The Arab Spreads Culture—The Gods Give Music to the Hindus
Arabia is the southwestern peninsula of Asia and is bounded by the Red
Sea, Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. It was well situated to come in
contact with the ancient nations of the world.
This story of Arabia and its music will include all those peoples to
whom the Arabs gave of their learning. Saracen, Mussulman, Mohammedan
and Islamite are different names for the same people, but they are all
Arabs, even though they are not Arabians living in Arabia.
Arab music fills in the gaps between the ancient civilizations, the
beginnings of early Christian music and the time of the Minnesingers and
the Troubadours.
During the years we call the Dark Ages (500 to 1300 A.D.), Europe was in
a semi-barbarous state and there was little learning outside of the
monasteries. All the culture and advances made by the Greeks and Romans
seemed in danger of perishing in the raids and attacks of barbarous
tribes, and wars among the early European peoples. But the Arabs, on
whom we look today as almost barbarians, were the highly cultured race
of that far-off time.
They were great mathematicians and from them we have Algebra and our
Arabic numerals 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. From them we have the arabesques, or
the intricate geometric designs in carvings and traceries, seen on
buildings in the countries where the Arabs built, lived, roamed or
studied.
Long before the Christian era there were very wonderful Arabian
universities in Bagdad and Damascus, so famous that they attracted many
Greek and Hebrew scholars to learn from the Arabian philosophers and
wise men.
Mohammed, their greatest prophet, who was born in 570 A.D., wrote their
holy book called the _Koran_. While he lived the Arabs were at the
height of their power.
Because they had studied the learning of the past, and had invaded and
conquered parts of Europe, the Arabs brought to Europe their arts and
sciences and the learning of the ancient nations. Through their
conquests they also carried their ways of living into the countries of
the barbarians. For example, in 711, they drove the Goths out from Spain
and set up their own caliphs (rulers) in that country, so that at this
time they had two capitals—the original Bagdad and one at Cordova. From
these Arabs, who came from Mauretania in Africa to Spain, descended the
people we call Moors. It is for this reason that we have traces of Arab
music and the Moorish architecture or Arab-like buildings of which the
Alhambra is best known, in Spain. In Cordova, grew up a center of
learning, far greater than any in the surrounding countries. At the
university was a library of over 600,000 manuscripts not yet in book
form, for printing had not been invented. Here, too, great chemists
studied and discovered alcohol, sulphuric and nitric acids. The clock
also was invented by the Arabs, and the game of chess was first thought
out when the Chinese were already playing Mah Jong! They were
responsible, too, for trigonometry as well as algebra, and they knew how
to make cotton goods, and were famous for the Damascus steel out of
which the swords of the heroes for many generations were forged. Even
today Damascus steel is looked upon as excellent.
As they were worshippers of Mohammed, they were not permitted to make
portraits of human beings in stone or on parchments for they believed
that they would be deprived of their souls at the day of judgment should
they reproduce the human form. So they put their artistic efforts into
color and design.
Not satisfied with their conquest of the Goths, they decided to enter
France, but were kept out by Emperor Charlemagne who thought
differently, and stopped them. It was due to this conflict that the
great epic _La Chanson de Roland_ (The Song of Roland) was written.
Then came the Crusades, the expeditions which went on for many years to
wrest the shrine of the Saviour from the hand of the Mussulman. These
wars continued so long, that nearly every European group of people came
in contact with the Arab, and in so doing, learned much from him.
The Arab was a courageous, loyal person, proud and ready to die for his
own ideas; he was courtly, yet careful in all business dealings and many
of his traits were passed on to his descendants. Very rapidly the rough
warrior of the desert was transformed into a luxury-loving, cultured
man.
The Arabians seemed to be great musical blotters; because they blotted
up or absorbed music wherever they went and made it theirs! But they
were unlike blotters for loving it; they made a science of it and passed
it on to other nations and thence to us.
So much of the Persian music was absorbed by the Arab that it would be
difficult to separate them in our story. The Arabs took the very
loosely-put-together music of Persia and made it over into better form.
Even before the Mohammedan conquests (700–800 A.D.), Arab music was well
planned, and as they spread later to North Africa, Egypt, Morocco,
Greece, Italy, and Spain, they left some traces of their own music and
took something of the music of the natives. Furthermore, they adopted
many of the instruments that they found and they became the ancestors of
some of our own.
The ancient Arabs did not write down their music, but handed it on from
musician to musician, gaining and losing very little from the many hands
through which it passed. They have none of what we call harmony or
accompaniment, as in their orchestras all the instruments except the
drums play the same tune; the drums mark the time and often play very
complicated rhythms. This makes their music sound confused to us, but by
hearing it often you learn in what an orderly way it is done, and you
will see why many people like it.
The caliphs (rulers) had court musicians and probably more music was
played and more scientific treatises on music were written by these
people than by any other mediæval or ancient race.
THE ARAB SCALES
There has been much argument about Arab music as to whether the scale
was divided into seventeen steps or eight, as is our scale. Some people
think they hear it as seventeen tones divided into one-third steps, but
Baron d’Erlanger, a great authority on ancient Arab music, says that
there are two distinct musical systems still in use. One comes from
their ancient home in Asia, and the other from the Pharaohs of Egypt.
And the fact that these two systems have been mixed in using them leads
to the question of what the real scale is. Baron d’Erlanger finds, as
the result of his experiments, that if we could lower, ever so slightly,
the third and seventh tones of our scale, we would have the old Pharaoh
scale in its simplest form. The other scales can be played on stringed
instruments on which there are no fixed tones as there are on a keyboard
instrument like a piano, and can therefore play the intervals that do
not exist on the piano.
[Illustration:
_Laura Williams, American Singer of Arab Songs, in Native Costume,
Accompanying Herself on El oud (the Lute)._
]
It is impossible to say how many scales or modes the Arabs use, because
each change of the tiniest part of a step creates a new mode, and there
are many combinations possible. Some say that there are thirty-four
modes; another says that there are twenty-four, one for each hour of the
day. There are also modes for the four elements—fire, water, earth, and
air; for the twelve signs of the zodiac, and for the seven planets.
Each mode has a name, called after all sorts of things like cities or
tribes or ornaments, in fact, anything familiar to the people.
The weird effects made by the _Gloss_ or musical ornaments like the
trill, grace notes and slidings give the music a dreamy fascinating
character, the charm of which is increased by its frequent changes from
double to triple time, or from triple to double.
INSTRUMENTS
It is through the instruments that we can trace the Arab influence in
our own music. When we come to the story of the Troubadours, you will
see them using the lute, the principal instrument of the Middle Ages.
This was called _el oud_, which gradually became _lute_, because the
Europeans heard the words that way.
So you can see here, how art travels through the chances and changes of
wars, wanderings, conquests and political shiftings of power among the
different nations.
Most of the Arab instruments are of Persian, Egyptian and Greek origin,
but as we said above, the Arab became so mixed with other peoples of the
world, that in wandering about, what is really theirs in music or
instruments, or what was borrowed from others, is difficult to tell. But
we can tell you that the popular music of the Arab, as you hear it
today, in bazaars and cafés of Northern Africa and in parts of Asia
where Arabs are still to be found, has remained practically unchanged
throughout the centuries. Even the instruments are the same.
_El oud_ still remains the popular instrument and shares its popularity
with the _kanoun_, which is probably of Persian origin. This _kanoun_ is
like a zither, and is specially tuned for every scale. It is said that
the Arab spends three-quarters of his life tuning his instruments.
Baron Rodolphe d’Erlanger, an Englishman living in Tunis, has spent
twelve years studying the ancient Arabian music in order to preserve it,
for it is dying out through the arrival of modern European civilization
accompanied by phonographs, jazz and radios.
Their viols are of real interest because it is claimed that they are the
ancestors of the great violin family. These ancestors are of different
styles and are called the _rebab_ and _kemangeh_, sometimes played with
the bow and sometimes without. They have _kissars_ and _lyres_ and
various forms of zithers, besides the _kanoun_. The Arabs’ fondness for
strings is proof that they were indeed sensitive and fine, while most of
their neighbors liked the drums and brasses much more, showing a lower
grade of civilization. By this we do not mean that the Arabs were not
fond of their drums, because the drum was one of the chief features of
their music. Indeed they had many kinds—the _atambal_ which looks like
two kettle-drums hitched together; the _derbouka_ which is really a vase
with a skin stretched over the base; the _taar_ like our tambourine; the
_bendaair_, an open faced shallow drum, with snares (cords) stretched
across inside the head somewhat like our own snare drum; and the _dof_,
a squarish drum played with the hands and knuckles like the _taar_, but
with the snares. The Hebrews had an instrument like this called the
_tof_ or _toph_ and the Persians also had the _dof_ or _duff_. So, here
again, you see how one nation affects the other. (Figure 8.)
Then they had flutes called the _ijaouak_ and _gosba_ with three or more
holes, which they used for sad tunes.
Every visitor to a Mohammedan country is introduced to Arab religious
music at day-break, noon and sun-down, by the muezzin (priest) who calls
the faithful of Mohammed to prayer, from an opening in the tower of a
mosque. This call has been handed down to the Mohammedans from a time
even before the coming of Mohammed (6th century A.D.).
MOHAMMEDAN CALL TO PRAYER
[Music:
Al-la-ho ak-bar
Al-la-ho a-kbar ach ha-dou en-nâ la e-lah ell Al-lah
Ach ha-dou en-nâ.
Mo-hammed ra-soul Al-lah
Al-la-ho-ak-bar lâ e-lah ell-Allah
From ‘THE ART OF MUSIC’
]
THE GODS GIVE MUSIC TO THE HINDUS
There had been so much conquest and battling in India, that although we
know much about Hindu music it is very difficult to tell what really
belonged to the Hindus and what was brought to them.
The native legends tell us that the gods gave music to the people and
all through the music there are signs to show their power and influence.
The literature of India can be traced back many centuries and through it
we see what an important place song held. There were minstrels in the
ancient courts whose duty it was to chant songs in praise of their royal
masters. In their religious ceremonies, too, music held a high place.
One of their holy books says: “Indra (their chief god) rejects the
offering made without music.” The Hindu people are divided into many
classes, which they call castes, and in ancient times the singers were
members of the priest caste. The Hindus love music and have always used
it for all festivities, in the drama, and in the temples.
The singing of poems from ancient time has always been popular and
dancing too, and here, as among the Japanese, have grown up trained
dancers called the Bayaderes or Nautch girls. (Chapter V).
Music is still used in India to appease and please the gods and to plead
for rain or sunshine.
Travelers to India relate that they have heard the beating of drums,
accompanied by solo voice or by a chorus, continued for several days at
a time. When there has been a drought, and rain is needed, this long
drawn out music is used as a means to ask the god to bring rain.
In the Temple of the Sacred Tooth in Ceylon (India) on each night of the
full moon, the sacred books are chanted by relays of yellow-robed
priests, following each other every two hours from dark to dawn. They
chant in deep resounding voices without a pause. The Buddhist priests
have repeated these sacred texts on every night of the full moon for
twenty-eight centuries!
In India they have made a deep study of color and sound and things we
know very little about, and to which we attach very little importance.
Through their study of the laws of sound and color, the Hindus feel sure
that they are related. Edward Maryon in “Marcotone” says: “Chemistry and
Mathematics prove that the Natural Scales of Light and Sound in
Principle are one, and therefore the Primary Colors of the Solar
Spectrum, and the Primary Tones of the Musical Scale have the same
_ratio_ of speed vibrations. Therefore both _Tone_ and _Color_ can be
scaled so that a given number of Lightspeeds (Colors), will equal a
given number of Soundwaves (Tones).”
When Edward Maryon was in India he visited one of the temples and in
watching the prayer wheels, noticed that a certain wheel moving at a
certain speed produced a certain sound and a certain color, while
another wheel moving at a different speed produced a different tone and
a different color. It interested him so much that he learned from a
Hindu priest about the relation of light and sound. This led to very
interesting experiments and results which he has used in teaching music.
The color red is supposed to correspond with the musical sound middle C,
orange with D, yellow with E, green with F, blue with G, indigo with A,
and violet with B. And recently in America we have been interested in
seeing a color organ, the “Clavilux” invented by Thomas Wilfred which
plays tones of colors instead of tones of sound.
This is a direct twentieth century result of the so-called “magic” of
primitive times. From this you can see how the magic of ancient days is
explained by modern science.
HINDU RAGS
The Hindu songs presided over by special gods were called _rags_, but of
course, the name has no relationship whatever to our _ragtime_.
It seems that religious feeling has dominated everything in the Orient;
for this reason every idea connected with music has a corresponding idea
in Hindu mythology. The _rags_ were all named after the gods who brought
music down from heaven to comfort man. The character of each god or
goddess was supposed to be reflected in the _rag_, and it was not the
result of scientific study as were, for instance, the scales of the
Chinese. Our knowledge of the _rag_ has come down to us from what
Sanskrit writers on Indian music have said, and what is practised today
by the modern Hindu. No doubt Arabia and Persia once had a music system
very much like this one of the Hindus.
_Rags_, _ragas_, or _raginis_ were neither airs nor modes in our sense
of the words, but something like the modes of the Arab songs, they were
melodic forms, or themes, on which musicians either improvised or
composed new songs, by using them in rhythms of endless variety.
There were many many _rags_, and they were under the guidance of the
gods of the rainy season, the cold season, the mild, the hot, etc., and
could only be sung during their special seasons. It was thought that
these songs sung at the wrong time would bring down calamity. Again, as
with the American Indian (Chapter II), we find tribes who are most
careful to sing certain music at certain times.
It is told that a Hindu nobleman, long ago, tried to sing a night song
in the daytime and darkness covered all things within the sound of his
voice!
As important as was the song from the earliest time, instrumental music
held almost an equal place.
ORCHESTRA
The Hindu orchestra is sometimes large and sometimes small. Its dances
are lively and vigorous, and very seldom slow and romantic. Nevertheless
they have many kinds of songs, some lively and some not, such as: songs
in honor of Krishna (one of their principal gods), official odes, war
hymns, love songs, evening songs, wedding songs, cradle and patriotic
songs. In some, the Arab seems to have influenced the Hindu music,
because they have the lively rhythm and the variety of the Arab music,
yet it is difficult to know which one influenced the other. The Arab
music has the variety and luxurious soft beauty in popular dances equal
to anything our modern musicians or poets have composed.
The playing of instruments, accompanying songs with Sanskrit texts, was
supposed to give energy, develop heroism, make a peaceful heart, and
drive away harm and impurity.
The members of the different castes or sects had and still have meetings
held sometimes in private houses and sometimes in the temples, when they
sang religious hymns. Among the higher classes, they went to the expense
of having good musicians and of giving artistic performances, but among
the common people, their idea was that the greater the noise the more
they showed their devotion, so they sang, beat drums and blew whistles
without any regard for time or melody, and you can imagine the effect
was pandemonium.
NOTATION
It is impossible to write the Hindu music in European notation, because
instead of dividing the scale into semi-tones or half-steps, they use
quarter tones.
Margaret Glyn, in her book, _Evolution of Musical Form_, writes:
“In the East notation is in an elementary condition, the staff being
unknown. The Hindus, Chinese, and Abyssinians have ancient note-signs,
consisting of a kind of letter to which some indication of time is
added, but in this respect the Chinese system is wanting, having
practically no time-notation. Probably note-signs existed in Persia and
Arabia, but these do not appear to have survived. The modern Arabic
notation is but three hundred years old, and is said to have been
invented by one Demetrius de Cantemir who adapted the letters of the
Turkish alphabet for the purpose. This has eighteen tones to the octave
(we have twelve), and is used in Turkey and other countries of the near
East.”
The Hindus seem to like both triple (3 beats) and duple (2 or 4 beats)
rhythm. The scheme changes according to the poetry of the song, and the
pitch and the length of tones are shown by Sanskrit characters and
special signs or words.
INSTRUMENTS
The Hindus have spent much time in studying music and the instruments of
which they have many kinds. There are the strings, there are skins
sounded by beating, instruments struck together in pairs, and those that
are blown. They like the strings best. The characteristic instrument is
the _vina_, usually of wood or bamboo strengthened by one to three
gourds as sounding boards, and having five or seven wire strings played
something like the zither, but sometimes with a bow. (Figure 16.) There
are many varieties of the _sitar_, an instrument like a lute, and many
viols of which the _sarinda sarunja_ is typical and is played with a
bow. (Figure 17.)
Among the percussion instruments are tambourines, castanets and cymbals;
they had wind instruments such as flutes (seldom transverse or blown in
from the side, and often played by blowing on them through the
nostrils), trumpets, horns, bagpipes and oboes. Certain instruments were
used only by the priests, others by beggars, and others by dancing
girls. Imagine how weird a story could be told in music if a modern
symphony orchestra played a piece of music telling of life among the
Hindus. Maybe some of the readers of this book will get an idea for a
Hindu tone poem, who knows?
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City._
_Hindu Instruments._
_Fig. 15.—Tabla—drum._
_Fig. 16.—Kinnari—Vina, a stringed instrument._
]
[Illustration:
_Fig. 17._
_Sitar (Strings) Trumpet._
]
[Illustration:
_Fig. 18._
_Hindu Instruments._
]
Childhood of Music