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Remarks on the Big Arġūl
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 February 2019
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The limited amount of information on the arġūl, often based on secondhand reports or museum exhibits, that has been available to scholars in the past accounts no doubt for many an inadmissible generalization. But European musicologists, accustomed to the relatively high degree of unity and centralization characteristic of the composed music of the West, have also tended to forget that local autonomy is a typical trait of most folk cultures, including Egyptian folk music.
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- Copyright © 1971 By The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
References
2 This is true even of the late Hans Hickmann and Charles Grégoire Duc de Mecklembourg, Catalogue d'Enregistrements de Musique Folklorique Egyptienne (Baden-Baden, 1958), and Hans Hickmann, “Klarinette,” Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Kassel, 1958), VII, pp. 993 ff.Google Scholar
3 See remarks by E. Emsheimer and E. Stockmann, Handbuch der europäischen Volksmusikinstrumente, Series I (Leipzig, 1967), I, Preface 8; and O. Elschek and E. Stockmann, “Zur Typologie der Volksmusikinstrumente,” Deutsches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde (1968), II, pp. 225 ff.Google Scholar
4 For example, E. W. Lane, Sitten und Gebräuche der heutigen Egypter (Leipzig, 1856), II, pp. 197 ff.; H.-J. Fétis, Histoire Générale de la Musique (Paris, 1869), II, pp. 157 ff.; V.-C. Mahillon, Catalogue descriptiv et analytique du Musée Instrumental du Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles, 2d ed. (Paris, 1893); C. Sachs, Real-Lexicon der Musikinstrumente (Berlin, 1913); and C. Sachs, Geist und Werden der Musikinstrumente (Berlin, 1929), pp. 143 ff. The zummāra shown in Julius Schlosser, Unsere Musikinstrumente (Vienna, 1922), III, p. 12, is incorrectly called an arġūl. The simple idioglottic clarinet, as a sort of separate melody pipe, is also sometimes called an arġūl by Egyptian folk musicians. REMARKS ON THE BIG ARĠŪLGoogle Scholar
5 See HuṣDain, 'Alī MaḥDfūz, Mu'ĝam al-mūsīqā al-'arabīya (Dictionary of Arabic Musical Terms) (Baghdad, 1964), p. 27.Google Scholar
6 Ibn Sīnā, for example, speaks of a Byzantine instrument known as al-urġun. See Zakārīya Yūsef, ed. Al-šīfā', Al-riyādīyāt, Ġawami’ ‘ilm al-mūsīqā (Cairo, 1956), III, p. 143. See also Hans Hickmann, “Orgel,” Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, X, pp. 261 ff.Google Scholar
7 Ġattās Abdel Malik Hašaba, ed., Kitāb al-mūsīqā al-kabīr (Cairo, 1967), pp. 778, 795.Google Scholar
8 Ibid., p. 795.Google Scholar
9 See note 6 above.Google Scholar
10 According to H. G. Farmer, “Meccan Musical Instruments,” Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments (London, 1931), p. 78.Google Scholar
11 Ibid.Google Scholar
12 Quoted from M. A. el-Ḥefnī's commentary on Kitāb al-mūsīqā al-kabīr, p. 779.Google Scholar
13 M. A. el-Ḥefnī, “Ālāt al-mūsīqā al-ša'bīya al-miṣDrīya,” Al-funūn al-ša'bīya, no. 1 (1959), 33. 1969 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCILGoogle Scholar
14 M. Villoteau, “Description historique, technique et litéraire des instruments de musique des orienteaux,” Description de l'Egypte, ed. C. L. F. Pankoucke (Paris, 1823) XIII, p. 466 ff.Google Scholar
15 This goes also for Hans Hickmann (see footnote 2).Google Scholar
16 Ġāba is the name of a wind instrument.Google Scholar
17 Also sibz (see Al-Fārābī, p. 787). Sibs is the name used in folk music practice for various wind instruments, usually both for smaller instruments of the flute class and of the subclasses of oboe and clarinet. See also el-Ḥefnī, “Ālāt al- mūsīqā,” p. 33; HuṣDain, 'Ali MaḥDfūz, p. 36; Hickmann and Grégoire.Google Scholar
18 On behalf of the Ministry of Culture of the UAR, Sono Cairo EST 52/53.Google Scholar
19 According to Alexandru,. a special case is that of a ṭDωrmāy with two drone pipes which he found in the possession of a folk musician.Google Scholar
20 Hickmann and Grégoire describe an instrument of this kind under the term “small arġūl.”Google Scholar
21 See Villoteau, Lane, Hickmann, el-Ḥefnī, Alexandru, and others.Google Scholar
22 Lane, Sitten und Gebräuche, II, p. 55.Google Scholar
23 Villoteau, “Description historique,” p. 470, speaks, curiously enough, of ten parts for the 1.07 cm. long “big arġūl.” According to him, the tenth part is an extension of the melody pipe. On the other hand, the smaller examples need not necessarily have fewer than nine parts, as Villoteau and other authors state.Google Scholar
24 Hickmann, “Klarinette,” p. 997.Google Scholar
25 Ibid., pp. 997 ff.Google Scholar
26 See note 23 above.Google Scholar
27 See, among others, E. M. von Hornbostel, “Die Massnorm als kulturge- schichtliches Forschungsmittel,” Publication d'Hommage Offerte au P. W. Schmidt (Vienna, 1928), pp. 303 ff.; Robert Lachmann, Musik des Orients (Breslau, 1929); P. Brömse, Flöten, Schalmeien, und Sackpfeifen Südslawiens (Brünn-Prag-Leipzig- Wien, 1937); C. Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments (New York, 1940), pp. 181 ff.; T. Alexandru, “Tilinca, ein uraltes rumänisches Volksinstrument,” Studia Memoriae Belae Bartók Sacra (Budapest, 1957), pp. 108 ff.; T. Alexandru, “The Study of Folk Musical Instruments in the Rumanian People's Republic,” Journal of the International Folk Music Council, XII (1960), 14 ff.; and especially B. Sárosi, “Die Volksinstrumente Ungarns,” Handbuch der europäischen Volksmusikinstrumente, Series I, I.Google Scholar
28 Lane, Sitten und Gebräuche, III, p. 218, names qabda as the term for a similar standard norm.Google Scholar
29 Hickmann, “Klarinette,” p. 997, gives a length of 1850 mm. for this part of an arġūl.Google Scholar
30 “La Musique Arabe,” Lavignac, Encyclopédie de la Musique (Paris, 1922), Part I, p. 2793.Google Scholar
31 Villoteau, “Description historique,” pp. 472 ff.Google Scholar
32 Sachs, Real-Lexikon, p. 19; see also Fétis, Histoire Générale, p. 158 and Mahillon, Catalogue descriptiv, I, pp. 164 ff. Here, in the case of no. 113 there is probably a confusion of the lengthening pieces. Normally the longest joins directly with the main part.Google Scholar
33 Villoteau, “Description historique,” pp. 472 ff.Google Scholar