reaching the fifth (fragm.186)

the arabic, turkish, syrian, persian music teaches us a whole universe of melodic-protoharmonic perception. take such a simple item as the power, the grandezza, the human heroship of achieving the fifth - as you hear it in the syrian alazeyn, shadjarjan’s / meshkatian’s tchekad and many, many realizations of certain makamat, dastgah…

this blissful drama of climbing the fifth’s degree seems to be an universal truth and returning to european or travelling on into other traditions you will experience a lot of strong melodic fifth degrees in a deeper way… like they emerge in astor piazzolla's oblivion, in german folk songs like hohe tannen weisen die sterne or nun ade, du mein lieb heimatland, in a jazz standard like stompin’ at the savoy’s, in the greek sirtaki from the film adaption alexis zorbas...

this is the inner beauty of an intercultural music perception, rather then that big error of an overall lingua franca: that we are able to listen and learn appreciating essentials of our origin. it’s comparable to the pedagogic effect of travelling, located in the deepest layers of our soul.

the devote attitude towads the fifth degree - any real hero reaches his aim in deep devotion - can also refer to the high importance the fifth has in establishing music systems, tuning concepts…. here the sounding universe departs and these hymns of the arabian sphere are like a longing, demanding prayer, a gift sung into the universe addressed to music cultures which went on with the fifth game…