Syriac music old Syrian music (Aramaic music)

The Syriac ritual ecclesiastical was considered an extension to the Paganism rituals which were widespread in the Aramaic statelets before Christianity. Theater and music took the basic part in the Paganism rituals. They, the Paganism rituals, were full of Drama to express the conflict between the Goddess and the Man, and between Goddess with each other. But after Christianity, this ancestral Drama started to fed away in the Syriac ritual ecclesiastical and it was limited in the (Holy Week).

The rest of the ecclesiastical rituals used the folk songs that were widespread in the area of ( Syria and Mesopotamia), religious ritual texts were framed according to this folk songs to be fit with the tones.
The folk songs were described as active, vitality and varied in tones and rhythms.

The Syriac folk songs emanated from 8 basic tones, each tone was 4 musical consecutive degrees, which is (half musical scale in the new concept). The tones differ from each other by the different dimensions Buzzes between its degrees, these eight melodies ( Tatra cord ) were widespread in Greece and Syriacs, but it was not precisely known who was the former in finding it. But these tones were considered to be the basic forming to the hole Eastern musical scales (Maqams), which is still currently in use in the Middle East, West Asia and North Africa.

The old folk songs with its texts were perceived in the Syriac rituals ecclesiastical and developed with its development. A lot of rituals and melodies were added to the Syriac rituals ecclesiastical by Syriacs musicians and monks, and these, new rituals and melodies, preserve the simple folk spirit in that melodies.

Some of the Syriac rituals melodies were used after the expansion of Islam in the region, but its texts were replaced by Islamic religious texts or worldly texts written in the Arabic Language.

Thus these tones that were already folks have lived and moved through periods, religions and civilizations to reach our ears today in the twenty-first century.