For a Deconstruction of the Canonic Musical Repertoires of Inner Asia
From North Africa to Central Asia, musical monuments were built, such as the Arab-Andalusian nuba-s, the Mevlevi ayin-s, the Persian Radif or the Azerbaijani Mugam, the Bokharian or Khorazmien Maqôm, the Uyghur Onikki muqam, and many others. For a better understanding of their origin and therefore of their organization, beyond the facade they offer, we intend to deconstruct some of these repertoires, to trace the stages of their canonization and evaluate its consequences. This approach is justified by the fact that most of them are being promoted to an official recognition that exposes them to initiatives of restoration or fixation which may lead to fossilization, reduce them from memorisation to remembrance, and beyond to « memorialization ». Faced with this kind of phenomena, the ethnomusicologists’ approach is yet not limited to description, analysis and modelization, but can also meet aesthetic options and engage them positively in the process they are reporting.