Eastern music math3/31/2023 ![]() In addition, associations of maqams to different emotional status are well rooted in Middle Eastern cultures ( Kligman, 2001 Powers, 2005). The music improviser builds the scales by using combinations of these families and subfamilies of maqams. For this reason, it is always preferable to define the maqam by its set of intervals signatures as described in Table 1. The names given to each of these maqams are not subject to consensus, thus creating confusion in the literature. Therefore, maqams resonate as various melodic tunes, that can be classified based on their characteristics into more than 50 families and subfamilies. As a result, maqams differ in their intervals between the first few notes and are characterized by combinations of phrases that can include microtones such as quartertones, for example. On the contrary, a waltz would have a fixed rhythmic-temporal organization, while the tonal–spatial component (the melody) is free. These maqams are not exactly the equivalent of “scales” in Western Music and are characterized by defined tonal–spatial factors, while the rhythmic-temporal features are free ( Touma, 1971). Indeed, Middle Eastern Music is characterized by the use of maqams (literally “place” and “position”), which are recognized as the system of melodic tunes used in traditional Middle Eastern Music from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Israel, Iran, and all Arab countries from Middle East to North Africa. Moreover, no study has explored the neural correlates of creating Middle Eastern Music, which involves the use of more than the major and minor scales. Nevertheless, research studies exploring the neural activity that underlies the creative process of music improvising remain scarce. Music improvisations, although spontaneous, are constructions resulting from successive decision-making processes. ![]() Music improvisation refers to both the process and product of spontaneous creativity of music and constitutes a good model to study neural correlates of creative processes ( Liu et al., 2012). Often, creativity is placed in the right hemisphere ( Joseph, 1988 Hoppe, 1998 Demarin et al., 2016), but contradicting theories have been proposed to describe the underlying processes: (1) the dominance of right hemisphere activity ( Joseph, 1988), (2) the low cortex activity ( Carlsson et al., 2000 Starchenko et al., 2014), (3) the high neural connectivity ( Razumnikova and Yashanina, 2014 Mayseless and Shamay-Tsoory, 2015), and (4) the prefrontal and frontal brain activation ( Arden et al., 2010). Human creativity has been the focus of thousands of studies and is still a topic of debate with considerable heterogeneity of evidence in brain research. This study reveals the first EEG observations of the eight most commonly used maqam and is proposing EEG signatures for various maqams. A significant increase of low frequency bands theta power and alpha power were observed at the frontal left and temporal left area as well as a significant increase in higher frequency bands beta-high bands and gamma at the right temporal and left parietal area. Pairwise comparisons were calculated using IBM-SPSS and a principal component analysis was used to evaluate the variability between the maqams. Using the EMOTIV EPOC+, a 14-channel wireless EEG headset, brainwaves were recorded and quantified before and during improvisations. The Ney, an end-blown flute that is popular and widely used in the Middle East was used by a professional musician to perform 24 improvisations at low, medium, and high tempos. No EEG correlates have been proposed yet for the eight most commonly used maqams. Middle Eastern Music is characterized by the additional use of microtones, resulting in a tonal–spatial system called Maqam. ![]() ![]() In addition, studies on music improvisations using scales other than the major and minor chords are scarce. Music improvisations constitute an ideal paradigm to study creativity, but the underlying cognitive processes remain poorly understood. The cognitive sciences have witnessed a growing interest in cognitive and neural basis of human creativity. 1Premedical Division, Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar, Doha, Qatar.Mohammad Yaghmour 1, Padmakumari Sarada 1, Sarah Roach 1, Ibrahim Kadar 2, Zhivka Pesheva 2, Ali Chaari 1 and Ghizlane Bendriss 1*
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