What is it that makes the pitch similar in both Celtic and Arabic music, and why is this pitch unusual in other western music?

Question

What is it that makes the pitch similar in both Celtic and Arabic music, and why is this pitch unusual in other western music?

In: Culture

Answer 1

I’m not exactly an expert, but nobody else seems to be answering here, so…

The only thing I can think of that really unites traditional Arabic music and Celtic folk music is that both heavily rely on drones–where a unharmonized melody plays over a sustained pedal, either a single tone or a perfect interval. Think bagpipes, where you get a lilting melody over that sustained bwahh sound.

But as far as pitch goes, they’re not very similar.

Celtic folk music developed alongside sacred church music since Christianity first hit the British isles, and as far as I know has used “western” scales for as long as musical notation has existed. Celtic folk music is more likely to use [modes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(music)) other than major or minor (in particular dorian and mixolydian), which gives it a less “classical” and more “folky” sound, but it’s still using western scales and tuning.

Arabic music, on the other hand, doesn’t use western scales, but [maqams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_maqam) that use intervals and tuning systems very different from the western 12-tone chromatic scale. They contain perfect fourths, fifths, and octaves like western scales, but everything else is very different.