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كنّاش

Learn to hear it

Each mizan turns on its own rhythm, and changes it when the pace quickens. Start one, watch where the dum falls, and tap until the hand knows it.

Tap the cycle

1
2
3

dum tik tik

Start the cycle, then tap with it: the space bar, or the drum.

Hear it sung

The same cycle under a sanaa of Raml al-Māya, in the anthology’s recording. Open the words while it plays: the ring there turns with the orchestra.

Rhythms after the notation published by al-ala.ma: the bare cycle, as the hand beats it in tawsīd. The sounds are plain marks, not the strokes of a ṭār or a darbūka.

Three ways of keeping the mizan

The rhythm of al-Āla is carried three ways, and a student learns them in this order: the hand first, then the darbūka, the ṭār last.

  1. 1 · first

    Tawsīdالتوسيد

    The hand: the cycle bare

    The right hand beats the cycle on the left palm or on the thigh: strong strokes, weak ones, and the rests between. Its task is to keep the rhythm and count the time. The ring above beats the cycle this bare, as al-ala.ma writes it.

  2. 2 · then

    Darbūkaالدربوكة

    Secondary, since the 1930s

    Small, of copper or brass, held on the left leg. It came into the orchestra in the 1930s. It helps keep the rhythm, and rarely plays more than the weak strokes.

    Strokes: dum and tak, named as in the East.

  3. 3 · last

    Ṭārالطار

    The leader of the rhythm

    Its player, al-ṭarrār, sets the tempo, holds it and leads the quickenings; older writers called the ṭār the music's bridle. It does not beat the bare cycle: it fills the rests and strikes with chosen notes of the melody, most of all in the basīṭ.

    Strokes: nadf in the middle of the skin (the dum), daff on the rim (the tik), zanj, the frame shaken so its cymbals ring.

Mohamed Briouel wrote out each mizan in all three ways, separately (Nawbat Gharībat al-Ḥusayn, Rabat, 1985). We have not read those tables yet, so the ring keeps to the bare cycle and draws no pattern for the ṭār or the darbūka.

After Abdelaziz Benabdeljalil, al-Mūsīqā al-andalusiyya al-maghribiyya: funūn al-adāʾ (ʿĀlam al-Maʿrifa, 1988), pp. 192, 201, 206, 235, and Yassir Bousselam (thesis, Paris Nanterre, 2022).

Words of the art

Noubaنوبة
A suite in one family of modes. Eleven survive in Morocco; each is five mizans long.
Mizanميزان
One of a nouba's five movements, and the rhythm it turns on: basīṭ, qāʾim wa-niṣf, bṭāyḥī, darj, quddām.
Sanaaصنعة
The unit of the repertoire: one sung piece with its own poem. The word means a craft, a thing well made.
Ṭabʿطبع
A mode: the scale and turns of melody a sanaa is sung in. The word also means temperament, and imprint.
Dawrدور
One turn of the rhythmic cycle. A line of verse is sung over a set number of turns.
Bughyaبغية
The unmeasured prelude that opens a nouba and lets the mode be heard before any rhythm begins.
Tūshiyaتوشية
A measured instrumental piece: the overture of a mizan, or the prelude some sanaat carry.
Muwassaʿموسّع
The broad pace a mizan opens in, and the longest of its three.
Mahzūzمهزوز
The lifted pace that carries the mizan from broad to fast.
Inṣirāfانصراف
The departure: the fast closing pace, which keeps gathering speed to the last sanaa.
Qanṭaraقنطرة
A bridge: the sanaa that carries the mizan from one pace to the next. There are two, into the mahzūz and into the inṣirāf.
Inshādإنشاد
Two lines sung alone and without measure, between sanaat, while the orchestra holds the mode.
Mawwālموال
A solo vocal improvisation on a few lines, free of the rhythm.
Shughlشغل
A sanaa whose melody is drawn out with tarāṭīn.
Tarāṭīnتراطين
Syllables without meaning (hā nā nā, ṭīrī ṭān) that carry the melody between the words.