Local band, Mid-East inspiration

Salaam front woman Dena El Saffir was first exposed to Middle Eastern music as a child growing up in an Iraqi-American household outside Chicago.

Trained in violin since the age of 6, El Saffir started to envision honing an Arabic sound as a teenager. Her group Salaam, which means “peace” in Arabic, was founded in 1993 while El Saffir was studying classical music at IU.

The band is still based out of Bloomington and includes six other instrumentalists, including El Saffir’s brother Amir and her husband, Tim Moore. El Saffir said working with her family has only brought the band benefits.

“Music is a language without words, and we already have such a strong connection,” she said. “Sometimes we’ll have the same idea or give a look – it’s really spontaneous.”

Starting out, Salaam played mostly Egyptian music because the style was most accessible, El Saffir said. The band soon started to incorporate North African, Turkish, Syrian and other Middle Eastern flavors into its auditory repertoire.

Peace is the main message they’re trying to send with their eclectic blend, she said, showing that ethnic groups that are usually thought of as always fighting  can come together to create beautiful melodies.

“Music transcends and unites people how politics never would,” she said.
During the last few years they’ve delved specifically into Iraqi music, she said.

“To many people, Iraq equals a war zone,” she said. “We’re showing people there’s this whole different side of Iraq and the Middle East. There’s also infectious music.”

The Middle Eastern sound is so infectious because it’s modal – not based on chords – which is something that’s new to most Western listeners, she said.
The music also experiments with odd time signatures, such as 17 or 19 beats per cycle.

“I think the drummers especially like it because it gives them something more challenging than 4/4 time,” she said.