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The phenomenon of improvising music is generally esteemed for the artistry it entails and the aura of significance it appears to embrace. Creating music in performance is recognized as an art in its own right, but also as an expression imbued with special connotations. In this study, I argue that musical improvisation in the East-Mediterranean Arab world, for example in such major urban centers as Beirut, Damascus, Aleppo, and Cairo, enjoys a primary position because its message is symbolic as well as affective. More specifically, improvising instrumental music makes sense on both stylistic and. connotative levels, and furthermore, its efficacy as a performance genre owes significantly to the idiosyncratic ways in which it evokes the social and artistic values of Arab listeners and performers.
The symbolic significance of improvisation is closely intertwined with the manner in which music in general makes symbolic sense. Ethnomusicological writings, usually based upon broader theoretical paradigms, interpret musical symbolism in a wide variety of ways. On a fundamental level, music is considered symbolic because it is capable of denoting entities other than itself. As a form of auditory representation, music may evoke symbolic meaning through such parameters as timbre, meter, melody, textures, and musical instruments, for example when making reference to supernatural forces in the context of religious ritual (Golkammer 1982:901, 905; Shiloah 1978:56-65). Music can embrace elements of direct or indirect ref erentiality, thus programmatically portraying or suggesting extramusical phenomena (although often, as well, it does not do so) (Becker 1983:72). Music also embodies an element of symbolic value, particularly when connected to specific cultural ideals, for example the desire to be novel or to confirm a community's premium on individuality: As an entity that "abstracts and distills," music can be valued as a perfect expression (Nettl 1987).
Furthermore, music is deemed symbolic because it exhibits inherent compatibilities with the object it signifies. For example, its internal patterning can make it well-suited for ritual functions, which are highly patterned themselves (Herndon and McLeod 1979:112). As such, music constitutes a metaphor or a microcosm of something else. In other words, it embraces elements of "iconicity," because its internal content resonates with broader conceptual, societal, and cosmic structures, for instance in the case of gamelan music in Javanese culture (Becker and...