History of Music and Musical Instruments by Wafaa' Salman
Appeared first in Al-Wafaa News issue #14 Spring, 1993 Reprinted again in Issue # 30 Fall, 1997 The"Music" comes from the Greek word "Mousiki" which means thescience of the composing of melodies. 'musiqa was the name given bythe Arabs to the Greek theory of music to distinguish it from 'ilm al-ghiwas the Arabian practical theory. The source of the Arabian theory of music was an older Semitic onean impact on, if it had not been the foundation of Greek theory. "Of course, the Arabs and Persians potheory of music long before they became influenced by the translations made from the Greek at the e8th and beginning of the 9th century."By the Middle of 9th Century, the effects of the musical theories ofancient Greeks on music began to bAmong these treatises wereAristotle's Problems and De anima, the comentaries of Themistius andAlexanderAphrodisiensis on the latter, two works by Aristoxenus, the two books on musicof Euclid, a trNicomachus and the Harmonics of Ptolemy, all of whichhad been translated into Arabic as we know froFarabi.The science of music now became one of the courses of the quadrivium, and was studied by most studperiod. The first to deal with the newly-found treasures of the "Ancients" was Al-Kindi (d.874). Sevenmusic theory appear under his name. Four of them survived: three of them are at Berlin and the fourtBritish Musuem.After Al-Kindi, we have a gap of about a century in documentation.Following Al-Kindigreat theorist Al-Farabi. His book "AlkitabAlkabeer" included immense and detailed information on mumusicalinstruments."Al-Farabi was a good mathematician and physist, and that enabled him to do justice to what the Arabspeculative theory, even to not repeating the errors of the Greeks. Yet he was something more. He wapractical musician and could appreciate the art as well as the science, which was more than Themistiuas Al-Farabi himself mentions. As a performer with a reputation, he could bring the practical art to beadiscussions.So whilst he was more thorough than the Greeks in handling the physical bases of sound,also make valuable contributions to physiological accoustics, i.e. the sensations of tone, a question whiGreeks left practically untouched."Al-Farabi (d.950) describes a musical instrument called Al-Tunboor Al-Baghdadi which was used in hisinstrument's frets (dasateen, aPersian word) gave a "pre-Islamic scale." It was a quarter-tone scale wdeveloped by dividing a string into forty equal parts. Although Al-Farabi's instrument did not have thescale, yet the theoretical division mentioned previously would produce a scale which expressed in cycliwould be: Fret Nut 2nd 4th 6th 8th 10thCent 0 89 182 281 386 498. Al-Farabi also describes the scaleTunboor Al-Khurasani which was prompted by al-Kindi's speculations. "It became the parent of the latthe Systematist School."Henry George Farmer in his book; "Historical Facts for the Arabian Musical Inflnotes that "the influence due to the Arabian culture contact in respect to musical instruments was farhas been generally acknowledged. The origin of the words lute, rebec, guitar and naker from the Arabirabab, qithara and naqqara, is a well-known fact [seethe Oxford Dictionary]"Other words such as adufe, albogon, anafil, exabeba, atabal, and atambalare originally Arabic as well.from Al-duff, Al-booq, Al-nafeer, Al-shabbabe, Al-Tabl and Al-Tinbal. The adufe is a square tambourinekind of tambourine mentioned in Farmer's book is a round type called panderete. "The word equates wArabic bendair." The Bendair resembles the Taar, but without jingling metal discs. Instead, there are"snares"stretched across the inside of the head, which give the instrument a tone like the Western sidTaar is another type of tambourine with jingling plates in the rim. The albogon, resembles the Arabianwas in one case a horn, and in another a sort of saxophone improved by the Andalusian Sultan Al-HakiShalahi (13th century) informs us that the Christians borrowed the instrument from the Arabs.The analong straight trumpet. Farmer mentions that "it has been generally admitted by our musical antiquariestraight cylindrical bore trumpet came from the Arabs. Could this have been the particular feature of tanafil? We read in "Alf Laila wa Laila"(Thousand and One Nights) that a horn-player "blew" (nafakha) tbut that a trumpter "blasted" (SaHe, lit. "Split") the nafir. It is possible that these terms convey the dibetween the tones of the conical bore hornand the cylindrical bore trumpet." "The origin of the wordsatambal from the Arabic al-Tabl and the Persian al-Tinbal, is I believe, clear enough philologically", saFarmer;"It would follow in consequence that the former is the older word, and that the latter was adoptime of the Crusades." Al-Tabl is a big drum.Al-Tumboor seems to be identical to the Tabl. It belongs tmilitary and processional music. It was adopted by Western armies for their military bandsat the time
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Can you please fix up the document. On my screen it appears there is cut off of the right side of the pages for the first few pages of document. Also some lines overlap further down. Very interesting content. What a shame it did not come out right. Please do again. We will all appreciate it, in so-called Western countries. We should know more about tradition of music in sub-continent.