The ataaba ( ar, عتابا, meaning "plaint" or "
dirge", also
transliterated 'ataba) is a traditional
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
musical form sung at weddings, festivals, and other occasions.
[ Popular in the Middle East, it was originally a ]Bedouin
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arabs, Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert ...
genre, improvised by a solo poet-singer accompanying themselves on the rababa.Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
tradition, ataabas are generally performed by a vocal soloist, without instrumental accompaniment, who improvises the melody using folk poetry for the verse.[Kaschl, 2003, p. 249.]
Sung unmetered in stanza
In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have ei ...
s comprising four lines, the last word of the first three lines are homonyms, each with a different meaning, creating a pun. In urban settings, the ataaba is often paired with a metric choral refrain
A refrain (from Vulgar Latin ''refringere'', "to repeat", and later from Old French ''refraindre'') is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in poetry — the "chorus" of a song. Poetic fixed forms that feature refrains include the v ...
called a '' mījanā''.[
The ataaba is also used to express grief or reproach.][Armitage et al., 2002, p. 324.] The most common theme of an ataaba is love, though eulogies
A eulogy (from , ''eulogia'', Classical Greek, ''eu'' for "well" or "true", ''logia'' for "words" or "text", together for "praise") is a speech or writing in praise of a person or persons, especially one who recently died or retired, or a ...
are also common. Less common themes include moral instruction, and descriptions of nature.[Cohen and Katz, 2006, p. 262.]
Structure
About half of all ataabas do not use fixed meter, while the other half use a standard ''rajaz'' or ''wāfir'' meter.[ Generally composed of four verses of poetry, the first three end with the same sound.][Farsoun, 2004, p. 117.] The end of a verse or quatrain
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.
Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Gree ...
in an ataaba is marked by adding a word ending in "-ba" to the end of the fourth hemistich
A hemistich (; via Latin from Ancient Greek, Greek , from "half" and "verse") is a half-line of verse, followed and preceded by a caesura, that makes up a single overall prosodic or verse unit. In Latin verse, Latin and Greek poetry, the hemist ...
.[Pavla etal., 2008, p. 11.] The fourth and final verse usually ends with a word ending in the sound ''aab'' or ''awa''.[
While there are four lines of verse in an ataaba, these are usually sung as two musical phrases. These phrases are often a melodic curve beginning on the fourth or fifth, descending to the cadence and ending on the ]supertonic
In music, the supertonic is the second degree () of a diatonic scale, one whole step above the tonic. In the movable do solfège system, the supertonic note is sung as ''re''.
The triad built on the supertonic note is called the supertonic ch ...
or tonic.[ All ataabas are performed by a soloist, who often begins by singing a long ]melismatic
Melisma ( grc-gre, μέλισμα, , ; from grc, , melos, song, melody, label=none, plural: ''melismata'') is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is ref ...
phrase on the syllable ''ōf''.[ While this opening sequence is not necessarily a part of the ataaba, the closing melismatic phrase sung to words such as ''yā bā'' ("O father"), ''yā mā'' ("O mother"), or ''yā eyn'' ("O eyes"), etc., is an integral part of the song's structure and is unique to this musical form.][
]
Performances
The ataaba is one of many Palestinian folk music traditions that continues to be performed at weddings and festivals in Palestine 48, as well as by Palestinians in the West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
and Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
.[Marshall Cavendish, 2007, p. 996.][Shiloah, 1997, p. 42.] The ataaba and other forms of improvised poetry such as the ''mawwal'' and ''mijana'' have been used by Palestinians since the 1960s, "to express outrage and grief at the razing and appropriation of Palestinian villages by Israelis."[
]
See also
* Anasheed
References
Bibliography
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Arabic music
Palestinian music
Lebanese art