Rebabs, Flutes and the Gembri

These photos are of instruments that I play and sell here in Essaouria...(from top left) These are rebabs, one of the main instruments in Arabo-Andalusian music. They are also one of the key instruments in berber music. They are a stringed instrument (mainly horse hair) on a wooden frame body, covered with a goat skin. They originated from Afghanistan no earlier than the 8th century and spread over Islamic trading routes, through North Africa, the Middle-East, Europe and the far East.

All over African there are numerous flutes and horns used for all kinds of ceremonial music. The Salamiyyan, (top right) is an open ended reed instrument associated with Sufiism. In Gnawa music, the N'far horn is commonly used - it is a three metre, sigle note horn made of copper and used in ceremonial music and to awaken the faithful during Ramadan. Raita's (top left) are a wooden double-reed instrument. Click on the photos to see the instruments in more detail.......

The Guembri

This my friends is the guembri....used by Gnawa musicians here in Essaouria.  It's a deep three stringed wooden bass, in the lute family.  Fretless, with a long, cyndrical neck and soundbox, covered with mainly goat skin.  

Gnawa music is a mystical music, brought to Morocco by Sub-Saharan Africans, it later became part of Moroccan tradition.  The ritual of the gnawa follows rules that are part of the muslim Sufi tradition and part of African animistic tradition, similar to traditions found in African diaspora in Brazil, Cuba and Haiti.  The centre of the ritual is the so-called "leelah" (the night) also called "derdeba", the night of trance.  On these nights the seven spirits are evoked through around 100 chants.  There are many leelahs held in the spiritual community, in the Muslim month of Sha'aban, just before Ramadan.

Salam Alaykum...Peace be Upon You

I wish you a good evening and welcome to Essaouria, my home town on the Atlantic Moroccan coast; a fabled magical town that linked Timbuktu to Europe and home of the

 G-nawa brotherhood, of mystic musicians.  

When I speak about G-nawa, I am talking about both the music and the musicians.  

Ancestry traced

Sub-Saharan Africa

from Ghana or Guinea

dragged to Morocco as

slaves

spiritual descent from Bilal

an Ethiopian slave

suffering before

the Prophet's first

                                                               muezzin

                                                              Gnawa is just

                                                               drum and bass

                                                              The gembri

                                                              a long-necked lute

                                                              a fat bass

                                                              accompanied by

                                                              castanets, the

                                                             karakeb

                                                           Repetitive and hypnotic

                                                          all night healing ritual

                                                          in trance and possession

                                                          

                                                          Leila - arabic for night

                                                          we play until we feel the color of

                                                         the spirits or djinns,

                                                          seven djinns: seven colors

                                                          Pains of exile

                                                          dislocation

                                                         no beginning, middle

                                                          or end

                                                          only

                                                         one continuum of G-nawa

                                                          sound and rhythm.

                                                        Marhaba - Welcome