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- Year 10
- OCR
Song, dance and maqam in Palestinian folk music
I can understand some of the key forms of Palestinian music and can improvise using a maqam.
Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and
- Year 10
- OCR
Song, dance and maqam in Palestinian folk music
I can understand some of the key forms of Palestinian music and can improvise using a maqam.
Copyrighted materials: to view and download resources from this lesson, you’ll need to be in the UK and
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Lesson details
Key learning points
- Palestinian folk music has many popular forms, many of which are performed for dance.
- Ataaba is a popular song form in Palestine, and dabke is an important traditional form of dance across the region.
- Traditional Palestinian and Arabic music is based on a maqam, which is a set of notes.
- Each maqam is microtonal and includes seven notes. They are usually taught by ear. Bayati is a common maqam.
- Performers improvise using the maqam, including in taqsim at the start of a performance.
Keywords
Ataaba - a traditional form of solo Palestinian love song that is often heard at weddings and other occasions
Dabke - a type of folk dance; it can be performed with different styles of music
Microtonal - music that includes notes between the 12 Western semitones; these small intervals are called microtones
Taqsim - an improvised solo based on a maqam that introduces a piece of music
Maqam - a set of notes, (like a scale) that forms the basis of a composition; it is microtonal and has seven notes
Common misconception
There are only 12 possible notes.
There is an infinite possible number of notes. Imagine that an octave is a cake. We can divide it into 12 equal slices (12 Western notes) or 24 smaller slices (the Arabic system). In theory, we could divide it into any number of slices/notes.
To help you plan your year 10 music lesson on: Song, dance and maqam in Palestinian folk music, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 10 music lesson on: Song, dance and maqam in Palestinian folk music, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
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The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom.
Explore more key stage 4 music lessons from the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern music unit, dive into the full secondary music curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
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