
The ''rebab'' ( ar,
ربابة, ''rabāba'', variously spelled ''rebap'', ''rubob'', ''rebeb'', ''rababa'', ''rabeba'', ''robab'', ''rubab'', ''rebob'', etc) is the name of several related
string instruments that independently spread via Islamic
trading route
A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over bodies of water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a sin ...
s over much of
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...
,
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
, the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
, and parts of
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...
. The instrument is typically
bowed, but is sometimes
plucked. It is one of the earliest known bowed instruments, named no later than the 8th century, and is the parent of many bowed and stringed instruments.
Variants
There are chiefly 3 main types:
A long-necked bowed variety that often has a spike at the bottom to rest on the ground (see first image to the right); thus this is called a spike fiddle in certain areas. Some of the instruments developing from this have vestigial spikes.
A short-necked double-chested or "boat-shaped" variant; here plucked versions like the ''
Maghreb rebab
The Maghreb rebab is a bowed lute now played mainly in Northern Africa. It fits within the wider rebab traditions of the Arab world, but also branched into European musical tradition in Spain, Sicily, and the Holy Roman Empire. In the late Middle ...
'' and the ''kabuli rebab'' (sometimes referred to as the ''
robab'' or ''rubab'') also exist.
Besides the spike fiddle variant, there also exists a variant with a pear-shaped body, quite similar to the
Byzantine lyra
The Byzantine lyra or lira ( gr, λύρα) was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. In its popular form, the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by ...
and the
Cretan lyra
)
* Lira da braccio
* Rabāb (Arabic الرباب)
* Lijerica
* Violin
, musicians =
* Andreas Rodinos
* Alekos Karavitis
* Antonis Papadakis (Kareklas)
* Kostas Mountakis
* Nikos Xilouris
* Psarantonis
* Ross Daly
* Yiorgos ...
. This latter variant travelled to western Europe in the 11th century,
and became the
rebec
The rebec (sometimes rebecha, rebeckha, and other spellings, pronounced or ) is a bowed string instrument, stringed instrument of the Medieval era and the early Renaissance. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and one to fiv ...
. This rabāb is the ancestor of many European bowed instruments, including the rebec and the
lyra
Lyra (; Latin for lyre, from Greek ''λύρα'') is a small constellation. It is one of the 48 listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and is one of the modern 88 constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Lyra was ...
, though not of those bowed instruments in the lyre family such as the crwth, jouhikko, talharpa and gue.
This article will only concentrate on the spike-fiddle ''rebab'', which usually consists of a small, usually rounded body, the front of which is covered in a membrane such as
parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...
or
sheepskin
Sheepskin is the hide of a sheep, sometimes also called lambskin. Unlike common leather, sheepskin is tanned with the fleece intact, as in a pelt.Delbridge, Arthur, "The Macquarie Dictionary", 2nd ed., Macquarie Library, North Ryde, 1991 Uses
...
and has a long neck attached. There is a long thin
neck
The neck is the part of the body on many vertebrates that connects the head with the torso. The neck supports the weight of the head and protects the nerves that carry sensory and motor information from the brain down to the rest of the body. In ...
with a
pegbox
A variety of methods are used to tune different stringed instruments. Most change the pitch produced when the string is played by adjusting the tension of the strings.
A tuning peg in a pegbox is perhaps the most common system. A peg has ...
at the end and there are one, two or three
strings. There is no
fingerboard
The fingerboard (also known as a fretboard on fretted instruments) is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The st ...
. The instrument is held upright, either resting on the lap or on the floor. The
bow is usually more curved than that of the
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
.
The ''rebab'', though valued for its voice-like tone, has a very limited range (a little over an
octave
In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...
), and was gradually replaced throughout much of the Arab world by the violin and
kemenche
Kemenche ( tr, kemençe) or Lyra is a name used for various types of stringed bowed musical instruments originating in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly in Armenia, Greece, Iran, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. and regions adjacent to the Black S ...
. The
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
i version of the instrument (''jawza'' or ''joza'') has four strings.
Construction
The rebab is used in a wide variety of musical ensembles and genres, corresponding with its wide distribution, and is built and played somewhat differently in different areas. Following the principle of construction in Iran,
Ahvaz
Ahvaz ( fa, اهواز, Ahvâz ) is a city in the southwest of Iran and the capital of Khuzestan province. Ahvaz's population is about 1,300,000 and its built-up area with the nearby town of Sheybani is home to 1,136,989 inhabitants. It is home ...
, the rebab is a large instrument with a range similar to the
viola da gamba
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch ...
, whereas versions of the instrument further west tend to be smaller and higher-pitched. The body varies from being ornately carved, as in Java, to simpler models such as the 2-string Egyptian "fiddle of the Nile." They may have a body made of half a
coconut
The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or ...
shell, while the more sophisticated versions have a metal soundbox, and the front may be half-covered with beaten
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish ...
, and half with cowskin.
History
According to Richard Wallaschek, bowed rebab was developed under Mohammedan culture. The rebab was heavily used, and continues to be used, in Arabic
Bedouin music
Bedouin music () is the music of nomadic Bedouin Arab tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, Mesopotamia and the Levant. It is closely linked to its text and poems. Songs are based on poetry and are sung either unaccompanied, or to the s ...
and is mentioned by
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Johann Ludwig (also known as John Lewis, Jean Louis) Burckhardt (24 November 1784 – 15 October 1817) was a Swiss traveller, geographer and Orientalist. Burckhardt assumed the alias ''Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah'' during his travels in Arabia ...
in his
travelog
The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs.
One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern perio ...
''Travels in Arabia'':
"Of instruments they possess only the ''rababa'', (a kind of guitar,) the ''ney
The ''ney'' ( fa, Ney/نی, ar, Al-Nāy/الناي), is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Persian music and Arabic music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. The ney has been played continuall ...
'', (a species of clarinet,) and the ''tambour'', or tambourine
The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called " zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, thou ...
."
It is called "joza" in Iraq, named after the sound box material made of a coconut shell. There is also a bowed instrument in Persian music named
Kamanche which has similar shape and structure. It spread to different regions including South East Asia through Islamic trading routes.
For a famous Iranian singer and rebab player see
Hassaan Egzaar Chenani.
Southeast Asia
In the
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
n
gamelan
Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. ...
the rebab is an essential
elaborating instrument
The panerusan instruments or elaborating instruments are one of the divisions of instruments used in Indonesian gamelan. Instead of the rhythmic structure provided by the colotomic instruments, and the core melody of the balungan instruments ...
, ornamenting the
basic melody. A two-string bowed lute consisting of a wooden body, traditionally though now rarely a single coconut shell, covered with very fine stretched skin.
[Lindsay, Jennifer (1992). Rabab is one of traditional music instrument in Minangkabau especially in west coast region like Pesisir Selatan dan Pariaman https://niadilova.wordpress.com/2017/03/13/rabab-pariaman-senjakala-sebuah-genre-sastra-lisan-minangkabau/. ''Javanese Gamelan'', p.30-31. .] Two brass strings are tuned a fifth apart and the horse hair bow is tied loosely (unlike modern Western stringed instruments) with the proper tension controlled by the players bow hand, contributing to the difficult technique.
There are typically two per ensemble, one for ''
pelog
Pelog ( su, ᮕᮦᮜᮧᮌ᮪, translit=Pélog /pelog/, jv, ꦥꦺꦭꦺꦴꦒ꧀, ban, ᬧᬾᬮᭀᬕ᭄, translit=Pélog /pelok/) is one of the essential tuning systems used in gamelan instruments that has heptatonic scale. The other, ...
'' and one for ''
slendro
Slendro ( jv, ꦱ꧀ꦭꦺꦤ꧀ꦢꦿꦺꦴ, ban, slendro, translit=Sléndro) ( su, salendro, translit=Saléndro) is one of the essential tuning systems used in gamelan instruments that have pentatonic scale. Based on Javanese mythology, t ...
'', never played together.
The rebab does not have to conform exactly to the scale of the other gamelan instruments and can be played in relatively free time, finishing its phrases after the beat of the
gong ageng
The gong ageng (or gong gedhe in Ngoko Javanese, means large gong) is an Indonesian musical instrument used in the Javanese gamelan. It is the largest of the bronze gongs in the Javanese and Balinese gamelan orchestra and the only large gong t ...
(the big gong that "rules" the ensemble, see:
colotomy
''Colotomy'' is an Indonesian description of the rhythmic and metric patterns of gamelan music. It refers to the use of specific instruments to mark off nested time intervals, or the process of dividing rhythmic time into such nested cycles. I ...
). The rebab also frequently plays the
buka when it is part of the ensemble.
[Neil Sorrell. ''A Guide to the Gamelan''. London: Faber and Faber, 1990. Pp. 97–98.]
In
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
, especially the eastern Malaysian states of
Kelantan
Kelantan (; Jawi: ; Kelantanese Malay: ''Klate'') is a state in Malaysia. The capital is Kota Bharu and royal seat is Kubang Kerian. The honorific name of the state is ''Darul Naim'' (Jawi: ; "The Blissful Abode").
Kelantan is located in the ...
and northern
Terengganu
Terengganu (; Terengganu Malay: ''Tranung'', Jawi: ), formerly spelled Trengganu or Tringganu, is a sultanate and constitutive state of federal Malaysia. The state is also known by its Arabic honorific, ''Dāru l- Īmān'' ("Abode of Faith" ...
(
Besut
Besut is a district in Terengganu, Malaysia. It is bordered by the state of Kelantan to the north and west and the South China Sea to the east. It is the northern gateway to Terengganu. Kampung Raja is the district capital, though Jerteh is mor ...
), Rebab is one of important traditional music instruments. Its appearance is significantly different from rebabs from other regions. It has 3 strings, 3 tuning pegs (telinga), a decorative, detachable headstock (kepala), a skin made of cow's stomach and a small, nipple-like mute mechanism (puting). The Rebab is used in the
makyong ensemble, tarik selampit and also in a healing ritual called "Main Peteri".
See also
*
Byzantine lyra
The Byzantine lyra or lira ( gr, λύρα) was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. In its popular form, the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by ...
, the medieval bowed instrument of the Byzantine Empire
*
Ektara
Ektara ( bn, একতারা, hi, एकतारा, ur, اِک تارا, ne, एकतारे, pa, ਇਕ ਤਾਰਾ, ta, எக்டரா; literally 'one-string', also called actara, iktar, ektar, yaktaro, gopichand, gopichant, ...
, one-string instrument used in traditional music from Bangladesh, Egypt, India, and Pakistan.
*
Gadulka
The gadulka ( bg, гъдулка) is a traditional Bulgarian bowed string instrument. Alternate spellings are "gǎdulka", "gudulka" and "g'dulka". Its name comes from a root meaning "to make noise, hum or buzz". The gadulka is an integral part o ...
*
Gudok
*
Gusle
The gusle ( sr-cyrl, гусле) or lahuta ( sq, lahutë) is a single- stringed musical instrument (and musical style) traditionally used in the Dinarides region of Southeastern Europe (in the Balkans). The instrument is always accompanied b ...
*
Kamancheh
The kamancheh (also kamānche or kamāncha) ( fa, کمانچه, az, kamança, hy, Քամանչա, ku, کەمانچە ,kemançe) is an Iranian bowed string instrument used in Persian, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Kurdish, Georgian, Turkmen, an ...
*
Kemenche
Kemenche ( tr, kemençe) or Lyra is a name used for various types of stringed bowed musical instruments originating in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly in Armenia, Greece, Iran, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. and regions adjacent to the Black S ...
*
Kobyz
The Kobyz ( kk, қобыз, ''Qobyz''; ba, ҡумыҙ; tt-Cyrl, кубыз) or ''kylkobyz'' ( kk, қылқобыз, ''qylqobyz''; ba, ҡыл ҡумыҙ; tt-Cyrl, кылкубыз) is an ancient Turkic bowed string instrument, spread among Kaz ...
*
Lijerica
*
Lyra of Crete
*
Rebec
The rebec (sometimes rebecha, rebeckha, and other spellings, pronounced or ) is a bowed string instrument, stringed instrument of the Medieval era and the early Renaissance. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and one to fiv ...
*
Rubab (instrument)
Rubab, robab or rabab (Pashto/ Persian: رُباب, Kashmiri : رَبابہٕ, Sindhi: ( Nastaleeq), रबाब (Devanagari), Azerbaijani/Turkish: Rübab, Tajik/ Uzbek ''рубоб'') is a lute-like musical instrument.David Courtney, 'Rabab ...
References
Sources
* Margaret J. Kartomi: On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments. Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology, University of Chicago Press, 1990
External links
Turkish Rebab Master Ibrahim Metin UgurNay-Nava the encyclopedia of persian music instrumentsArabic rababa photonuke.liuteriaetnica.itFERNWOOD an American music group that uses a Rebab.
Matthaios Tsahouridis
{{Authority control
Malaysian musical instruments
Iranian musical instruments
Arabic musical instruments
Bowed string instruments
Gamelan instruments
Indonesian musical instruments
Lebanese musical instruments
Pakistani musical instruments
Sundanese music
Syrian musical instruments
Music of West Java
Islamic music
Arab inventions