In Arab music is the music of Arabic-speaking people or countries, especially those centered around the Arabian Peninsula. The world of Arab music has long been dominated by Cairo, a cultural center, though musical innovation and regional styles abound from Morocco to Saudi Arabia. Classical Arab music is extremely popular... Arab music a wazn (plural, awzān) is a Rhythm (Greek ρυθμός = tempo) is the variation of the duration of sounds over time. When governed by rule, it is called meter. It is inherent in any time-dependent medium, but it is most associated with music, dance, and the majority of poetry. The study... rhythmic pattern or cycle, literally translated as " In musical terminology, a bar or measure is a segment of time defined as a given number of beats of a given duration. The word measure is heard more frequently in the U.S., while bar is used in other English-speaking countries, although musicians generally understand both usages. A... measure" (also called darb, mizan, and usul). (Touma 1996, p.210)

Awzan are only used in Musical genres are categories which contain music which share a certain style or which have certain elements in common. (See also musical form.) Some genres, such as Indian music, are geographically defined; others, like Baroque music, are largely defined by chronology. Still others, such as Barbershop, are defined by quite... musical genres with a fixed rhythmic-temporal organization including reoccurring measures, In music, a motif is a perceivable or salient reoccurring fragment or succession of notes that may used to construct the entirety or parts of complete melodies, themes. A motif is distinguished from a figure in that a motif is foreground while a figure is background: A figure resembles a... motifs, and Metre is the measurement of a musical line into measures of stressed and unstressed beats, indicated in Western notation by a symbol called a time signature. Properly, metre describes the whole concept of measuring rhythmic units, but it can also be used as a specific descriptor for a measurement of... meter or In medicine, a persons pulse is the throbbing of a persons arteries as an effect of their heart beat, which can be felt at the wrist and other places. The term is also used to denote the frequency of the heart beat, usually measured in beats per minute... pulse. (ibid, p.47)

A wazn consists of two or more regularly reoccurring time segments, each time segment consisting of at least two beats (naqarāt, plural of naqrah). There are approximately one hundred different cycles used in the repetoire of Arab music, most shared with The modern Turkish state was proclaimed in 1923, and was immediately followed by a campaign to create a pan-Turkish cultural identity. These efforts have been only partially successful, and regional varieties of music and other expressions remain. Turkish classical music was the countrys best-known musical export at... Turkish music. They are recorded and remembered through onomatopeotic syllables and the written symbols O and I. (ibid, p.48)

For example, wazn wahdah sayirah (4/4), a relatively short wazn of four beats (p.50):

Wazn may be as large as 176 units of time. (p.48)

Wazn are performed on the The Goblet drum is a goblet or hour-glass shaped hand drum used in Arab music, Persian music, Balkan music and Turkish music. It is of ancient origin, and is believed by some to have been invented before the chair. In Egypt, its known as the darbuka or darabuka... goblet drum ( The tarabuka (see also darabuka) is an hourglass-shaped drum of a medium size made from wood and animal skin. Its origins have been tied to Greece, the Middle East and India but it is unknown exactly where it originated. It has a rhythmic sound when played with other musical... tarabuka), frame drum (riqq or tar), and Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl commonly made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a special drum stick called a timpani stick. Unlike most drums... kettle drums (naqqarat). (ibid, p.49)

Source

• Habib Hassan Touma (1996). The Music fo the Arabs, trans. Laurie Schwartz. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. ISBN 0931340888.