In the first part of our article on Arabic music and Arab instruments, we briefly discussed Arabic musical history. In the second part of the article, we will continue our talk. However, we will discuss the Arabic music instruments that give Arab music such a unique sound.<\/p>\n
Nearly 100 years after the death Abu Yusuf Ya’qub ibn Ishaq Al<\/em>–Kindi <\/em>in 874 A.D., another Arab philosopher, Abu Nasr Al<\/em>–Farabi <\/em>wrote a book. The Alkitab Alkabeer<\/em> (or \u201cThe Great Book\u201d) included immense and detailed information on music and musical instruments.<\/p>\n A good mathematician and physicist, Al-Farabi<\/em> was able to do justice to what the Arabs called speculative theory. More than anything else, however, Al-Farabi <\/em>was also one of the few practical Arab musicians who appreciated the art of music as well at its theories which Greek philosophers like Themistius could not do. So, as a well reputed musician, Al-Farabi<\/em> could bring the practical art to fruition in his discussions. In fact, he even went a step further, making valuable contributions to physiological acoustics. In other words, the sensations of tone, something the Greeks never even scratched the surface in accomplishing.<\/p>\n One example of acoustics is in an Arab musical instrument that Al-Farabi called Al-Tunboor Al-Baghdadi. The instrument\u2019s dasateen, a Persian word for the frets of the instrument, gave a quarter-tone pre-Islamic scale which was created by dividing a string into forty equal parts.<\/p>\n Indeed, Arab culture had an impact on the rest of the world in regards to musical instruments. You can see this in the Arabic origin of English words for instruments like lute (al-‘ud), rebec (rabab), guitar (qithara) and naker (naqqara). Other Arabic words for instruments like ad-duff, al-booq, an-nafeer, al-shabbabe, at-tabl and at-tinbal have morphed into the English versions of instruments known as adufe, albogon, anafil, exabeba, atabal, and atambal, respectively.<\/p>\n The ad-duff<\/em> is a pine wood traditional square tambourine, with a goat’s skin mounted over. <\/p>\n The albogon resembles the Arabian al-booq<\/em>. The Andalusian Sultan Al-Hakim II improved this type of horn in the third century. It is an ancestor of the modern-day saxophone.<\/p>\n While we\u2019re on the horned instruments, there is the Arab an-nafeer<\/em> (anafil in English), a long straight trumpet. People say that this is the instrument that the trumpeter \u201cblasted\u201d in Alf Laila wa Laila<\/em> (A Thousand and One Nights<\/em>). On the other hand, the horn player \u201cblew\u201d could be referencing the albogon (al-booq<\/em>). Perhaps the words \u201cblew\u201d and \u201cblasted\u201d are used to differentiate the tones of the conical bore horn (albogon \/al-booq<\/em>) from the cylindrical bore trumpet <\/em>(anafil\/an-nafeer<\/em>), respectively.<\/p>\nThe contributions of Al-Farabi<\/em><\/h2>\n
The adufe<\/em><\/h2>\n
The albogon<\/em><\/h2>\n
The anafil<\/em><\/h2>\n
The atabal <\/em>and the atambal<\/em><\/h2>\n