Instruments
It is through the instruments that we can trace the Arab influence in our own music. When we come to the story of the Troubadours, you will see them using the lute, the principal instrument of the Middle Ages. This was called el oud, which gradually became lute, because the Europeans heard the words that way.
So you can see here, how art travels through the chances and changes of wars, wanderings, conquests and political shiftings of power among the different nations.
Most of the Arab instruments are of Persian, Egyptian and Greek origin, but as we said above, the Arab became so mixed with other peoples of the world, that in wandering about, what is really theirs in music or instruments, or what was borrowed from others, is difficult to tell. But we can tell you that the popular music of the Arab, as you hear it today, in bazaars and cafés of Northern Africa and in parts of Asia where Arabs are still to be found, has remained practically unchanged throughout the centuries. Even the instruments are the same.
El oud still remains the popular instrument and shares its popularity with the kanoun, which is probably of Persian origin. This kanoun is like a zither, and is specially tuned for every scale. It is said that the Arab spends three-quarters of his life tuning his instruments.
Baron Rodolphe d’Erlanger, an Englishman living in Tunis, has spent twelve years studying the ancient Arabian music in order to preserve it, for it is dying out through the arrival of modern European civilization accompanied by phonographs, jazz and radios.
Their viols are of real interest because it is claimed that they are the ancestors of the great violin family. These ancestors are of different styles and are called the rebab and kemangeh, sometimes played with the bow and sometimes without. They have kissars and lyres and various forms of zithers, besides the kanoun. The Arabs’ fondness for strings is proof that they were indeed sensitive and fine, while most of their neighbors liked the drums and brasses much more, showing a lower grade of civilization. By this we do not mean that the Arabs were not fond of their drums, because the drum was one of the chief features of their music. Indeed they had many kinds—the atambal which looks like two kettle-drums hitched together; the derbouka which is really a vase with a skin stretched over the base; the taar like our tambourine; the bendaair, an open faced shallow drum, with snares (cords) stretched across inside the head somewhat like our own snare drum; and the dof, a squarish drum played with the hands and knuckles like the taar, but with the snares. The Hebrews had an instrument like this called the tof or toph and the Persians also had the dof or duff. So, here again, you see how one nation affects the other. (Figure 8.)
Then they had flutes called the ijaouak and gosba with three or more holes, which they used for sad tunes.
Every visitor to a Mohammedan country is introduced to Arab religious music at day-break, noon and sun-down, by the muezzin (priest) who calls the faithful of Mohammed to prayer, from an opening in the tower of a mosque. This call has been handed down to the Mohammedans from a time even before the coming of Mohammed (6th century A.D.).
Mohammedan Call to Prayer