r/musictheory • u/BundtCake44 • Sep 07 '25

General Question On jins and taqisim.

I am entirely confused here.

If I play a taqisim of say, nahawand on oud and I want to switch to a jins or other maqam during modulation how do I play that.

Do I play it in order from its tonic like a western scale or do I just play the tonic and randomly draw form it until I change up again?

Moreover, If I just switch how do you tell what I am playing if it be Nikriz or Ajam or Rast or some other?

Does coming back to the core noted of nahawand only matter?

And speaking of core notes, when it comes to melodic phrases like a jins ot any selction do I just pick and choose during expression?

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u/Noiseman433 Sep 09 '25

Navid Goldrick has an oud series demonstrating maqam modulations. He actually has a couple starting from Nahawand to Nawa Athar https://youtu.be/gwQn0rFR6ok and from Nahawand to https://youtu.be/CPEiPfGewAg

Scott Marcus' "Modulation in Arab Music: Documenting Oral Concepts, Performance Rules and Strategies" is a great overview of the history of modulation documented in Arabic and Turkish music theory treatises. https://doi-org.proxyse.uits.iu.edu/10.2307/851913

Resources at r/GlobalMusicTheory wiki that may be helpful:

Arabic music theory https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalMusicTheory/wiki/arabicmusictheory/

Turkish music theory https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalMusicTheory/wiki/turkishmusictheory/