Wikipedia syndrome in full flow

[lethargic_man]

This is fascinating:

In Sephardic Middle Eastern Jewish prayer services, each Shabbat the congregation conducts services using a different maqam. A maqam (مقام), which in Arabic literally means 'place', is a standard melody type and set of related tunes. The melodies used in a given maqam aims effectively to express the emotional state of the reader throughout the set liturgy (without changing the text)... As a general rule, the same maqam will never be used two weeks in a row.

Read the whole article.

Comments

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing that. The concept that someone can share his emotions without ever wording them is fantastic. So who determines which one is used?

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

That's answered in the Wikipedia article. Note that this does not refer to a general person's emotional state, but the emotional state dictated by the point in the Jewish calendar, which... encourages and discourages certain emotions at different times of the year. (In the Ashkenazi tradition I follow, this only applies perhaps a dozen times a year, though, not every week as the article says the Syrian community follow.)