This article examines, in a cursory form, the standardized ways of harmonizing predominantly modal melodies in the contexts of a set of interrelated urban folk and popular musics of the Mediterranean area. Insofar as these musics employ a harmonic-melodic system qualitatively distinct from that of Western common practice, they are worthy of scholarly attention in themselves. This article further seeks to revive the spirit of "Comparative Musicology" and to suggest ways in which cross-cultural comparison of selected musical parameters may reveal new sorts of pan-regional musical areas.

Keywords: modal harmony, flamenco, rebetika, modality, tonality, Greek music, Balkan music, Yiddish music, Hijaz, Rumanian music, Pann and Rouschitzy, klezmer, Turkish music