A state of rapturous musical enchantment stirred by music or sung poetry, in which musician and listeners feed one another's emotion until both are caught up in the same charged moment..
A state of rapturous musical enchantment stirred by music or sung poetry, in which musician and listeners feed one another's emotion until both are caught up in the same charged moment.
Not a private, momentary thrill (frisson) but a sustained, socially co-produced ecstasy requiring an active performer–audience feedback loop (the connoisseur listener). Unlike Lorca's duende (a dark, daemonic authenticity), tarab is euphoric and explicitly tied to maqām modal exploration and repetition (Umm Kulthum extending a single line). Use it for a listener dissolving into live music, not solitary headphone listening.
“enchantment, rapture,” from the root ṭ-r-b (being moved by joy or grief).
From the Arabic triliteral root ط-ر-ب (ṭ-r-b), conveying being moved or agitated by joy or grief; the noun means “enchantment, rapture.”
Attested in medieval Arabic writing; central to the urban classical music of Cairo, Beirut, Aleppo, and Damascus, and codified academically by ethnomusicologist A. J. Racy (2003). Strongly associated with Umm Kulthum and Fairuz.
Well-grounded; sometimes loosely applied to any emotive Arabic pop, diluting the technical sense (the structured classical art-music aesthetic). Distinct from the Swahili music genre “taarab.”