International Journal of Language & Linguistics

Intonation in Iraqi Musical Melodies
Fareed H. H. Al-Hindawi, Musaab R. Alkhazaali

Abstract
This paper deals with intonation in Iraqi musical melodies (MMs). As such, it aims to analyze the intonational patterns in the Iraqi music. The main musical melodies in the Iraqi music are Rast, Dasht, Hijaaz, Kurd, and Bayaat. In this vein, the current study attempts to answer the following questions: the current paper attempts to answer the following questions: (i) what are the intonational patterns of Iraqi MMs? And (ii) what is the additional function of intonation in MMs? In the light of these questions, the corner hypothesis is that Iraqi MMs have their own specific definable intonational patterns. On the basis of the analysis, it is concluded that intonation can be a useful tool for analyzing musical variations in the basic Iraqi MMs. Moreover, musical intonation, which is the task of musicologists, is accompanied by phonological intonation to create the final form of the melody. Finally, in addition to previous functions of intonation, such as grammatical, semantic, and so on, intonation has a new one, namely ‘musical function’ because it gives music special effects and evaluations.

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