Music exists throughout the world as a major form of cultural expression which can be functional, ritual or simply entertainment. How a civilization uses music, however, is not the only way to make distinctions between different groups of people: music is made up of many individual components that have been shaped by distinct civilizations over thousands of years. Some of these elements include physical instruments, musical notation, sound quality, or specific performance techniques such as improvisation and group dynamics. The result is a fantastic array of unique sounds which, if traced back to their region of origin, can be used to help delineate the boundaries of different societies. While cultural comparisons can be made using almost any aspect of culture, music offers the valuable opportunity to study material culture, social structure, religion, politics, and collective memory simultaneously. According to Timothy Rice in his book on ethnomusicology, “humans make music as a building block of culture, and much research has been devoted to demonstrating connections between music and other aspects of culture” (Ethnomusicology: A Very Short Introduction 65 ). When combined with these other “facets of culture,” music can be a vital tool for distinguishing local from regional societies, indigenous from immigrant, or old societies from new societies. The musical culture of the Arab world is particularly interesting not only because it is rich in localized tradition and history but because it also contains substantial material from neighboring civilizations. It can in fact be assumed that the long history of the Middle East as a crossroads of three continents has inevitably produced a varied and multifaceted musical culture. This… medium of paper… like the Arabic language, oral storytelling tradition, and strong Islamic influences, there would be no distinct Arabic musical culture to speak of and would instead exist only as an esoteric subset under a broader cultural designation and prevalent. These and other factors have miraculously withstood the myriad external influences discussed above and continue to serve as markers of Arab music throughout history. It is important to be able to recognize and identify these characteristics because these are precisely the qualities that become most important when culture or members of society choose to assert their individuality. In an increasingly global society, the importance of finding a shared heritage - especially in a pervasive cultural fragment like music - is amplified when you feel the need to define at least one aspect of your complex identity..