Menu

Popular World Music Shahriari

Arabic Popular Song

In the Arab world, Islam is highly influential on musical production, but Euro-American popular styles are recognized as part of the region’s musical soundscape. These outside traditions, however, are generally viewed as if they were a foreign language: good to know, but not a substitute for local music. Classical song maintains a strong “popular” appeal throughout the Middle East.  While  the  instrumentation  of  the  modern  classical compositions is heavily laden with Western instruments, particularly strings (e.g.,  violin), traditional instruments, such as the oud, kanun, ney, and various percussion, are  still fundamental to performance. Classical performers of these instruments continue to  be highly regarded by the general public, and the names of iconic figures from decades,  even centuries, ago are still recognized by people of all ages. Though contemporary artists have updated the popular styles with drum machines, synthesizers, and electronic  sounds  to  cater  to  the  youth  culture  and  nightclub  dance  scene,  the  “classic”  sound  of purely acoustic instruments continues to be at the heart of the Arabic world’s most  popular music.