When writing Taqasim, the composer was inspired by listening to Oriental instruments and their traditional maqam-system. But his intentions were not to imitate this style or create a piece that might have been improvised by any group of musicians from the Near East. In bringing the Qanun together with a violin and cello, he felt obliged to the Western tradition of chamber music writing. So the trio tends more to the techniques of an interactive dialogue between three equals, than to any type of soloistic improvisation. The tuning of the qanun has been derived from principles of just intonation and should be done as shown below. Violin and cello are requested to adjust their intonation to the qanun. Notes written in small-print should be treated as ornamental or grace notes; the rhythmic quality of these is less precise and tends to rhapsodic declamation.