The music of
Mauritania comes predominantly from the country's largest
ethnic group: the
Moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or ...
. In Moorish society musicians occupy the lowest caste,
iggawin. Musicians from this caste used song to praise successful warriors as well as their patrons. Iggawin also had the traditional role of messengers, spreading news between villages. In modern Mauritania, professional musicians are paid by anybody to perform; affluent patrons sometimes record the entertainment, rather than the musicians themselves, and are then considered to own the recording.
Instruments
Traditional instruments include an hourglass-shaped four-stringed
lute called the
tidinit and the woman's
kora-like
ardin.
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
s include the
tbal (a
kettle drum
Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...
) and
daghumma (a
rattle).
Types of Mauritanian music
There are three "ways" to play music in the Mauritanian tradition:
*
Al-bayda - the white way, associated with delicate and refined music, and the
Bidan (Moors of North African stock)
*
Al-kahla - the black way, associated with roots and masculine music, and the
Haratin
Haratin (), also referred to as Haratine, Harratin (singular: Hartani), are an ethnic group found in western Sahel and southwestern Maghreb. The Haratin are mostly found in modern Mauritania (where they form a plurality), Morocco, Western Sahar ...
(Moors of Sub-Saharan stock)
*
l'-gnaydiya - the mixed or "spotted" way
Music progresses through five
mode
Mode ( la, modus meaning "manner, tune, measure, due measure, rhythm, melody") may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* '' MO''D''E (magazine)'', a defunct U.S. women's fashion magazine
* ''Mode'' magazine, a fictional fashion magazine which is ...
s (a system with origins in
Arabic music
Arabic music or Arab music ( ar, الموسيقى العربية, al-mūsīqā al-ʿArabīyyah) is the music of the Arab world with all its diverse music styles and genres. Arabic countries have many rich and varied styles of music and also man ...
): ''karr'', ''fagu'' (both black), ''lakhal'', ''labyad'' (both white, and corresponding to a period of one's life or an emotion) and ''lebtyat'' (white, a spiritual mode relating to the
afterlife). There are further submodes, making for a complicated system, one to which nearly all male musicians conform. Female musicians are rare and are not bound by the same set of rules.
Musicians
In spite of the rarity of female musicians in Mauritania, the most famous Moorish musician is a woman,
Dimi Mint Abba. Dimi's parents were both musicians (her father had been asked to compose the
Mauritanian national anthem
The national anthem of Mauritania ( ar, النشيد الوطني الموريتاني), also known by its incipit, "" ( en, "Land of the Proud, Guided by Noblemen"; french: "Pays des fiers, nobles guides"), was adopted on 16 November 2017 and wa ...
), and she began playing at an early age. Her professional career began in 1976, when she sang on the radio and then competed, the following year, in the
Umm Kulthum
Umm Kulthum ( ar, أم كلثوم, , also spelled ''Oum Kalthoum'' in English; born Fatima Ibrahim es-Sayyid el-Beltagi, ar, فاطمة إبراهيم السيد البلتاجي, Fāṭima ʾIbrāhīm es-Sayyid el-Beltāǧī, link=no; 31 Dece ...
Contest in
Tunis
''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois
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, population_urban =
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, utc_offset1 ...
.
Another popular female musician is
Malouma
Malouma Mint El Meidah ( ar, المعلومة منت الميداح, al-Maʿlūma Mint al-Maydāḥ), also simply Maalouma or Malouma (; born October 1, 1960), is a Mauritanian singer, songwriter and politician. Raised in the south-west of the ...
, who is also a respected politician and social activist ("Desert of Eden," Shanachie Records
.S. 1998).
References
*Muddyman, Dave. "Ways of the Moors". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), ''World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East'', pp 563–566. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books.
External links
Mauritanian audio clips.French National Library. Accessed November 26, 2010.
* The Voice of America African Music Treasures:
Music of Mauritania: Part One(23 January 2008) an
Music of Mauritania: Part Two(25 June 2008).
*Audio clip (120 minutes)
Mauritania - the Festival of Nomad Music.BBC Radio 3. ''Accessed on November 25, 2010.''
{{Music of Africa