Kanun (music)

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Drawing of an Arab canoe player in Jerusalem , 1859

Kanun ( Arabic قانون, DMG qānūn , plural qawānīn ) is a box zither that is native to the Orient . The name of the "oriental zither" is derived from the ancient Greek κανών ("regulation", "rule", "monochord").

Design

The trapezoidal instrument is made of wood and has 63 to 84 strings , with three strings assigned to each tone. In contrast to the alpine zither instrument with gut or nylon strings, more recently, strings made of fluorocarbon covered, which may vary depending on geographic region. The bridge is not on a wooden ceiling, but on parchment (as a drumhead), similar to the banjo . This results in a characteristic sound.

The instrument is played lying with the long side against the body; formerly sitting on the floor and held with the knees. Today the musician sits on a chair and the kanun lies on his lap or on the table in front of him. The kanun is plucked with picks made of horn or metal, which are placed on the index fingers like thimbles .

origin

The word al-qānūn for a box zither has been known in Arabic-language sources since the 10th century. The first images of a kanun can be found in Hassan Bar Bahlul's († 963) lexicon. In the 13th century it is said to have been the main instrument of the Moors in Andalusia , who brought the instrument to Europe as the forerunner of the European zither, where it is depicted on the wall paintings of the Camposanto Monumentale in Pisa . A larger rectangular zither with 108 strings introduced in the 13th century was called nuzha .

One of the kanun back box zither developed with half the number of strings are in Iran and northwest India played santur . The swarmandal , which was only used for singing in northern India, probably corresponded to the kanun in the Mughal period .

Mood

Until the invention of the mandal at the beginning of the 20th century, the instrument was not suitable for modulating. With these small levers attached to the side of the strings, the intonation can be adjusted to the desired fine tuning while playing. The modern Arabic qānūn usually has a 24-, the Turkish kanun has a 72-note basic tuning within the seven strings per octave . Some Arabic models have an additional lever for the second of the maqam Hiĝāz, which is tuned one point higher . The equilibrium temperature , to which all these models refer, has little in common with the theoretical tradition of the Middle East and often corresponds to its range of intervals only vaguely. The use of temperature in Turkey and the Arab world is most likely due to Europeanizing tendencies. The internationally known virtuoso Julien Jalâl Ed-Dine Weiss (* 1953 in Paris), a prominent critic of the tempered kanun , has designed nine prototypes since the 1990s according to his own tuning system in which for the first time all intervals are based on pure Pythagorean and based on harmonic division ratios. Its strings are tuned to an exact Pythagorean- heptatonic scale , which is derived in its pitches from Pythagorean Limmas (256/243) and pure whole tones (9/8) and nowhere contains the abstract tempered semitone (100 cents ). On each move fifteen different mandal positions (0-14) are enclosed by two Pythagorean apotomes 2187/2048 (113.69 cents). The two most recent prototypes also expand the range by an additional octave down, to a total of 33 strings or four octaves and a fifth . By combining theoretical and acoustic motivations with his practical experience, Weiss was able to play with musicians in different local traditions.

Kanun player

Rahim Qanuni (1871–1944) reintroduced the kanun , which had disappeared since the end of the 16th century , into Iran around 1900 . His son Jalal Qanuni (1900–1987) took over his position as the leading Iranian kanun game. The most famous kanun players in Turkey include Ruhi Ayangil (* 1953), Tahir Aydoğdu (* 1959) and Göksel Baktagir (* 1966).

literature

  • Nasser Kanani: Traditional Persian art music: history, musical instruments, structure, execution, characteristics. 2nd revised and expanded edition, Gardoon Verlag, Berlin 2012, pp. 164–166.

Web links

Commons : Kanun  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans Hickmann: The music of the Arabic-Islamic area. In: Bertold Spuler (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Orientalistik. 1. Dept. The Near and Middle East. Supplementary Volume IV. Oriental Music. EJ Brill, Leiden / Cologne 1970, p. 64
  2. ^ Nasser Kanani: Traditional Persian Art Music: History, Musical Instruments, Structure, Execution, Characteristics. 2nd revised and expanded edition, Gardoon Verlag, Berlin 2012, p. 164
  3. ↑ Stefan Pohlit: Julien Jalâl Ed-Dine White: A Novel Tuning System for the Middle-Eastern Qanun. Ph.D. Thesis, 2011 . In: Istanbul Technical University: Institute of Social Sciences . 2011. Accessed November 1, 2015.