Delivered at the 2009 annual conference of the Society for Ethnomusicology,November 22nd, 2009; Mexico ity, MexicoSami Abu Shumays, !nde"endent Scholar!ntonation in Ma#amOriginal title: Maqam as a Second Language: Using Arabic Music as a Lens for Music and Language Cognition$start %ith demonstration&'Nearly all this variation in context and sound comes from di(erent %ays of dividing u" the octave and, in virtually every case %e )no% of, dividing it u" into no more than t%elve tones*+lthough it has been claimed that !ndian and+rab,-ersian music uses 'microtuning./scales %ith intervals much smaller than a semitone/close analysis reveals that their scales also rely on t%elve or fe%er tones and the others are sim"ly ex"ressive variations, glissandos 0continuous sglides from one tone to another1, and momentary "assing tones,similar to the +merican blues tradition of sliding into a note for emotional "ur"oses*. 0Daniel 2evitin, This is Your rain on Music, Ne% 3or)4 -lume, 2005*"* 691So claims Daniel 2evitin in his other%ise excellent and insightful boo), This isYour rain on Music, %hich synthesi7es and ex"lains a great deal of the recent %or) on Music ognition*+nyone %ith an amateur,level interest in 8orld and 9raditional musics, let alone Ethnomusicologists, )no% the above statements are "atently false/both his statement about +rabic, -ersian, and!ndian music, and his statement about +merican :lues music*So %hy does such a claim ma)e it into such an im"ortant boo);9he ans%er is clear on delving dee"er into the boo), or into other %or) that has been done on the cognition of music4 almost all of the research done into ho% the brain "rocesses music has dealt exclusively %ith 8estern lassical music, and cognitive scientists %ho are interested in music have little or no familiarity %ith music of the rest of the %orld*! believe +rabic music has many features that can contribute to an interesting discussion on the cognitive science of music, not least because ofits rich microtonal intonation system*9he central argument of this "a"er is that music shares many features %ith s"o)en language as an information "rocessing, storage, and communication system in human cognition/! %ill examine some of these "arallels from the "ers"ective of the maqam tradition, the modal melodic system of im"rovisation and com"osition that forms the basis of music in the +rab %orld, and %hich extends in variant forms from North +frica through 8estern and entral +sia*!ntonation %ill be the focus of my argument, so letereere is ho% ! %ould describe Saba,$'D., "lay D, 'E,half,Jat., "lay E,half,Jat, 'P., "lay P, 'I,Jat., "lay I,Jat, '+,natural,. "lay + natural&!n listening to these exam"les, try to notice variations in the second note, %hich ! call E,half,Jat, and the fourth note, %hich ! call I,Jat4$listening exam"le& My "oint here is that %e And the same variation in music as %e do in language, over "o"ulations, and for the same basic reason4 the cognitive ability to recogni7e t%o slightly di(erent entities as similar enough to be identiAed in the same %ay*9hat variation occurs in a number of di(erent dimensions4 slightly di(erent "ronunciations, some %ords %hich occur in the vocabulary of one dialect but not the other and vice,versa, slightly di(erent grammatical tendencies*Id like to pose a fundamental question here: how can we determine the boundary of a language or of a musical practice?!f %e focus for the moment on vocabulary, %e can see that in s"o)en language, di(erent individuals from the same geogra"hical region and around the same age and socio,economic bac)ground %ill li)ely have vocabularies that di(er from each other by much less than =Q*!f %e move out%ard to "eo"le from di(erent cities, or di(erent ages or di(erent bac)grounds, the di(erence in their vocabulary %ill be slightly higher*Di(erences %ill be greater bet%een "eo"le s"ea)ing di(erent dialects of the same language*9%o "eo"le s"ea)ing di(erent languages %ill still have a signiAcant "ortion of vocabulary in common, if those languages are related, li)e S"anish and !talian*+nd t%o "eo"le s"ea)ing more distantly,related languages that have had some historical contact %ill still have a "ortion of vocabulary in common/such as English and Prench*So ho% do %e determine %hat is the boundary of that language;9he ans%er is that %e cannot*9he vocabulary of a language has fu&&%boundaries* 9here is a certain com"onent, at the center, %hich is shared by all s"ea)ers, but as %e move to the "eri"hery, %e %ill And %ords used by smaller and smaller "ortions of the "o"ulation, until %e get very "eri"heral %ords used by only a fe% s"ea)ers*:ut %e cannot "ut a deAnitive boundary on %here is the center and %here is the "eri"hery; the center for one grou" might be more to%ard the "eri"hery for another grou", and vice,versa* Oames :au Iraves, in his boo) Cultural 'emocrac%, made a "rofound observation about cultures and "o"ulations, %hich a""lies e#ually %ell to language and music*>e notes that for any given cultural "ractice, there %ill be hard,core fans or "ractitioners, those for %hom that cultural "ractice is a matter of daily existence*9hen there are those for %hom that cultural "ractice is a "art of their lives, but not essential/in the case of music, these %ould be the occasional fans of a "articular band, rather than the grou"ies and band members themselves*9hen there are those at the margins, those %ho have Bust heard of the band for the Arst time, those %ho used to be fans but got over it, those %ho are a%are of the band but never heard them, those %ho %ent to a concert once*Iraves argues convincingly that to sustain that band as a cultural "henomenon, all three ty"es of "artici"ants are necessary, and that there is a constant Jux among those grou"s*9hose from the "eri"hery move to the center and vice,versa, and this is the %ay an ever,rene%ing dynamic audience is sustained*8e see this "henomenon in language vocabulary itself, as !