Mutation of the Tunisian musical language through tba’ rasd dhil: results of an empirical study

Abstract

Recent researches on Tunisian music suggest that its musical language is
experiencing major changes. Musicians and musicologists have agreed that some
theoretic evolutions in the last century, among others after the Cairo conference of
1932, may not support this music and would be detrimental to the identity of its
authentic discourse. This paper discusses the threads of these changes, as symptoms
of an identity and cultural crisis in Tunisia. Using mathematical and physical tools,
it tries to identify these changes in reference to two instrumental improvisations in
rasd dhil mode, recorded at an interval of sixty-seven years.