“Styles of Music of the Arab World” is the title of a podcast, hosted by Georges Collinet, a connoisseur of Arab and African music, which is intended to introduce the listener to the diverse, creative and intriguing styles of music that originates from the Arabic community throughout the world. Arguably, the key word that defines the presentation is that of “style”: Collinet wants to inform the listener about how Arabic music itself, from its own internal perspective, possesses many different varieties. In this regard, crucial to the theme of the podcast is that, on the one hand, it is possible to link together different music styles under the heading of Arabesque music, or music from the Arab world. On the other hand, it is also possible to detect very distinct styles within this greater category. Collinet’s approach is from this perspective to emphasize simultaneously the unity and difference within the musical styles that originate from the Arab world.

Collinet therefore begins by inquiring as to what makes the Arab style of music distinct and readily identifiable as Arabic. One of the key strategies of the podcast is that Collinet does endeavor to present what he thinks are traditional forms of Arab music. Rather, he is also interested in how foreign forms of music to the Arab world are then appropriated, interpreted and transformed by Arabic musicians. Hence, in the first interview in the piece, he discusses the theme with a Tunisian jazz musician, who states that he cannot play jazz as an American, but only as a Tunisian, and, in a broader sense, a member of the Arab world. This shows that even when adopting foreign styles, there is a uniquely Arabic perspective on the music that arises to the surface.

But what is this uniqueness of the Arab sound that makes it readily identifiable even in genres that are not of Arabic origin? Collinet seeks the roots of Arabic music and traces it to Ancient Greek culture. He notes similarities between the rhythms and even instruments employed by the Arabic community of musicians. But why is Arabic music not merely Ancient Greek music? For Collinet, this is because communities were more isolated in these times, and, in particular, since the concept of the Arab world is so expansive, consisting of a multitude of countries and a vast swathe of land from the West coast of Africa to the Middle East, unique styles developed from this shared foundation in each region. A further shared foundation, however, is Arab classical music, for example, folklore elements, which are also incorporated in non-Arabic classical music forms such as jazz.

Collinet provides a fascinating account of Arabic music and its foundations. However, from a more analytic perspective, what appears to be lacking in this particular podcast is a closer examination of how Islam has influenced Arabic music. Namely, to the extent that Islam has radically defined Arabic life, from the legal, the theological to the cultural, in genres such as painting and music, then a greater connection between Islam and music would seem to be appropriate to understanding the styles of Arabic music. In other words, one of the outstanding questions I had from this podcast was the following: how does the Arabic folkloric and classical music relate to the emergence of the Islamic world-view in Arab life?

The approach therefore taken by the podcast shatters some presuppositions about Arabic music, showing the listener the diverse styles of Arabic music and the different ways in which the Arabic world has taken shared cultural foundations and taken them in new directions. At the same time, the podcast could have also more closely related Arabic music to the dominance of Islamic culture to show how this has also influenced the developments of these styles. How many of these styles for example are pre-Islamic? This would have improved the listener’s understanding of the precise cultural foundations of the diversity of Arabic musical styles.