The Art of Al Tanbura

One of the imported African arts, which before the early 1970s aimed at a kind of folk healing using music, then became one of the arts of entertainment. "Al Tanbura" is the name of a musical instrument of African origin used to perform this genre, which came to bear the same name. Since "Al Tanbura" is itself the Pharaonic "harp" instrument, still played in the land of Nubia, this art is also called "Al Nuban". "Al Tanbura" is a stringed instrument with five strings stretched over its round body; each string is called a "khait" (thread), so it is common among the practitioners of this art to refer to "Al Tanbura" as "the thread". The strings of the tanbura are struck — played — with a piece of horn after it is rounded. The singing of the tanbura has a religious tinge, mixing Swahili and Arabic words, and much of it deals with memories of the African coast, being an inherited song passed down by ear over a long time. As for the percussion instruments that accompany the tanbura's singing, they are the kasir and rahmani drums, but — in reference to their African origin — they take a conical shape, over the wider end of which a covering of bull's hide is stretched. In this genre, "Abu Al Tanbura" — its player — sings solo, and a group of men and women respond to him. The singing and drumming are accompanied by a distinctive rhythmic movement from a young man who fastens around his waist a cloth belt onto which dozens of "dry sheep hooves and bells" are fixed; this belt is called the "manjur", producing a rhythmic sound resembling that of a rattle. When the music captivates one of the participants — man or woman — they join the dance as they please.