17 Traditional moroccan musical instruments

History: The oud has its cradle in Babylon, around 1800 BC, as discovered on a bas-relief of the temple of Hammurabi by the Iraqi researcher Anwar Rachidi. Present among the Assyrians, it appears in Egypt where it is found in the tomb of Ahmôsis (1500 BC). During the first pharaonic civilization, the Egyptians used the lute for their ceremonies and for their festivals.

It is likely that the first instruments were carved from a single piece of wood (neck and resonance box not separated), in the same way as the Chinese pipa (already present among the Tang (618-907) and the Northern Wei (386-534)) or the Japanese biwa (8th century), which are believed to be descendants of the barbat brought by the Silk Road.

The curved body served as a model for the European lute and mandolin, whose cases were constructed of numerous glued flexible wooden strips. The lute was transformed during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The strings were played between the thumb and forefinger with the little finger resting on the table and the neck had gut-knotted frets so that polyphonic music could be played. At the end of the 16th century, a new form of 12-string lute appeared in England (theorbo and chitarrone) used more for accompaniment than for melody. It has constantly evolved, by adding low strings, until the eighteenth century.

Violin making. The oud consists of four major parts:

Soundboard made of softwood (nowadays mostly spruce, formerly cedar in the Near East and Morocco), traditionally unvarnished. The top is supported by a bracing of the same wood. It is pierced with large holes (1 or 3), often decorated with rosettes, in wood or bone. A wooden bridge is glued to it, as well as a reinforcement at the playing point.

Resonance box made of hard wood (walnut, mahogany, maple, beech are commonly used), it is pear-shaped and consists of fifteen or more ribs, forming the largest sounding box of all lutes.

Neck generally made in one of the woods of the soundbox, the neck is not fretted and is very short, like that of the violin, allowing to play the micro-intervals present in most maqamat also called A-dawr in Arabic: الدّور which means a rotation.

Peg the angle between the neck and the tailpiece is almost perpendicular, and this is of great importance to support the pressure of the eleven or twelve strings, held by wooden pegs similar to those of the violin. The nut is usually made of bone or ebony.

The violin maker tries to make the instrument as light as possible in order to make it as resonant as possible; the shape of the body allows for very thin wood thicknesses (about 1.5 mm). Thus, a good instrument weighs less than 1 kilogram.

The level of decoration of the oud (marquetry, inlays of mother-of-pearl, bone or ivory) varies according to the country of origin. Thus, ouds of Turkish origin are often very bare, and those of Egyptian origin often very decorated.

The strings were traditionally made of gut for the two or three highest pitched choruses, and spun copper on silk for the lowest. Today, they are generally made of nylon and spun nylon. The tension of the oud strings is notably lower than that of other instruments such as the guitar, typically 30 to 40 newtons.

Several types of ouds are used in Arab-Turkish music:

ud hanin is an oud specifically for soloing with a small, almond-shaped, single-rose body and a tinny sound.
ud rannan is a specific oud for ensemble music with a pear-shaped body, with three or five rosettes, very sonorous.

In the Maghreb one distinguishes between the Near Eastern oud, oud sharki, and the four-course oud of Arabo-Andalusian music, known as `ud rammal in Morocco, ud `arbî in Tunisia and in the Constantinois and finally kuitra in Algeria.

Play
The oud is held in the same way as a guitar, taking care to keep the face vertical so that it is not visible to the player; the weight must be supported by the thigh and the right arm so that the left hand is free to move on the neck. In the past, many players sat cross-legged on the floor; now most play sitting in a chair, often using a footrest under their right foot.

A long, flexible plectrum is used, putting the wrist at a particular angle that gives a certain sound and agility: the risha (“feather” in Arabic) or mezrab (in Turkish) is made of a thin slice of cow horn, a trimmed and flattened eagle feather or more prosaically a plastic pick. It is held between the thumb, the index and the little finger, to pluck the strings of the instrument according to two techniques: the simple or double pluck. A virtuoso oud player can be recognized by the balanced use of these two techniques. The thinner plucks give a very delicate sound, full of nuances, the heavier ones give a very strong sound. Players often use a plectrum with one end unaltered and the other thinned by him, allowing him to use the most appropriate shape for his needs.

The oud is a solo instrument of Arabic music par excellence, but it is also used as a melodic or rhythmic bass in instrumental ensembles, unless it accompanies a singer. The same is true of Turkish and Iranian music. But it is also in these countries, a very popular instrument, and lends itself to the whole folk repertoire. Similarly, in Greece and Armenia, it is rather confined to festive music.

One does not play chords on the oud, unlike the lute or the guitar. The music being modal, one never plays several notes at the same time, but in a very fast succession, except for the drone string. In addition, many oud players remove the last two strings, the highest ones, in order to facilitate the playing. Mounir Bachir has the particularity to put the low string below the others.

It is possible to tune an oud in many different ways.