Darbouka - Arabic

[Aurawiewer]

Darbouka is a arabic drum. Something about the technique and history:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darbouka

I like it. Very nice and oriental

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO1SNypP ... re=related ( sory i cant add videos, i know how but it doesnt work! )

Do you like it or do you play it?

[bubudi]

darbuka is played in north africa for events like weddings and circumcisions, not unlike the djembe, but it has a different language, sound, tradition and history. i played darbuka for some years (i still like to play it sometimes), but i ultimately chose the djembe. it's more of a challenge to me in terms of language, swing and polyrhythm. darbuka rhythms tend to be played a bit straighter than djembe rhythms and generally speaking they lack the element of polyrhythm that djembe music has, although if you look hard enough, you will find darbuka rhythms with interesting time signatures...

[e2c]

I play - in fact, it was my 1st instrument (in percussion, at least).

There's a big difference between the music that's played on it (in N. Africa and in the Middle East) and typical music for a djembe/dunun ensemble, but I think the two styles (and types of music) can complement each other very nicely.

So for me, Arabic, Turkish and North African rhythms will always be important. btw, i think there's so much more to N. African music and rhythms than most of us realize - we Westerners have had comparatively little exposure to the variety of rhythms and styles of playing that are important in Algeria, Tunisia and Libya... there's more of a polyrhythmic feel to much of that music than most of us realize - am basing that comment on very brief exposure to some techniques and rhythms from those countries that really aren't yet "known" in the West.

There's always room for more... and I think there's some very dynamic stuff going on in N. African music, where Berber and Arab traditions meet with various kinds of music from sub-Saharan Africa. Some of the most amazing things I've heard in that vein are available on YouTube only. (Although there is a guy in the Chicago area who plays and teaches some of this music...)

although if you look hard enough, you will find darbuka rhythms with interesting time signatures...

imo, you don't have to "look hard" at all! So many are in 9, 7, 5 and various combinations thereof. (And rhythms from the Balkans - wow! "Odd meter" to the max!) Some of the more difficult Arabic classical rhythms for riqq have 30+-beat cycles...

And in ensemble playing (with a darbouka and riqq - Arabic tambourine), there are 2 different lines going on and interacting (sometimes more); add someone to hold down the low end (on a larger darbouka) and you've got 3 at once (or more, depending on the riqq player's skill). (Other instruments, like finger cymbals, can add more fills and ornamentation.) Larger frame drums add another dimension - and lead drummers on different instruments often play highly complex, interwoven patterns where there's a lot of call-and-response going on.

I think that the riqq is probably the most difficult (of all the ME/N. African percussion instruments) to master, and it really isn't my forte. (My wrists can't take the weight of the heavy cymbals.) But it certainly is the most versatile, and has an incredible dynamic range - not to mention the possibility for polyrhythmic playing, all on its own. (One rhythm being played on the head, another on the cymbals...)

[bubudi]

certainly there's a lot to middle eastern music that we aren't often exposed to in the west. the more popular genres however, don't have the same complexity and subtlety as the classical repertoire.

i also find that timings such as 5s, 7s and 9s are disappearing from the folk music of many arab countries, although they remain common enough in the balkans.

[e2c]

certainly there's a lot to middle eastern music that we aren't often exposed to in the west. the more popular genres however, don't have the same complexity and subtlety as the classical repertoire.

Not necessarily true, b. Honest!

i also find that timings such as 5s, 7s and 9s are disappearing from the folk music of many arab countries, although they remain common enough in the balkans.

Again... not necessarily true. Am wondering where you've seen/heard this happening?

I do think a detailed discussion of rhythms (and shifts/changes in their use) is best left to the people who play *really* well, and know far more than I do, to discuss. (Yusif Sheronick and Ali Jihad Racy for example.) In Turkey, the "odd meters" are still very important, also - AFAIK - on the Arabian Peninsula, both in Saudi Arabia and some of the Gulf states. There's an infusion of East African music in the music of much of the Arabian Peninsula (largely due to the slave trade, but also due to ongoing wars between various E. African countries and the Sultanate of Oman; Oman controlled large parts of the NE African coast at various times) + constant "new" musical influences moving from E. Africa and the Arabian Pensinsula to India (and back again) - from both trade (dhows, now freighters) and immigration. Jihad Racy and his wife Barbara are excellent sources on this; so is Phil Schuyler, who now teaches at U. Washington (in Seattle). He's spent years on Yemeni music, also on the Gnawa and various Sufi orders in Morocco.

(Kinda parenthetically, I have a "basement tape" of music from a wedding reception party - the women's party, that is - from Saudi Arabia, and they're playing polyrhythms on several frame drums. The patterns are fairly simple, but still... it's clearly African-influenced music, and very different than anything you'll hear in Lebanon, Syria or Israel...)

I think (maybe?) you're confusing pop music - like raï and jeel - with a "flattening out" of distinctive local styles of music (including rhythms). Even Egypt is really quite diverse, in terms of ethnic groups and distinctly "ocal/regional styles of music. (Check what happens in Port Said, for example - much different than in the rest of the country.)

am also wondering if you might be thinking of cabaret-style drumming (for dance routines) as opposed to the more folkloric forms in all of the Arab N. African countries? There's a big difference, in that the cabaret/dance accompaniment style is a bit more "universal" (partly due to the popularity of Egyptian movie musicals from the 40s-70s). But that *still* doesn't have much to do with local dances, local rhythms, and local/regional styles of both pop and folk/"roots" music. (I really don't like using those last several terms here, but can't think of good analogues at the moment.) There's also - definitely - a need to use simpler, more straightforward rhythms and combinations of rhythms in accompanying less experienced dancers. (Though - from what little I know of that - it seems to be much more the case with dancers who didn't grow up with the music... Happens a lot here, in the US.)

There are also distinct rhythms in Algeria and Tunisia (not just Morocco) that come from sub-Saharan Africans who either came due to the slave trade or for other reasons. (As free people, not slaves.) It's very complex stuff on the whole. I do know of some Western dancers who have spent time in past decades collecting as many rhythms as possible in both of those countries as well as in Morocco. These are quite distinct from those played in Egypt and the ME, and definitely have a strong sub-Saharan African influence as well as Berber component. (And some of them *are* Berber rhythms - but even there, there is a lot of regional and local variation.)

You can also check David Kuckhermann's YouTube vids for a great multi-part instructional session (on bendir, riqq and darbuka) on some "new" (to us) Tunisian rhythms (all pretty complex!) and Tunisian riqq technique - the latter virtually unknown outside of Tunisia ('til now).

As for countries like Iraq - well, it's got its own highly distinctive musical traditions (even percussion instruments that aren't played anywhere else in the Arab world) as well as musical styles (folkloric, classical and popular) that are quite distinct. I've got some examples on my blog (link is in my signature.) Again, there's *lots* of regional stuff, plus influence from Iran, and... I'm not the person to explain this; should ask the guy who makes my tablas and frame drums for some sources, as he's Baghdadi and a master drummer. (Has lived in the US for over 20 years now.) the upper Midwest - especially southeastern Michigan - is a *great* area for this, with so many iraqi immigrants (going back decades and decades; the Detroit area has the largest Arab American population in the US).

Here in the US - in the NYC area and in California in particular - there is also a strong contingent of Armenian immigrants who are part of the Middle Eastern music and dance scene, and they bring their own regional styles to the mix.

[e2c]

Here's a very brief list of some rhythms that are definitely in "odd meters": http://www.oud.eclipse.co.uk/iqaat.html

And a page from Maqam World - http://www.maqamworld.com/rhythms.html

*
And 2 nice podcasts with violinist Sami Shumays and riqq player Johnny Farraj:
http://cdn2.libsyn.com/shumays/PPerform ... 7586c16dad

http://cdn3.libsyn.com/shumays/PPerform ... f34a4c8a1e

You can hear very fluid transitions from one rhythm to another in these clips; also good examples of basic rhythmic patterns that are then ornamented, embellished, and improvised on... It can take a while to be able to feel comfortable with that, and to hear the transitions clearly. (It's very different than the way we tend to get into a groove and stay there for long periods of time.)

[Paul]

Wow good timing on this post I just had a first jam last night with a darbouka player and a conga player and a Samba guy.. Everyone is very much rooted in their style.. The plan is to take a rhythm with a predominantly Arabic feel but perhaps play dumbek rhythms on dununs, riff on pandero etc.. And use a similar logic for a Samba, african, cuban song... It was great fun with some blistering bongo/darbouka trade offs.. Its up to me to come up with an African song kpanalogo style springs to mind..

[e2c]

Hatem Ammous - from Sfax, Tunisia - teaches a series of Tunisian rhythms for darbouka, bendir (large frame drum with snare), and riq. (Presented by David Kuckhermann, who accompanies Ammous in these videos.)

[bubudi]

thanks for the info and videos. the middle east is quite diverse, not to mention north africa, turkey and the balkans. there's definitely a lot of diversity and so therefore you are quite right that there are a lot of different styles (old and new). i was only commenting that in general, those old rhythms with different timings have lost their popularity. i read somewhere that most middle eastern rhythms used to be in timings other than 4 and 6. quite often a rhythm with an odd timing can be broken down into sections (samaai is a pretty well known example). what happened with a lot of older rhythms is that they got simplified by removing sections. a lot of older rhythms died out this way. i can't remember where i read this. that's not to say there aren't still a fair few rhythms with odd timings. it's just a general trend...

[e2c]

Well, I think maybe what you're talking about has something to do with the way taste tends to go in cycles.... yes, certain kinds of music and instrumentation have fallen out of favor over time (and the Arab world is not nearly as unified as it used to be, back in the 40s-60s re. many cultural things - Cairo was the main cultural center then), but a lot of those "old" things do come back into favor, albeit in slightly altered ways.

There's also another rule of thumb (very unofficial, but real all the same): if anything is more than 50 years old, it's automatically pigeonholed as "classical," even if it isn't and never was. This is very true of the great Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum's (aka Oum Kolsoum and several other spellings) older recordings - even the ones made for movie musicals - and in time, her whole repertoire will be labeled that way, even though it's all popular music. (Of very high quality, but popular nonetheless.)

So I think keeping in mind that labels don't necessarily mean the same thing as they might in the English-speaking world is important. Also, there was a time (not long after the Ottoman Turkish dominance of the Middle East ended) that Turkish compositions and styles were popular throughout the Levant and in Egypt. that hasn't been true for many years... At any rate, political shifts bring about cultural shifts as well, you know?

And I feel greatly skeptical of anyone who says that "X is dead," because more than likely, it isn't. Now, it may well be that the form in which they knew X has fallen out of favor, but that's not the same as something dying off altogether.

I really doubt that "odd meters" will ever disappear from the Arab world, or from any of the countries that were ruled by the Ottoman Turks. (Very much including the Balkans.)

i read somewhere that most middle eastern rhythms used to be in timings other than 4 and 6.

Well, many still are! And those 6s aren't what we Westerners think of re. "typical" 6s. There's also a type of rhythm - the Turkish term for it is "aksak" (limping) that remains very much a part of the musical vocabulary of the region... not easy to explain in words. *Note: the 2nd rhythm Hatem Ammous teaches - Al Ghita - is an aksak-type pattern.)

[bubudi]

i see a lot of "odd meters" in dogon music, but only in two malinke rhythms. in general, the dogon have been more resistant to modernisation and i see those two things as likely being related.

again this is not an absolute, it's a trend...

[e2c]

i'm sure you're right. But there's also this: modernization doesn't automatically = Westernization.

Or maybe it's better to say that people choose to "modernize" in their own ways?

[bubudi]

very true. people can just as easily invent new rhythms in odd meters. hossam ramzy invented 'abu el khamsa' (meaning father of 5) which is on his 'introduction to egyptian dance rhythms' instructional cd. masters invent new rhythms all the time and some of them are bound to become classics...

[bops]

My buddy was at PASIC last week (Percussive Arts Society International Convention) and saw an Uzbek drummer named Abbos Kosimov. He told me that I HAD to check him out on YouTube. I did, and I still haven't picked my jaw up off the floor...

I am told that the skin is horse hide. Enjoy:

[michi]

I did, and I still haven't picked my jaw up off the floor...

Wow, that's truly amazing! The speed is just phenomenal. I guess, on a djembe, equivalent speed is unachievable--because you have to move the whole hand and part of the forearm, there is too much momentum to overcome to strike this fast. Fingers are a lot lighter, so you there is less momentum change necessary, meaning more speed.

I'd call this "filigree" drumming though--as amazing as it is, it doesn't evoke the same kind of "earth power" response in me that I get from West African drumming.

Cheers,

Michi.