The Challenges of Arabic Music in Reaching the International Stage

Is addressing this topic one of the duties of media professionals and the responsibilities of cultural institutions? Musicians should have studied it with all the science and specialized knowledge they had, decades ago. The starting point is obvious: what prevents Arabic music from reaching the international level? This entails the most important sub-question: What are the Arab musical models that have received a visa to the world outside the Arab countries? It is difficult to prepare a list before the last quarter of the twentieth century, but the disappointment after that is to be surprised by a variety of songs in which it is difficult, even for those who are lenient in musical values, to see them as a musical art that represents Arabic music.
Is it necessary to cite examples? Some may see it as defamation or disrespect for the tastes that love those colors. Some of them go back to a popular heritage linked to Saint Saleh, and there is nothing wrong with it and its dancing character, but it does not have the ingredients that qualify it to become an ambassador for Arabic music in the world. Some of them are famous for repeating meaningless audio clips. Indeed, the performer’s larynx does not have any of the characteristics of a musical sound, neither space nor purity. In terms of the scale of musical values ​​and the system of artistic values, Arabic music cannot be judged to lack peaks in this vital cultural field. Therefore, no one without capabilities should claim to be a representative of Arab taste. In any case, even those modest models that have had limited repercussions globally do not exceed ten in number in any case, which is a number equivalent to zero compared to the hundreds of millions of Arabs.
It is a problem even for the elite of our serious musicians, and they are not few, and they have works that inspire pride and pride, but achieving internationalism in the global sense is difficult to limit to festivals and participation with individual musicians or groups. Our musicians have achieved hundreds of such individual, duo and even orchestral brilliances, but the reach of Arabic music to the international level remains greatly lacking. It is not difficult to realize this, as the problem lies primarily in Arabic music itself, since it is not independent music, and therefore not a universal language. It is still a hostage of words, and has not been developed into a stand-alone language of expression. Our instruments are incapable of expressing themselves, except for the oud in limited works compared to the souls of the Arab world.
What is necessary: ​​The intellectual result: In order for Arabic music to achieve a global status, it must have genres and forms of a global language of expression.
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