Historical inaccuracies abound in music. Few are musically literate. Say you attend a theater play about the Chinese Song dynasty. But, the actors walk out wearing Roman armor. Most would spot the error. But if the musical equivalent happened, none would notice. Most know what a Chinese lord or Roman legionnaire should look like. But do you know their instruments? Their music? What were their styles, or songs, or vocal preferences?
For those who know the history, or are from those cultures, the musical errors are jarring. While searching for “Arabic music” I found a video titled “Persia - Ancient Journey Fantasy Music - Beautiful Persian Ambient for Studying, Reading and Focus”
The music is Persian-themed, meant to be set in the ancient Middle-East, among the emperors Darius, Cyrus, and Xerxes. The video promises “a journey into the ancient lands and kingdoms of a lost era.”
The video’s art, of a mosque set in an empire which died 1,000 years before Islam started
This music’s usage of Middle-Eastern instruments like the oud and zither make it seem “Persian” But any musician will explain, holding an instrument differs from playing it well. Disappointingly, the music lacks heterophonic modality, vital to actual Middle-Eastern music.
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