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Touchia Ghrib

While working on the road map for this tune, which is from the Classical Andaluse repertoire, I pondered the idea of going one step further and mapping it to Western notation.

The primary question is how to indicate the rhythm, called "nuseraf", which one of the distinguishing aspects of Andaluse music. This question had arisen years earlier for me and others, most of who fell into one of two different camps: 11/8 or "six with a swing".

I've included the source mp3 I used so that those not familiar with nuseraf could hear for themselves.

I think that "six with a swing" is a good way to describe the feel of the rhythm, however I was unable to find any kind of notation based on 6/8 which produced a midi output that sounded anything like the original source.

Here's how a full cycle of the rhythm might look in "drummer notation":

D k T k D k T k T k T k
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 = 12 or 6*2

If all the Dums, Teks and Kahs were of equal duration, this would be 2 cycles of 6, where the length of each is 1.

However, it turns out that the first kah in each cycle is half the length of all the other notes, so if we give that first kah a duration of 1, and all the rest duration 2, it looks like this:

D k T k D k T k T k T k
2 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 = 22 or 11*2

And at least to first approximation, using ABC notation and weighting all the notes double except for the second one of each measure gives a decent approximation to my ears of the nuseraf rhythm.

Still to do

The transition into khalas (which is certainly a 6/8) and the eventual tempo of that section is wrong. It remains to be finished as well.

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ABC notation for the Andalous Touchia Ghrib

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