TEMPORAL THRESHOLDS IN TAQSĪM: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DURATION AND MODAL EXPOSITION IN MALAYSIAN GAMBUS AND ARAB INSTRUMENTAL IMPROVISATION

Abstract

Taqsīm occupies a central place in Arab and maqām-based musical traditions as a modality-bearing form of improvisation, yet duration has received limited attention as an analytical factor in its formal unfolding. While maqām identity may be recognised quickly through characteristic phrases, intervallic contours, or tonal cues, rapid recognition does not necessarily indicate that an improvisation has achieved sustained modal exposition, phrase development, expressive pacing, or convincing linkage to a subsequent composition. This article examines duration as a corpus-specific analytical issue through a qualitative comparative analysis of eighteen selected taqsīm examples: four Malaysian gambus field recordings, ten published Malaysian gambus recordings, and four Arab chamber-music recordings. Using exact duration, modal presentation, phrase development, register movement, ornamental elaboration, expressive pacing, and linkage to the following composition as comparative indicators, the study investigates how temporal span relates to the musical processes available within each improvisation. The findings show that the selected Malaysian gambus examples are generally shorter and more compressed, whereas the selected Arab chamber-music examples cluster around two minutes and display more sustained phrase continuity, registral exploration, ornamental pacing, and modal development. These differences should not be interpreted as automatic evidence of insufficient musicianship or pedagogical deficiency. They may also reflect genre function, performance context, instrumental idiom, local aesthetic preference, recording format, or intentional compression by performers. Within this limited corpus, durations around two minutes appear more likely to provide sufficient temporal space for observable processes of modal dwelling, phrase extension, and cadential preparation. The proposed temporal threshold is therefore not a universal rule or empirically tested perceptual boundary, but a preliminary corpus-specific analytical hypothesis. The article contributes to scholarship on taqsīm by foregrounding duration as a condition that may enable, though not guarantee, fuller modal and formal development in comparative maqām-based improvisation.

Keywords: Taqsīm, Maqām-Based Improvisation, Temporal Thresholds, Modal Exposition; Comparative Performance Analysis, Expert Analytical Listening, Arab Music Pedagogy, Malaysian Gambus