FARYA FARAJI – Orientalism: Desert Level Music vs Actual Middle-Eastern Music

Orientalism thrives on, is literally fueled by, and exists solely and primarily due to the generalized ignorance of mass audiences regarding foreign cultures.

Farya Faraji

Farya Faraji is an Iranian-born Québecois living in Laval. His YouTube channel showcases musical traditions from all over the globe, regardless of culture, ethnicity and religion. His channel is like a musical world museum, a library of musical traditions from all over the world and all over time. Farya Faraji’s channel features 3 types of content: arrangements of historical/world music that respects each culture and time period’s authenticity, original compositions that are more creative but still utilise aspects of world music, and informative videos where he explores certain subjects using academic research and sources.

00:00 Iranians react to Orientalist music 03:45 Defining Orientalist music 11:44 Disclaimers 17:44 “Indian, Arab, same thing” 37:50 How to write orientalist music 43:28 The OBSESSION with the Double Harmonic Major 54:52 Why the Double Harmonic Major? 1:00:42 The limitation of digital instruments 1:08:33 The vicious circle of Orientalism 1:12:24 Westerners CAN write Eastern music 1:21:00 How Orientalism sucks for Easterners 1:26:34 How Orientalism sucks for Westerners