CHAPTER VI

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