between Persian and Arabic music (or other Iranian and Middle Eastern music), not just the playing style, but their feelings, vibes, colors, emotions, and moods are completely different🙃 دمت گرم داداش واقعا یکی از بهترین ویدئو هایی بود که تابحال در این زمینه دیدم❤️

I'm from Germany and have a background in church music, and this video helped me realize that "Western" music shows a lot more similarities to "Near Eastern" music (as broad as those terms are) once you strip back a few centuries of separate development. I can't speak for the instrument side of things, but some of our oldest vocal church music is far richer modally and made far heavier use of melismata than younger Western music. I believe these can be called relics from a time when Western music was significantly more similar to Near Eastern music (superficially, of course!), coming out of that ancient Roman-Greek-Iranian cultural sphere; and only in the last couple hundred years did we kind of go insane regarding harmony and instrumentation. Came by way of polýMATHY's recommendation, and I have to say that this is a fantastic video! I really like the way you teach with that levitous attitude and your channel appears to be a goldmine! Thank you for this video, I will definitely subscribe.

Dude, after watching your 'Epic Talking' videos, I will never look at music the same way again... and I'm very happy about that.

I've never thought that I'd watch a 40 minute lecture on Middle Eastern music. This content is really unique and professional, and you are clearly very knowledgeable in this subject, I hope your channel will grow and get the deserved attention.

little did this mans Persian ancestors know he would be both a musically trained bard and also trained in the sacred art of mw2 quickscoping

I would never have expected a forty minute video on a topic I have no knowledge on would actually be fun to watch.

Τhe "accordions walking down the street" really got me for some reason

Fascinating lecture, those 40 minutes went by in a flash. Also, compared Russian and Texan folk just after I finished, and it's really uncanny how similar they are!

This is the exact content that KZfaq has been needing! I was entertained through the whole video and learned so much! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.

as an arab I never even imagined the two can possibly sound even remotely similar, its like thinking russian and french music are the same

Absolutely loving this vid! It's so eye opening to see the complexity of musical cultures. Makes me appreciate it a lot more!! Thanks for your work and for sharing your knowledge with us!

I love this new style of video. You have lots of knowledge to share.

Awesome video! Greetings from Poland! Thanks for mentioning our acordeon tradition :)

I didn't expect your first video of this kind to come so quickly and appear so professionally. It was very interesting to see how music is structured on a geographic level and would love to see/hear more about. I understood most of the video, to a surface level at least, which is great. Your presentation, the humour and casual nature is really enjoyable and grounding. The structure of the video is also really easy to follow, I didn't feel lost in the discussion at anypoint. In short, awesome. Also, I always found your turkic songs to be the most enjoyable, I think Iranian ones following them, which I guess makes sense if thats the preferred vocal style and your own background respectively.

Este canal merece llegar al millón de seguidores muy pronto. ¡Es fantástico! Me encanta tu trabajo Farya. Muchas gracias por todo lo que nos enseñas.

I sat down and watched this in its entirety and was focused the whole time. Mr. Faraji, I could listen to to you explain music for ages. Thank you

One thing I like of you is that you actually explain all the meaning and the context behind your songs. And obviously I like your songs.

Watching your videos has been a true lesson. Thank you!

Very nice to hear explicitly what I somewhat grasped intuitively about the differences.

You have a commanding voice for this sort of thing. Good content, my brother. I love all of the Eastern musical variants and subdivisions.

Geez. I watched one of your videos and couldn't get enough. I'm up to the fifth video and I think I've learnt more about music in the last two hours than I have in a lifetime. Thanks.

Thank you for making such a brilliant video! Cheers

you make something ive never really had a interest in very interesting to listen to, keep up the work!

Honestly those in depth and long Videos that explain music and the difference between cultures are just great to watch even for those who dont know much, keep up the great content 👍🏼

Very informative video! Really nice comparisons to grasp the differences! Thank you :D

Great video, thank you very much, also huge props for including other regions to explain better!!!

Thank you for the interesting information which I didn't know.I learned something new today.

I could watch and rewatch this on a loop. I hope your channel grows even more 🌱

man you are so articulate in the way you explain things, freaking love it!

That was great information. Thank you so much for your Insight.

Mentioning Spanish, Turkish and Arabic music while skipping North African music was a bit disappointing, but still one of the best videos on musicology I ever seen. bravo.

Amazing video mate! I intended to watch about ten minutes and ended up watching the whole thing!

The differences are striking ! Thank you your videos are great

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and helping us to understand better similarités and differences , your présentation was outsanding🎉

Deeply appreciate of this unique way to analyse music...

Your video lectures are making my slow work day fly by 😂 As a westerner i’ve always been fascinated by eastern musical traditions but never knew how to approach learning about them. Your videos have been a great primer!

❤️❤️❤️❤️so eloquent and interesting thank you for making this video and making me think

I've been meaning to make ethnomusicology videos and videos about just traditional music from all around the world on youtube for long but haven't really started, so it's no surprise that I'm more than glad I found your channel. That was a very educational 42min with many things I didn't know before. In the vicinity I'm most familiar with Greek music and mentally I did lump them into modal music before, but after I dug into regional Greek music and Greek music from different time periods I found that there are so many subtly different styles within it and it's really a mishmash of a lot of musical traditions. For example, music from Epirus/Ipiros would emphasize seventh a lot when music from Macedonia and Thrace use tons of compound 'irregular' meters and close intervals like Bulgarian. Though I've been reasonably exposed to it, I've never *studied* Iranian music before and the video made me more than interested in it and I'd like to know more. I think you also shed great light on the role of familiarity with regard to categorization. I'm Chinese and I practice various different styles of traditional Chinese music - there are so many different genres, languages, instruments, vocal styles, you name it, involved, but most westerners just go like 'it's pentatonic it's all the same' and envision it as the single style of lion dancing music or New Year music in Chinatowns. That's why the works of you (and potentially myself) are important and people (especially only trained in western music) should know about how varied the musicscape really is across the world.

What a great video. Love it!!

Hey Farya, amazing video. I'm an Indian guy and since the past year started listening to a lot of Turkish baglama music also some of Sinan Cem Eroglu and Muhlis Berberoglu's music and really loved it. This video really gave me a lot of insight into the differences between the countries from a musical standpoint. Keep up the amazing work. Would be amazing to se a deep dive into any of the South Asian styles of music someday. Have a great one. :)

I'm looking forward more educational videos now. This one was really good

You are such an inspiration to me as a person and as a nerd and I have so much of your content left to devour.. Keep on doing you, my man.

Thank you Luke for your suggestion :) Very good and informative video

Interesting video, Thank you

Thank you so much for this!

This is so fascinating thank you :)

Very well done sir and it's really informative. Never thought about these topics before. Thanks for the video😊

Awesome video! greetings from Brazil

Just discovered your content. Your just awesome thank you 🙏🏾

I really appreciated this style of video! Keep on with the good work!

Your voice is so soothing. I love these educational videos. They add variety to your creativity and talent. Keep up the good work. Proud to be Canadian!!

Very fun and informative video!

Very informative video

I found it hilarious when you started sounding snobbish :) An interesting and informative video. As for the internal, Eastern part of Croatia being different from that of the Dalmatian coast, maybe there are historical and hence cultural reasons for that. Plus, you had an interesting point on Greek and Roman architectural order.

You are a very talented musician, composer and teacher. I really learn a lot from your videos. The content is great. It makes you think, and you keep it interested and the audience attentive. Thank you.

This is awesome! I learned a ton.

Excellent, informatve and analytic !

super cool! Love this kind of videos. Really interesting to see historical connections through musical similarities - like the regions with melismatic singing. Salutations from Brazil :)

You should definitely do more videos like this one, if you have the time of course. What a fascinating insight into the topic. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us - in a very entertaining way, I may add! :)

Very interesting video. Congrats! It's also quite funny. Nice channel, thanks for the music and the good content.

Que hermoso video, tendre que verlo varias veces para aprender todo

Man I love your music: big thank you for posting these videos too. I've always had musings and questions about music in my own part of the world, but I've never even had the vocabulary to even know how to ask. Thank you for making music theory accessible to the average person the way you do.

One of the things I mostly enjoy in the modal traditions is the transition from one mode (maqam) to another. IMHO, as easy as it sounds when listening to it, to really tackle this transitioning is one of the most difficult things to do. I really like your explanation of syllabic and melismatic singing, I always thought of it as something discrete versus continuous (I could never describe it accurately). And I also love the Greek Orthodox liturgical chants. Another example of melismatic singing I also love to listen to is Kurdish singing (could it be close to Iranian singing?), melismatic singing adds an emotional dimension to music if you ask me. Thanks again for making these videos, I really apprciate it, you add the necessary musical vocabulary that I lack to describe the music I listen to.

Really a fantastic video. Excellent. I learnt a lot. I will still have trouble telling them apart, but the journey has started (Thank to Luke Ranieri for the suggestion)

This was an amazing and you are amazing! I learned so much.

Thank you for the knowledge my dear kind Sir!

J'ai trouvé ta chaîne y'a quelques semaines et je suis tout simplement estomaqué par la qualité et le réalisme des musiques. Je cherchais juste des musiques avec une vibe cool et j'en avais trop marre que ce soit les mêmes créateurs mient en avant et là pfiou quelle révélation. Je viens d'écouter 42 mn de musicologie alors que j'y pige absolument rien mais c'était fascinant. Et même d'un point de vue anthropo-politique, ça montre bien comment les gens font des généralités énormes sur les cultures qu'iels ne connaissent pas ! Merci encore pour ton fabuleux travail ! J'ai hâte des prochaines sorties :)

Loved this! Would love to see more of this style of content from you

I really learnt a great deal. Thank you very much.

Fantastic video! To me, an historian amateur that know very little about music tradition around the world, this is really a gold video. I didn't know anithyg about the ties of greek and what we call middle eastern music. Really thanks, Farya. By the way, as Italian, gold moments when you have to resort to Italian to explain stuff ahaha good appoggiatura, I say.

Your channel is both informative and entertaining😊

This happens to us Galicians a lot! They say our music reminds them of North African music, while we consider oursleves quite celtic influenced and are far both linguistically and culturally even from Andalusians in South Spain, which one could say it's very influenced and is a part of North African music.

دمت گرم بالاخره یکی به این سوال پاسخ داد🌹 It's my pleaser to be your compatriot

Just discovered this channel. Definitely not disappointed. Excellent video essay, thank you!

Please do more videos on music history. The one on Greece and Japan was excellent. Bravo!

Amazing breakdown. I've had limited exposure to Arabic, Iranian, and Turkish culture. Such a pleasure 😉

Glad to see your channel growing, keep up the great work man!

Thank you for your videos. It is really eye-opening to hear music theory basics from someone who is not educated only in western music. Also, the historical context makes everything much easier to understand. As a biologist, I think a good approach to decide if something is similar or different would be to build a tree. So you would get a graphical representation of what is more or less similar in a bigger context. I had a quick look and it seems people do it for languages and also music but I did not have time to search for something that covers the whole world.

Came here thanks to the recomendation of Luke from polymathy, youre funny and informative as hell 👍🏻

Spas Mr. faraji, it Was very informative and interesting.

Wow knowing about the background of music is like enlightenment

This is a fascinating lecture - I listened to it twice and I still feel I need to do it one more time to fully digest the information you provide here. I am an archaeologist specializing in the crusader period so I am very interested in the heritage of the region but my knowledge about music traditions is limited - thank you very, very much for making and uploading this ! I will look forward for more :) PS. I was wondering, if your music (which is great, I particularly love psalm 135 and the ballad of Vahram) would you consider working on Syriac (Jacobite / Maronite / Melkite, maybe even Nestorian) chants? Either way, thank you once again - great job!

Great video keep it up proud of you

Man, can't wait to see what my favourite mw2 epic quickscope compilation KZfaq channels just uploaded!

dude i love this video tf very nice job

I've spent a fair amount of time delving deep into mediæval and early modern western European music, particularly that of Italy and France, and there are so many little similarities to much of what you discuss in this video. I'm particularly fascinated by music from the Middle East and India and I'm really happy to find more accessible information like this to help me along my journey in that direction. Thank you so much!

OBJECTIVELY great video. Playing a taksim Segah (Sikah) rn for you my friend

Pleeeease do the differences between Balkan music 🙏, i loved this in-depth analysis and you already slightly touched on that subject in this video

Sometimes I wish I could just soak knowledge into my brain. This video comes close enough. Awesome work.

Excellent video!

Dude.. Dudeee.. DUUUDEEE! Yes please! Love the channel! You are filling a hole that is lacking in academic music youtube channels!

Ah, what a wise man. A pleasure for my ears