Tahardent

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Tahardent , also tehardent, teharden, takamba is a three-stringed plucked long neck lute that is played by the Tuareg in northwest Africa . The musical instrument, native to Mali, spread to the cities north and south of the Sahara in the 1960s , where a new style of Tuareg songs and dances called takemba developed, which are accompanied on the tahardent .

Origin and Distribution

Lute instruments with a long oval or long rectangular body are widespread in West Africa and the Maghreb . They probably originated in ancient Egypt , where similar stringed instruments with a long stick-like neck can be seen on wall paintings in burial chambers of the 18th dynasty . With the migration of the Sanhajah tribes to the west, they must have come to the Maghreb and further south into the Sahara. Until the Islamization by the Arabs from the 8th century, the culture of various Berber tribes including the Tuareg had spread south into the Sahel . The string instruments around the tahardent are not related to those of the introduced Arabic music .

Berber lutes with a similar shape are the box-shaped three-string gimbri played by the Gnawas in Morocco and the Stambali musicians in Tunisia , the loutar of the Imazighen (Berbers in Morocco) and the single-stringed string lute ribab of the Moroccan Schlöh- Berber. Examples from the Sudan region are a lute with the Wolof name xalam , the ngoni from Mali and the four-string gambare . The tahardent is played by both sexes among the Tuareg, the comparable four-string tidinit in Mauritania only by men. The ardin bow harp is reserved for Mauritanian women . In the north of Niger , the southeastern distribution area of ​​the Tuareg (Tuareg group Iwellemmedan ), the structurally identical sound is called molo , the Hausa there know a related long-necked lute garaya .

The two most important traditional Tuareg instruments are the single-stringed fiddle imzad and the mortar drum tendé . It is not known since when the tahardent exists. It is not a typical musical instrument of the Tuareg and is likely to have been adopted by neighboring peoples. Their area of ​​origin is the central region of Mali between Timbuktu and Gao in the settlement area of ​​the southern Tuareg, whose griots accompanied price songs at the ruling courts with the instrument. Prolonged periods of drought and poor living conditions forced many Tuareg to emigrate to Niger at the end of the 1960s, where they met in the Lazaret refugee camp in the capital Niamey , among other places . In 1971 the tahardent appeared in the city of Agadez . There were many griots among the refugees - they came from the caste of professional musicians ( Tamascheq aggu , plural aggutan ) who could no longer be paid by their previous lordly employers. The musicians reached a new audience in the refugee centers, as did members of the blacksmith's caste ( inaden , denoting all craftsmen), who now also took up musical instruments. The Griots adapted their repertoire to the wishes of the changed audience. Some Tuaregs moved on from Niger and settled in the cities on the northern edge of the Sahara, initially in 1974 in the Tuareg stronghold of Tamanrasset in southern Algeria. A few years later, Tahardent players from Mali were represented in most of the larger cities on both edges of the western Sahara.

Design

Numerous stringed instruments in West Africa have a bowl-shaped resonance body that is covered with animal skin on the top. Among the Tuareg, this includes the imzad , whose circular body consists of half the shell of a calabash . The body of the tahardent is made from a long oval solid block of wood, which is straight or slightly tapered on the long sides , similar to the tidinit . The inades hollow out the split half of a trunk section from the flat surface to the inside with thin walls and cover it with an untanned cow or goat skin, which they nail to the side or tighten with cords. The skin is soft when processed when it is wet, when it dries it contracts and forms a firm membrane. The body is an average of 51–53 centimeters long and 18-20 centimeters wide. The tahardent is counted among the long-necked spit lute; because the neck, which consists of a round rod, is led through the body lengthways to the lower end, it is also known as an internal spear lute. The rod runs just below the membrane and protrudes about 30 centimeters.

At the lower end there is a round sound hole in the membrane. There the three strings are attached to the inside of the round bar, from where they run over a flat bridge to the neck, to which they are tied with leather straps. The straps on the neck can be moved for tuning. The strings of different thicknesses used to be made of horse hair, today they are made of nylon. All three have animal names. The lowest string is called āhār (" lion "), the middle tāzori (" hyena ") and the highest string ebāgg (" jackal ") or āwaqqas ("wild animal"). The lower two strings are tuned a fourth or fifth , the distance from the lowest to the highest string is an octave . A small metal resonator (tefararaq) hangs down from the end of the neck, adding a rasping sound. The membrane is generally not painted.

Style of play

The player sits on the floor and holds the instrument horizontally on his right thigh. He grabs the neck with his left hand. There are no frets, the pitch is formed by pressing the strings down on the neck. The pitch range is rarely more than an octave, so that position changes are not necessary. A plectrum (esker) made of bone and leather is attached to the right index finger , only the lowest string is plucked with the thumb. The other fingers can be used to tap rhythmically on the body in between. Glissandi can be created by sliding your fingers .

The tahardent is used as a soloist and for song accompaniment, traditionally but not in combination with other instruments. The griot profession, which is widespread in the Sahel zone, is traditionally inherited and forms its own caste. Tuareg music contains stylistic elements from the Moorish-Western Saharan and Western Sudanese music of the griots, with the latter predominating in the songs played on the Tahardent . The old price songs are now performed less in honor of a ruler and more often at weddings or other family celebrations at the order of the groom.

The new musical genre called takemba , which has developed in the cities according to the needs of the Tuareg, is not counted as part of their own music by the traditionalists. It consists of songs and solo pieces in which the male and female audience moves their upper bodies in a kind of sitting dance cross-legged to the rhythm and acts with their outstretched arms. In the solo pieces, the players show their virtuosity by improvising around the basic rhythm. To distinguish it from the traditional style, the term takemba is used for urban Tuareg music as a whole. In a narrower sense, it denotes certain modal melody and rhythm structures, each of which has its own name.

The oldest forms of Tahardent music are the heroic ballads of the griots, with which the rulers are celebrated. They are called yalli and n-geru and usually follow a five-measure. An older form of music to accompany dance is called abakkabuk; the styles takemba, jabā and ser-i belong to modern dance music, often in twelve-measure . Here the youth and the amusements of the youth are praised. As with Indian ragas and Arabic maqams , the modes of Tahardent music have certain characteristics and moods. Accordingly , N-geru used to mediate combat strength for warriors in general, yalli strengthened them specifically for tribal wars, but not for the fight against the French colonial power.

In some modern Tuareg music groups, a tahardent can also be used in a larger line-up together with other musical instruments. The group Tartit , which produces a mixture of styles of Malian “desert blues” and traditional own music for the international market, brings together the drum tendé , the violin imzad , the electric guitar and the tahardent .

literature

  • Eric Schmidt: Ishumar. The Guitar and the Revolution of Tuareg Culture. (Paper) Honors Program, American University, Washington DC, Spring 2009, pp. 32–37.
  • Caroline Card Wendt: Tuareg Music. In: Ruth M. Stone (Ed.): The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 1. Africa. Garland Publishing, New York / London 1998, pp. 574-595, here pp. 587-590.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Ritter, Karl-G. Prasse: Dictionary on the language and culture of the Twareg: Deutsch-Twareg . Volume 2. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2009, p. 310, 461.