Try Counting 20/4 Time Signature... Can you do it?

Maqam Mahur is very close to Maqam Rast.
One feature that seems to be consistent across the Arabic and Ottoman traditions is that Maqam Mahur is a descending maqam. That means it starts at the top of the octave and develops melody up at the higher range before resolving at the lower tonic.
Conversely, Maqam Rast starts at the bottom of the octave and slowly works it's way up, and then back down.
This concept is related to seyir or "melodic pathway". Maqam Mahur has a descending seyir, as opposed rast which has an ascending seyir.

[@judesanchez240]

That oud is crisp

[@tudormardare66]

You made me curious: how did you learn the Arabic articulation pattern? It is very clear you played in the Modern Arabic Style here, where it is indeed the Rast scale with a descending sayir. I think in the end, the Iranian Mahur (which you know without a doubt) and the Ottoman Mahur (as shown by Necdet Yaşar in Mahur Peşrev) are a lot more conservative than the modern Arabic way of doing it. You should also check Mahur Peşrev by Gazi Giray Han, as transcribed by Dimitrie Cantemir (no. 206 from Cantemir's collection).

[@OudforGuitarists]

I learned by listening and studying the music. Why?

[@Musicagine]

Tanburi cemil mahur as well.. he was a genious each composing of tanburi cemil bey is a piece of geni

[@AbuMahdi-Maqamat]

That sounded more like Rast Kirdan. The Arabic Mahur has an Ajam tetrachord on G. And yes Mahur is also descending like Kirdan.

[@OudforGuitarists]

Yes, it does. When I saw this notation in min kunuzina book I thought it's different than what I knew to be maqam mahur. Min kunuzina classifies it as mahur not me.

[@AbuMahdi-Maqamat]

I've also noticed the same sayr with both Rast and Ajam on the G with Nahawand also on the way down, so it's perfectly possible. I like the one with Ajam more though because of the distinction it makes with the original Rast.

[@lambdaprog]

Check the Mahur as perceived by the Turkish (Bitmez) and Moroccan (Chraibi) players. The accent is slightly different. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mpS1gJmjhb5nm9E

[@Zaphod313]

Lovely dialogue. I expected more of a Turkish accent from Mehmet Bitmez, but he actually used Arabic phrasing very effectively, and he sounded harmonious with Said Chraibi. That being said, maqam Mahur has a bit of an identity crisis in both Turkish and Arab music. In Ottoman music in the 17th & 18th centuries, it wasn't just Rast with a descending seyir. Instead, it was characterized by the note Mahur (B), which was distinct from and sharper than the note Eviç/Awj (B half flat). It still used the Segâh note (E half flat), meaning the lower jins was jins Rast. That's the oldest form of the maqam as far as I'm aware: jins Rast + jins Ajam. In modern Arab music, maqam Mahur simply uses the unchanged Rast scale (jins Rast + jins Rast), while in modern Turkish music it's not always clear, since the intonation of the Mahur and Eviç notes is so similar in this style. Officially, Turkish makam Mahur is given as a transposition of Çargâh (Ajam), meaning Turkish Mahur now consists of jins Ajam + jins Ajam-the complete opposite transformation compared to Arab music. Both traditions equalized the two ajnas, but chose different ones.

[@lambdaprog]

The Iranian Mahur is yet something different with the intonation somewhere between Ajam and the Arabic Rast. If you pay attention to the intonation in that dialog, you can hear the comas are changing depending on the phrasing. So you have that as well.

[@tudormardare66]

@@Zaphod313 Indeed. Still, I feel like the crisis of Mahur is more present in Arabic music than in Turkish Music. Necdet Yaşar's interpretation of Mahur Peșrev would be the best way to interpret the Makam, I think. Arel's theories are not always reflective of actual practice, even for the most basic Makam, like Ușșak. I guess the crisis in Arabic music is due to the lack of a strong tradition of written transmission accompanying the oral tradition. Now matter how much you not Maqamat, you can't master all of them perfectly, and every individual piece, and when new songs are composed, one would tend to forget the older ones (it is exactly for this reason that we hardly know anything about Oriental Music before the 15th-16th century, the only exception being Byzantine Music, which notated quite a huge corpus, that is likely larger than all of the West's musical heritage from the Middle Ages, easily). Probably because the Turks by the 17th century, started to use notation more and more, were able to preserve a larger corpus. In fact, most of what you will find in Arabs' music sheets, will be Ottoman compositions.