Cream Nuhasi

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Sahn Nuhasi , Arabic صحن نحاسي, DMG ṣaḥn nuḥāsī , also ṣaḥn mīmiye; is an old, seldom played service idiophone in Yemeni music. The gong , consisting of a flat metal plate with a curved edge, is used by singers to accompany songs.

Form and style of play

The musical instrument consists of a copper plate with a diameter of about 40 centimeters, the edge of which is bent up 4–5 centimeters and provided with a narrow edge that is beaded outwards at right angles . The surface can be decorated with a variety of ring-shaped, punched patterns. The player usually holds the musical instrument horizontally between both thumbs and strikes the plate from below with his fingertips. This means that different volumes and sound variations are possible. Strikes with the fingernails produce a bright, bell-like sound, while the fingertips can be used to produce a darker, muffled tone at the same time and alternately. Yemeni women also play the cream to accompany songs at weddings in a vertical position, beating against it with a spoon. The sound is amplified, but the sound result is not very differentiated.

The beheld provides as an accompanying instrument of the voice is a particular challenge for the musicians, since it is virtually impossible to connect to the melody line, as in the Yemeni song tradition task of the four-stringed lute qanbūs is. Both instruments occasionally accompany the singing together; Soli of sahn are rather short. The singer counteracts the technical limitations of the sahn with onomatopoeic sections inserted between the lyrics , in which he achieves a rhythmic interplay with the sahn through virtuously repeated short syllables that have no meaning . While the rhythmic patterns created with the cream change only slightly, the singer constantly changes the melody in which he recites the individual stanzas, introduces new melodies in the song and adorns them with a series of meaningless syllables between the verses sung.

The goal of a good singer is to translate the verse into a pure musical form. The difficult attempt to bring the rhythmic sounds of the sahn and the singing closer together leads to a dialogue in which the instrument becomes a human voice and expresses what is not possible through language. If, according to Islamic doctrine (in the hadith ), music is viewed as inferior to the highly respected language, the musician, conversely, often perceives music as a more direct means of expression.

Musical tradition

The tradition of poetry ( homaynī ) sung in colloquial Yemeni Arabic can be traced back to the 14th century. The traditional musician is called mughannī , literally “singer”. Within the Homaynī tradition, several regional musical styles have developed in which the sahn is used as an accompanying instrument. The most important is the genre of songs al-ghināʾ al-Ṣanʿānī , in which Sufi musicians usually play on the qanbus or, if the lute was not tangible, on the sahn as well as on a self- prepared tin can ( m.tanak , Pl . atnāk ) accompanied. These alternatives were probably needed in Sanaa after Ahmad ibn Yahya came to power in 1948; the reactionary imam had banned all music practice in his capital and expelled the musicians to Aden . The remaining had to meet inconspicuously in private apartments. They had to hide their musical instruments on the street under their clothes. Today, the accompaniment of the song is almost exclusively taken from the oud , which is widespread throughout the Arab world , and various frame drums are preferred as rhythm instruments .

Most of the melodies of the Ṣanʿānī music genre are in the Arabic Maqam Rast or in the Turkish Maqam Uşşak (ʿushshāq). The typical rhythms are asymmetrically eleven and seven bars, both are called dasʿa (“step”).

In Tihama , which is influenced by musical styles from the African coast, the sahn is known alongside various rhythm instruments such as cylinder drums ( ṭabl ), beaker drums ( mirfaʿ ), the stem drum aḥfa and the clay drum zīr . In Aden there except imported from Sanaa beheld the comparable metal plate ṭāsah being beaten with batons, and a saǧāt called cymbal .

Occasions, list the old San'ani songs are weddings, convivial evening meetings ( samra ) and the afternoon meetings Men ( mayyal ) whose main purpose the Qat is -Kauen. The tradition of the solo singer who accompanies each other on the qanbus or the sahn is only maintained by a few older men.

A rare parallel is the ṣinīya metal tray , which is normally used to serve food in central and southern Iraq , and which is occasionally used to accompany the metrically unbound abūḏīya song form.

Dulang

In the 15th century at the latest, the qanbus reached some islands in Malaysia and Indonesia with Yemeni traders from the Hadramaut , where it was used as an accompanying instrument for Islamic songs called the gambus . In a religious singing style of the Minangkabau in West Sumatra bronze plate is dulang as a percussion instrument by two kneeling ( Duek ) singers in a seat dance (English generally sitting song-dance ) called salawek dulang (also salawaik dulang or salawat dulang ) used. Salawek is derived from the Arabic plural ṣalawāt from salāt ("blessing, prayer"), dulang means "presentation plate , tray" in the Malay language . According to local tradition, Muslim missionaries brought the lute and flat gong with them when they spread Islam to the Minangkabau in the late 16th century. Salawek dulang is very popular in the Minangkabau villages and is performed at weddings, circumcisions , the hundredth day after the death of a loved one, and other religious and national holidays, often in the form of competitions. The nightly performances last until dawn and are divided into 30 to 45 minute sections ( tanggak ). Each group sings between four and seven tanggak during the night . The rehearsed texts correspond to those of Islamic prayers (sermon, Chutba , or proselytizing, Dakwah ). Towards the end of a tanggak , the singers leave the rigid form and answer questions from the audience or the other group they are competing with.

The bronze plate has a diameter of about 60 centimeters. It is bent up about 5 centimeters on the outside and provided with a 6 to 7 centimeter wide, jagged, horizontally protruding edge. The two male musicians hold the dulang standing vertically on the floor with the heel of the left hand and hit it with the fingers of both hands. The sound is dull, hardly tinny and easy to mistake for a drum. In the humpback gong culture of Southeast Asia, the flat gong, as it is known from China, could not hold its own.

Discography

  • Mohammed Ismā'īl al-Khamīsī, song and sahn nuhasi : song and percussion. Yemen. Ocora Radio France, 560176, March 2006
  • Hasan al-Ajami, chant and qanbus ; Mohammed al-Khamisi, sahn nuhasi : The Singing of Sana'a. Yemen. Ocora Radio France, 9488171422, March 2008
  • Hasan al-Ajami, chant and qanbus ; Ahmed Ushaysh, sahn nuhasi (track 4 + 5): Le chant de Sanaa. Institute du Monde Arabe, 321029, March 1998

literature

  • Gabriele Braune: Yemen. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Sachteil 4, 1996, pp. 1439-1446
  • Jean Lambert: Al-ghināʾ al-Ṣanʿānī: Poetry and Music in Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen. In: Virginia Danielson, Scott Marius, Dwight Reynolds (Eds.): The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 6: The Middle East. Routledge, New York / London 2002, pp. 685-690

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jean Lambert in the booklet for the CD: Song and Percussion. Yemen. March 2006
  2. ↑ Lambert, Garland 2002, p. 690
  3. ^ Flagg Miller: Yemen. In: John Shepherd, David Horn, Dave Laing (Eds.): Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World. Volume VI: Africa and the Middle East. Continuum, London 2005, p. 244
  4. ^ AD Bakewell: Traditional Music in the Yemen. ( Memento of the original from July 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The British-Yemeni Society, 1995 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.al-bab.com
  5. ↑ Lambert, Garland 2002, p. 687
  6. ↑ Braune, Col. 1444 f.
  7. ↑ Ulrich Wegener: Abūḏīya and Mawwal. Investigations into the linguistic and musical design in southern Iraqi folk song. Volume 1. Verlag der Musikalienhandlung Karl Dieter Wagner, Hamburg 1982, p. 34
  8. ↑ Sholawat is an Arabic musical style: songs of praise to the Prophet
  9. ↑ Margaret J. Kartomi: Salawek Dulang. ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Monash University (description audio sample). Compare the CD: The Music of Islam. Vol. 15. Muslim Music of Indonesia. Aceh and West Sumatra. Produced by Margaret J. Kartomi, Celestial Harmonies 14155-2, 1998, Disc 1, track 17 and 18 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / arrow.monash.edu.au
  10. ^ Philip Yampolsky: Supplement to CD Gongs and Vocal Music from Sumatra. (Music of Indonesia 12). Smithsonian Folkways, 1996, p. 13 f.
  11. ↑ Margaret J. Kartomi: Sumatra. In: Terry E. Miller, Sean Williams (Eds.): The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 4: Southeast Asia. Garland, New York / London 1998, p. 611 f.