No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
A North African Folk Instrument
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
Among the folk instruments of music in North Africa the primitive lute, guitar, or pandore known as the gunbrī
or gunībrī
stands facile princeps. Look where you will from Egypt to Morocco, from the Mediterranean to the southern confines of the Sūdān, and you will find this instrument in some form or other, although its name may have slight variation.2 It is essentially an instrument of the people, and is but rarely found in the hands of the professional musician of the town orchestra (ribā'a al-āla), who usually confines his attention to the more refined 'ūd (lute), kūītra (mandoline), or ṭtunbūr (pandore) among the stringed instruments whose strings are plucked. All and sundry among the people at large who are impelled to try their hand at music, take up the igunbrī or gurībrī——the noisy youth, the whining beggar, the strolling minstrel, the industrious workman, the respectable merchant, and the faqīr of the religious fraternity (zāwiya)——each thinking himself an adept as a performer.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1928
References
page 25 note 1 In their various shapes the gunbrī and gunībrī may be termed lutes, pandores, or guitars.
page 25 note 2 The negro cambreh, or chalam (halam), is identical with the Arabic gunbrī.
page 25 note 3 The ṭunbūr is but rarely used nowadays.
page 26 note 1 The system of the tuning-rings and tabs is explained below, but it is interesting to note the persistence of this primitive method in spite of the existence of the peg system. Even when the latter is found in the modern instrument, the tabs survive as an adornment (see Nos. 3 and 4) and as a means by which the instrument is hung up.
page 26 note 2 See Sachs, , Die musikinstrumente des Alten ägyptens, p. 54Google Scholar, et seq., and tafel ix. Wilkinson, J. G., Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (1837), ii, 298Google Scholar, et seq., figs. 185, 187, 188, 191.
page 26 note 3 Voyages d'lbn Batoutah, trad, par Defrémery et Sanguinetti (Paris, 1853–1858), iv, 406.
page 26 note 4 Bocthor, , Dict. Français-Arabe (1864)Google Scholar; ben Sedira, Belkassem, Petit Dict. Arabe-Français (1882)Google Scholar; Delphin et Guin, , Notes sur la poësie et la musique arabes (1886), p. 60Google Scholar. Beaussier, , Dict, practique Arabe-Français (1887)Google Scholar writes 
using specially the 
instead of the 
, and giving the regular feminine plural 
.
page 26 note 5 Tārīkh al-sūdān, Tārīkh al-fattāsh, and Tadhkirat al-nisyān.
page 27 note 1 Host, op. cit., p. 262. Kināwī is certainly as old as Yāqūt (d. 1229). See his Mu'jam al-buldān, iv, 307 [where, however, it is said to be the name of a Berber tribe].
page 27 note 2 Christianowitsch, , Esquisse historique de la musique arabe (1863), p. 31Google Scholar. The statement has been repeated by Rouanet, in Lavignac's, Encyclopédie de la musique, v, 2930Google Scholar.
page 27 note 3 Delphin et Guin, op. cit., pp. 60–1. Rouanet, op. cit., would make the distinction regional, i.e., the gunbrī in the south especially in the Sūdān, and the gunībrī in the north. Meaken only writes ginbrī and attaches this name to the smaller instrument. See his Introduction to the Arabic of Morocco (1891), and his later work The Moors (1902).
page 28 note 1 In the design in Höst, tab. xxxi, the neck is bent forward.
page 28 note 2 In Egypt the name kursī is given to the tail-piece of the ṭunbūr, whilst the bridge is called the faras (“horse”). Cf. the Maghribī term ḥimār (“donkey”).
page 28 note 3 For other schemes of accordatura see Rouanet, op. cit., p. v, 2930.
page 29 note 1 For some typical music see Archives Marocaines, ii, 194, and Rouanet, loc. cit.
page 29 note 2 The lure of display is, however, at the root of the custom. Just as the professional musician of the city likes to possess an instrument richly inlaid with mother-of-pearl and choice woods, with exquisite carvings and metal work, so the mendicant negro minstrel yearns for his frippery and garnishings.
page 29 note 3 See Archives Marocaines, viii, 125, and Delphin et Guin, op. cit., p. 61. Dardaba = dabdaba. Lyon, loc. cit., writes ḍubḍaba (cf. text).
page 30 note 1 In some specimens the neck pastes completely through the sound-chest.
page 30 note 2 See No. 4 below.
page 30 note 3 See Nos. 3 and 5 below.
page 30 note 4 See Nos. 2 and 6 below.
page 30 note 5 The example given by Christianowitsch has a “nut”.
page 30 note 6 See No. 6 below.
page 30 note 7 See No. 419, New York.
page 30 note 8 See No. 2 below.
page 31 note 1 See Seybold's Glossarium Latino Arabicum (eleventh century) sub “Plectrum”. Cf. Archives Marocaines, viii, 189, where it is written saṭ'a.
page 31 note 2 Called ṭār in Algeria.
page 31 note 3 3 Called gullāl in Algeria.
page 31 note 4 The Maghribī vocalization of qaṣaba.
page 31 note 5 Also called ghāiṭa and ghīṭa.
page 31 note 6 Beaussier writes zugra, and Lyon, (A Narrative of Travels in North Africa, p. 234) has zukkrāGoogle Scholar. Cf. Villoteau, (Descr. de l'Égypte, état mod., i, 970)Google Scholar, where it is written zūqqara.
page 32 note 1 New York = Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments (New York, 1904–1905).Google Scholar Michigan = Catalogue of the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments (Michigan, 1918)Google Scholar. Brussels = Catalogue descriptiv et analytique du Musée instrumental du conservatoire royal de Musique (Gand, 1893–1912)Google Scholar. Copenhagen = Das Musik-historische Museum du Kopenhagen (Copenhagen, 1911)Google Scholar. Paris = Le Musée du Conservatoire National de Musique. Catalogue descr. et raisonné (Paris, 1884)Google Scholar. Supplements (Paris, 1894, 1899, and 1903).