The qanun, kanun, ganoun or kanoon (; ; ; , ''qanun''; , ''qānūn''; ; ; ) is a Middle Eastern

string instrument In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some ...

played either solo, or more often as part of an ensemble, in much of Iran, Arab East, and Arab Maghreb region of

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

, later it reached

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

due to Arab migration. It was also common in ancient (and modern-day)

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

, and

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. The name derives ultimately from Ancient Greek: κανών kanōn, meaning "rule, law, norm, principle". The qanun traces one of its origins to a stringed Assyrian instrument from the

Old Assyrian Empire The Old Assyrian period was the second stage of Assyrian history, covering the history of the city of Assur from its rise as an independent city-state under Puzur-Ashur I 2025 BC to the foundation of a larger Assyrian territorial state after th ...

, specifically from the nineteenth century BC in

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

. This instrument came inscribed on a box of elephant ivory found in the old Assyrian capital

Nimrud Nimrud (; ) is an ancient Assyrian people, Assyrian city (original Assyrian name Kalḫu, biblical name Calah) located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah (), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. ...

(ancient name: ''Caleh''). The instrument is a type of large

zither Zither (; , from the Greek ''cithara'') is a class of stringed instruments. The modern instrument has many strings stretched across a thin, flat body. Zithers are typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers or a ...

with a thin trapezoidal soundboard that is famous for its unique melodramatic sound.

Etymology

The name derives ultimately . The qanun traces one of its origins to a stringed Assyrian instrument from the

, specifically from the nineteenth century BC in

. This instrument came inscribed on a box of elephant ivory found in the old Assyrian capital

(ancient name: ''Caleh''). The instrument is a type of large

with a thin trapezoidal soundboard that is famous for its unique melodramatic sound.

Origins

The origins of the qanun are a subject of debate among musicologists. Some theories suggest that it dates back to ancient Mesopotamia, where similar plucked string instruments were depicted in art. Others propose that the qanun was introduced to the Arab world during the Islamic Golden Age, possibly influenced by Byzantine or Persian instruments. Historical texts, such as Al-Farabi's 10th-century treatise on music, describe instruments resembling the qanun, indicating its presence in the region by that time. Despite these theories, the exact timeline of the qanun's development remains uncertain.

Regional variants and technical specifications

Arabic qanuns are usually constructed with five skin insets that support a single long bridge resting on five arching pillars, whereas the somewhat smaller Turkish qanuns are based on just four. This allows Arabic variants of the instrument to have more room for the installation of extreme bass and treble strings. Kanuns manufactured in Turkey generally feature 26 courses of strings, with three strings per course in the case of all regional variants. Contemporary Arabic designs use

Nylon Nylon is a family of synthetic polymers characterised by amide linkages, typically connecting aliphatic or Polyamide#Classification, semi-aromatic groups. Nylons are generally brownish in color and can possess a soft texture, with some varieti ...

or PVF strings that are stretched over the bridge poised on fish-skins as described on one end, and attached to wooden tuning pegs at the other end. The qanun has evolved differently across various Middle Eastern countries, reflecting local musical traditions. In Turkey, the kanun is typically tuned to a whole-tone scale and played with a technique that emphasizes rapid finger movements, often accompanying folk and classical music. In contrast, the Arabic qanun, particularly in Egypt and the Levant, is central to classical Arab music ensembles, where it provides harmonic support and intricate melodic lines. The Persian santur, while similar, has a distinct trapezoidal shape and is played with hammers rather than plucked, highlighting the regional adaptations of the instrument. Ornamental sound holes called ''kafes'' are a critical component of what constitutes the accustomed timbre of qanun. However, they normally occupy different locations on the soundboard of Turkish kanuns compared to Arabic qanuns, and may also vary in shape, size and number depending on geography or personal taste. The dimensions of a Turkish kanun are typically 95 to 100 cm (37–39") in length, 38 to 40 cm (15–16") in width, and 4 to 6 cm (1.5–2.3") in height. In contrast, an Arabic qanun measures a bit larger as mentioned. Qanun is played on the lap while sitting or squatting, or sometimes on trestle support, by plucking the strings with two

tortoise Tortoises ( ) are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin for "tortoise"). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like o ...

-shell picks (one for each hand) or with fingernails, and has a standard range of three and a half

octave In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referr ...

s from A2 to E6 that can be extended down to F2 and up to G6 in the case of Arabic designs. The instrument also features special metallic levers or latches under each course called ''mandals''. These small levers, which can be raised or lowered quickly by the performer while the instrument is being played, serve to slightly change the pitch of a particular course by altering effective string lengths.

Tuning and temperament

On the regular diatonically tuned qanun, ''mandal'' technology was first implemented, according to Turkish musicologist Rauf Yekta, some 30 years prior to his submission of his invited monograph on Turkish Music to the 1922 edition of Albert Lavignac's ''Encyclopédie de la Musique et Dictionnaire du Conservatoire''. Levantine qanuns, prior to that time, remained rather inflexible and cumbersome to perform on (especially as demanding modulations/transpositions came into vogue that were increasingly emulating Western

tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitch (music), pitches and / or chord (music), chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived ''relations'', ''stabilities'', ''attractions'', and ''directionality''. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or ...

and key changes), requiring the player to use the fingernail of the thumb to depress on the leftmost ends of the courses to achieve on-the-fly intervallic alterations. With the advent of

electronic tuner In music, an electronic tuner is a device that detects and displays the pitch of musical notes played on a musical instrument. "Pitch" is the perceived fundamental frequency of a musical note, which is typically measured in hertz. Simple tune ...

s some decades later, standardization of the placement of ''reference mandals'' on the qanun began. While Armenian kanuns now employ only equidistant half-tones and Arabic qanuns exact quarter-tones as a result, Turkish kanun-makers went so far as dividing the electroacoustically referenced equal-tempered semitone of 100 cents into 6 equal parts, yielding – for all intents and purposes – 72 equal divisions (or commas) of the

pitch resolution. Not all pitches of 72-tone equal temperament are available on the Turkish kanun, however, since kanun-makers affix mandals that only accommodate modulations/transpositions popularly demanded by performers. This has subsequently led to the familiar interrupted and irregular pattern of mandals on the Turkish kanun becoming a visual guide for players, in facilitating modal and intonational navigation on an instrument which is ordinarily bereft of pitch markers. Some kanun-makers may also choose to divide the semitone distance from the nut of the lower registers into 7 parts instead for microtonal subtlety (and the highest registers, conversely, into 5 parts due to spacing constraints); but do so at the expense of

octave equivalence In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referre ...

s. Despite the mentioned discrepancies, hundreds of mandal configurations are at the player's disposal when performing on an ordinary Turkish kanun. On the other hand, the nowadays widespread application of equidistant 24-tones on Arabic and 72-tones on Turkish qanun models presents an ongoing source of controversy. This is particularly in regards to how adequate such

Eurocentric Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) refers to viewing the West as the center of world events or superior to other cultures. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world to just the continent of Euro ...

octave divisions are in faithfully reproducing the traditionally or classically understood fluid pitches and inflexions of

Arabic music Arabic music () is the music of the Arab world with all its diverse List of music styles, music styles and genres. Arabic countries have many rich and varied styles of music and also many linguistic Varieties of Arabic, dialects, with each countr ...

Ottoman classical music Ottoman music () or Turkish classical music (, or more recently ) is the tradition of Art music, classical music originating in the Ottoman Empire. Developed in the palace, major Ottoman cities, and Sufi lodges, it traditionally features a sol ...

scales. Pitch measurement analyses of relevant audio recordings reveal that, equal temperaments based on bike-chained "multiples of twelve" are essentially not compatible with authentic Middle Eastern performances; substantiating the notion instruments strictly based on them would clash audibly with a justly tuned/intoned tanbur, oud, ney, or

kemenche Kemenche (, Persian language, Persian : کمانچه) or Lyra is a name used for various types of Bowed string instrument, stringed bowed musical instruments originating in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly in Greece, Armenia, Iran, Turke ...

. Alternate tuning approaches for the qanun thus also exist. Turkish music theorist Ozan Yarman has proposed, for example, an academical 79-tone temperament for the expression within tolerable error-margins of Maqamat / Makamlar / Dastgaha at all pitch levels, that was implemented by the renowned late

luthier A luthier ( ; ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments. Etymology The word ' is originally French and comes from ''luth'', the French word for "lute". The term was originally used for makers of lutes, but it came to be ...

Ejder Güleç (1939–2014) on a Turkish kanun. Likewise, the late Swiss-French qānūn performer Julien Jalâl Ed-Dine Weiss (1953–2015), who was critical of the tuning deficiency of Eurocentric octave divisions in approximating just intervals, is known to have conceived, since 1990, a number of prototypes that were entirely based on low prime-limit or simple integer ratio

Pythagorean Pythagorean, meaning of or pertaining to the ancient Ionian mathematician, philosopher, and music theorist Pythagoras, may refer to: Philosophy * Pythagoreanism, the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs purported to have been held by Pythagoras * Ne ...

and

harmonic In physics, acoustics, and telecommunications, a harmonic is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'' of a periodic signal. The fundamental frequency is also called the ''1st har ...

intervals; which were once again built, on instructions from Weiss, by Ejder Güleç.

Notable players

* Anzhela Atabekyan * * Aytaç Doğan * * Petros Tabouris * Ara Topouzian

Notes

References

External links