Arabic music
Arab music or Arabic music includes several styles and genres of music ranging from Arabic pop music to Arabic classical music and from sacred music to secular music.
Arabic music, while alive and very independent, has a very long history of
interaction with many other regional musical genres and styles. It is a
mixture of the music of the Arabs (in the Arabian Peninsula) and the music
of all the people today that make up the Arab world.
It has been influenced by ancient Greek, ancient Egyptian, Kurdish, Persian, Assyrian, Indian, Turkish, North African music (or Berber), African music (or Swahili), and European music (or Flamenco). In other artistic and scientific fields, the Arabs translated and developed Greek texts and musical works and mastered the musical theory of Greeks. Such inter-influences can often also be traced in language.
During the 50s and the 60s of the 20th centaury Arabic music began to take on a more Western tone with artists such as Abdel Halim Hafez who paved the way. By the 70s several other singers had followed his footsteps and a strand of pop Arabic music was born. Arabic pop generally consists of Western style songs which has Arabic instruments and lyrics.
The Melodies are usually a mix between Western and Eastern.