Saba (music)
Arabic and Turkish musical scale
Saba (Arabic: صبا, Turkish: Saba or Sabâ, Turkmen: sabah) is a kind of musical scale used in both Arabic music and Turkish classical music. This article covers both the Arabic jins and maqam called "Saba" as well as the similar Turkish makam of the same name.
In either tradition, the first three steps above the tonic of Saba are all rather small, so that the fourth pitch is noticeably less than a perfect fourth above the tonic. This distinguishes it from most other scales. Saba is often associated with troubled, distressed, or yearning emotions.
Etymology
Saba (Arabic: صبا) is an Arabic word that means "yearning" and also refers to a type of wind, specifically "East Wind." It has been translated as "zephyr" or "early morning breeze." In Turkish, sabah means "morning," and the morning adhan is often called in makam Saba. It is possible the connection with the Turkish word for morning is simply folk etymology and the name of the scale comes from Arabic.
Arabic music
In Arabic musical tradition, Saba is both a jins (genus) and a maqam family based on that jins, which has only one member: Maqam Saba.
Jins
Jins Saba is traditionally defined as a tetrachord spanning an interval significantly less than a perfect fourth. It is among the 8 or 9 standard ajnas of Arabic music, but it is unusual among ajnas in that there is only one maqam built on it, and it doesn't serve as a main secondary jins of any other maqamat (although it often replaces Jins Bayati as a colorful alteration).
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