Open Research Dataset of the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music (ORD-CC32)

This dataset, titled Open Research Dataset of the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music (ORD-CC32) , provides a rich collection of metadata, acoustic features, and visualizations derived from historical recordings of the landmark 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music. The dataset includes melodic mode (maqam) tags, rhythmic mode (iqa') tags, musical form labels, tonic annotations, and pitch-related audio features extracted using multiple state-of-the-art algorithms (pYIN, CREPE, predominant melody-makam). It also contains pitch histograms (regular, octave-warped, and tonic-aligned), interval analysis, and detailed metadata retrieved via the MusicBrainz API. These resources support computational studies of tuning, temperament, intonation, and regional variations in Arab music traditions. The dataset is structured to facilitate cross-regional and diachronic analyses of performance practices and contributes to filling a gap in open datasets for non-Western music traditions. The content of this dataset has been described in detail in the publication:Bozkurt, B. (2025). An Open Research Dataset of the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music, arXiv:2506.14503.If you use this dataset, please refer to the paper above. Data Content Specification:The package contains: Pickle files : Structured data containing metadata and computed audio features. CSV files : Metadata tables including region-maqam pairs, track information, and tags. Plot files : Histograms and visualizations of pitch distributions (in jpeg formats). Code directory : Python scripts used for feature extraction, alignment, and dataset preparation. Audio Access Note:The original audio files are not included due to copyright restrictions but can be accessed at:https://archive.org/details/13.PsaumeDeLaTristesseThe main metadata resource is available on MusicBrainz at:https://musicbrainz.org/release/25d66aec-1463-4a0b-a331-d3bbe587e71c Funding and Acknowledgement:The preparation of this dataset was sponsored by the Office of Research of Zayed University, United Arab Emirates, as part of Start-up Grants (Project No: 23035). All maqam and rhythmic mode, musical form tags were added to MusicBrainz by Arthur Diniz De Souza, the undergraduate student research assistant of the project, based on the congress publication "Lambert, J, Cordereix, P. (Ed.). (2015). Congrès de musique arabe du Caire, 1932 (B. Moussali, Original text; J. Lambert & P. Cordéreix, Eds.). Bibliothèque nationale de France / Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority. https://editions.bnf.fr/congr%C3%A8s-de-musique-arabe-du-caire ". Tonic segmentation was performed partially by the author and partially by Arthur Diniz De Souza.