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So I listen to a fair amount of music from North Africa, the near east, Middle East.

There is a Munir Bashir release from 2005 that I have had for many years. I’ve listened to it many times and, while the track Taqasim & Baghdad is credited to Bashir, I am wondering if the main thematic melody is based on something older. I have heard at least one older recording of it by Bashir where he omits the longer taqsim intro and gets to the melody quicker.

The Bashir melody, more or less cued up:

https://youtu.be/jW6FPVANJZQ?si=DDj1vd5yW7dTKrce&t=275


The reason I am wondering about this is that not long ago, I bought a Yes record I’d never heard (Going For The One) at a flea market and the song Awaken contains what sounds very much like a quote of the Bashir melody.

Internet searches haven’t turned up anyone else hearing whatever it is that I am hearing, as far as I can tell.

The Yes melody: https://youtu.be/-db1yvodcbk?si=BbtfYwch9e2uEgrt&t=311.


Maybe someone in Yes did hear an old version of the Bashir track, but I also wonder if the Bashir thing isn’t itself based on something older.

I suppose he could have heard Yes and copied them, but I kind of doubt it.

i’m not sure i’m hearing it the same way you are. i’m not sure that Yes quotes the other track rather than it being a case where a similarly logical extension, more or less in European mode, of a set of chord changes happening in both examples when the chords rotate away and then back to the main sequence/theme. that sort of modulation happens in a lot of musics where polyphony or key changes are a thing. so i’d say most likely=a kind of sonic convergence in both examples/less likely but possible=Yes bit this or something else using that form/least likely=dude copying Yes.

that set of changes is also much slower in the Yes example.

and AFAIK it’s common for ancient melodies to be re-used over and over for centuries. the origin is probably somewhere back in the mountains between Iran and Iraq.

Yeah, I assume the melody is older than either artist, but I bet it has a name.

<insert Jim Croce quote HERE>