The Indian singer Jayashri Ramnath (better known as Bombay Jayashri) was introduced to Karnatak music in her early childhood, influenced by her parents’ roles as music teachers. Jayashri began her performing career at the age of 28, and having grown up in cosmopolitan Mumbai (formerly Bombay), she was exposed to a wide range of music genres, including bhajans, film music, Hindustani classical, and light music. Despite this diverse musical background, Jayashri’s passion for Karnatak music remained at the core of her identity. During her childhood and college years, she kept her Karnatak training a secret while also exploring other musical opportunities, including singing jingles. Her voice, shaped by Hindustani training, combined with her soulful delivery drawn from her eclectic musical experiences, made Jayashri a distinctive performer.
Jayashri also has ventured into other genres, frequently collaborating with a variety of instrumentalists and vocalists. Boldly, for a Karnatak classical singer not yet widely established, she sang for films in multiple South Asian languages, including Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu. Many of these film songs became huge successes, earning her the title of best female playback singer in Tamil Nadu province. Until today, her music is characterized by a contemplative quality known as sruti suddham. Initially criticized for offering sweet music rather than more profound depth, Jayashri’s style has matured into a serene and resonant presence. Her stage demeanor exudes dignity, free from unnecessary gestures, reflecting her deep connection to the beauty of raga. As a composer, she has also earned recognition for her collaborations with artists like Chitra Visweswara, Parvathy, and others.
Jayashri with her son, Amrit.
The most exceptional aspect of her musical career, however, is her immense popularity, which spans across regions and extends worldwide. She has truly become an internationally beloved star, forging a unique connection with diverse audiences through her hypnotic and compelling voice. Beyond her musical talents, she is known for her warmth and kindness in post-concert interactions, leaving lasting memories not only of her remarkable music but also of her humble and genuinely kind nature.
This according to “Bombay Jayashri Ramnath–Notes of resilience: Reflecting with grace and gratitude” by Shailaja Khanna (Sruti: India’s premier magazine for the performing arts 31/1 [2024] 20–25; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2024-10526). Find it in RILM Abstracts with Full Text.
Below, Jayashri performs at a concert in Sri Lanka.
International Women’s Day, celebrated worldwide on Saturday, 8 March, highlights the remarkable achievements of women and reinforces the ongoing pursuit of gender equality. To honor this day, Bibliolore features a reference text from RILM Music Encyclopedias, International Encyclopedia of Women Composers by Aaron I. Cohen, which celebrates the extraordinary contributions of women in music. Let its inspiring content guide you in embracing this year’s International Women’s Day theme, “accelerate action”, a rallying cry for equal rights, power, and opportunities for all. At the heart of this vision lies the empowerment of the next generation—particularly young women and adolescent girls—as driving forces for meaningful and lasting change. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a progressive document used as a blueprint for women’s and girls’ rights worldwide that transformed the women’s rights agenda in terms of legal protection, access to services, youth engagement, and change in social norms and stereotypes.
A retired town planner and self-proclaimed “research buff” from Johannesburg, South Africa, Aaron I. Cohen (b.1906) made history in 1981 by publishing the first encyclopedia dedicated to women composers. The second edition of this groundbreaking work, expanded into two volumes, includes 6,200 entries and 14 appendices. Cohen’s remarkable research journey began with a four-year expedition across Europe, during which he gathered materials on women composers. He also established a global network of antiquarians who provided him with essential references. Recognizing the linguistic diversity of the sources, he eventually put together a small team capable of translating texts from at least 15 different languages.
Cohen’s encyclopedia is remarkable for its breadth, highlighting the earliest known woman composer, Hemre (2723 B.C.E.), an Egyptian leader of court music, and spans a vast geographical scope, featuring nearly 300 composers from Asia to Central America. To this day, the International encyclopedia of women composers remains the only comprehensive resource that covers virtually every known woman composer. It provides biographical details, lists of compositions and publications, as well as a bibliography. This edition also includes a discography and a list of recording companies, making it an invaluable reference for understanding the contributions of women in music.
To learn more, visit RILM Music Encyclopedias and browse through its encyclopedias devoted to a wide range of music and subjects.
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In 1989, the Malaysian band Search became a cultural phenomenon across the maritime Southeast Asia region (locally known as nusantara, or archipelago), successfully exporting their unique style of Malaysian hard rock and heavy metal, which came to be known retrospectively in the Malay language as rock kapak(literally “axe rock”). Their success paved the way for cross-border collaborations in Indonesia and elsewhere, including recordings, tours, and a feature-length film. Following the release of their 1985 debut album Cinta buatan Malaysia (Love made in Malaysia), Search emerged as leaders in the emerging Malay hard rock scene. As heavy metal and rock music gained popularity among youth across the country, Malaysian authorities attempted to limit its spread by imposing a ban on long-haired rockers in 1992. The government justified this measure by associating rock and metal with antisocial behavior, drug use, and other undesirable activities. Search found themselves at the heart of this controversy, as the ban restricted the broadcast of their music on national radio and television. Instead of altering their appearance, Search chose to defy the ban, leading to concert permit denials by government officials.
The Cinta buatan Malaysia cassette tape.
This episode underscores the connections and tensions stirred by Malay rock, which acted as both a crossing of nation-state borders and a challenge to religious and moral boundaries. The former can be understood in the context of inter-regional popular music exchanges within the nusantara region, while the latter reflects Malay rock’s resistance to authoritarian moral policing. The boundary crossings enacted by Search illustrate how the mobility of Malay rock, seen as an informal cross-nusantara movement predominantly led by male, working-class youth, opposed the conservative policies of ethnonational states. While Search’s movement across the region represented a porous crossing of domestic and regional borders, it was the emotionally resonant aspects of their popular ballads that attracted a wide audience across maritime Southeast Asia and even influenced politicians who sought to control their public image.
Search in 2022.
Despite the challenges posed by the long hair ban, Search persevered, consistently releasing albums and singles throughout the 1990s and 2000s, even as rock’s popularity declined in favor of pop, hip hop, and R&B across Asia. Their most recent album, Katharsis, was released in 2017.
This according to “Crossing borders and crossing the line: Nusantara mobilities of Search and the Malay rock phenomenon (1980s and 1990s)” by Adil Johan (Indonesia and the Malay world 51/151[2023] 257–278; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2023-16963).
Below are links to two classic Search music videos:
The U.S. composer and conductor William Grant Still, whose maternal grandmother had been a slave on a plantation in Georgia, attended Wilberforce University in Ohio from 1911 to 1915 after attending high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, where his mother taught English literature. Still learned to play the violin, cello, and oboe and wrote his first arrangements and began to compose as an autodidact. In 1917, he enrolled at Oberlin Conservatory, where he studied composition and theory. After eight months of service in the Navy during World War I, Still briefly resumed his studies but in 1919, went to work in New York as an arranger for the Pace and Handy Music Publishing Company, for which he arranged, among other things the songSaint Louis blues, which was recorded by James Reese Europe’sHellfighters (369th Infantry Regiment Band). In 1936, he conducted the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra and in 1955, the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra. In both instances, Still was the first African American conductor to do so.
As many of the titles reveal, nearly all of Still’s work reflected African American life. His first orchestral compositions were Darker America (1924), From the journal of a wanderer (1925), and From the Black belt (1926). Two major orchestral pieces, Africa (1930) and the popular Afro-American symphony (1930), established his wide reputation and helped him earn a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1933. At this time, Still turned his attention to the stage with two ballets for the Ruth Page Company of Chicago: La guiablesse (1927), set in Martinique, and Sahdji (1930), with an African background. A third ballet, Miss Sally’s party, dates from 1940. In 1934, Still received another Guggenheim Fellowship for composition and moved from New York to Los Angeles, where he completed his first opera, Blue steel (1934).
Still with Verna Arvey and their two children. Photo courtesy Judith Anne Still.
This marked the beginning of a series of stage works characterized by close collaboration with Verna Arvey, a white Jewish pianist, librettist, and writer, and Still’s second wife, which became high points of his career. Almost all these works addressed racial problems in the U.S., with Troubled island being the most notable example. Created in collaboration with Langston Hughes, it premiered in 1949 at the New York City Center. Still’s dedication to African American themes resulted in three notable text settings: And they lynched him from a tree (1940); Plainchant for America (1941), and Pages from Negro history (1943). He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship again in 1935 and 1938. During this time, Still composed for film and television while also pursuing his aspirations as a composer of serious music.
This according to the Dictionary of American classical composers (2005). Find it in RILM Music Encylopedias.
Listen to two of William Grant Still’s better known compositions below.
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As the string quartet established its place as a distinct chamber music genre, it gained a reputation as the most demanding form of instrumental music and eventually transitioned from aristocratic and bourgeois salons to public concerts. This shift required performers to adapt, transforming the music making experience from casual, intimate gatherings of like-minded individuals to more formal recitals, creating a new dynamic between performers and audience. While private quartets continued to exist alongside public performances, such practices have not been extensively documented.
Around 1800, Vienna saw a notable number of regular quartet gatherings, held in both prominent and less prominent homes, such as those of Emanuel Aloys Förster and Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz. Similar activities during the late 18th and early 19th centuries were sporadically documented across various courtly, aristocratic, and bourgeois salons throughout the German-speaking region, as well as in (primarily Austrian) monasteries and charitable foundations. These quartet performances were also featured in regular quartet entertainment or as part of larger mixed programs in both large and small towns.
While little is known about the exact musical standards of these private, semi-public, and public performances, it is likely that they were of high quality, as the performers were typically musically trained connoisseurs or professional musicians. These gatherings likely provided the foundation for developments that would dominate the 19th century: the concerts of traveling virtuosos who, from city to city, sought new partners for semi-public performances in private homes or public concerts, the concert tours of permanent ensembles, and the establishment of such ensembles in aristocratic or upper-class households.
This according to this month’s featured article on the string quartet ensemble in MGG Online.
The Filipino ethnomusicologist and composer Jose Maceda created unique works that blended his fieldwork on Filipino and other music with his expertise in European avant-garde traditions. His compositions combined innovative techniques such as spatialization, a focus on timbre, and musique concrète with Asian instruments, rhythms, and structures. Maceda was particularly drawn to a flexible approach to time, famously commenting during a flight from New Zealand to the Philippines that a recording of a Chopin Berceuse was “so stiff that I wanted to jump out of the plane!”
In a 1975 paper presented at the Third Asian Composers’ League Conference and Festival in Manila, Maceda proposed a new concept of Asian musical time, inspired by natural phenomena like bird migration and plant flowering, rather than clocks, time signatures, or barlines. In 1971, he composed Cassettes 100, a performance featuring a hundred performers with portable cassette players in the lobby of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The piece incorporated recordings of Indigenous instruments, natural sounds, and choreographed movements. As Maceda explained, “The recordings are my dictionary. They are a receptacle of ideas from which I can pull at any time.”
Maceda’s Cassettes 100 was re-staged in Singapore as part of the 2019 exhibition Suddenly turning visible: Art and architecture in Southeast Asia (1969–1989).
After graduating from the Academy of Music in Manila in 1935, Maceda continued his studies in piano with Nadja Boulanger and Alfred Cortot in Paris. He also pursued musicology at Columbia University and Queens College in New York, anthropology at Northwestern University, and ethnomusicology at Indiana University in Bloomington, as well as at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he earned his doctorate. Between 1940 and 1957, Maceda performed as a pianist in France, and during the same period, he also worked as a conductor in both the United States and the Philippines. He conducted works by composers such as Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, and others, including pieces from China and the Philippines. In 1958, Maceda worked as a researcher at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris, where he met influential figures such as Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis.
Maceda served as a professor of piano and ethnomusicology at the University of the Philippines from 1952 to 1990. He became renowned for his extensive fieldwork, which spanned diverse settings, including urban areas, remote mountain villages, and island communities across the Philippines. Maceda’s research also took him to musician communities in Sarawak (Malaysia), Thailand, Kalimantan (Indonesia), Africa, Brazil, and Australia, with his findings published in numerous international journals. His work focused on documenting Southeast and East Asian musical practices and folk traditions, particularly prehistorical Indigenous music. Maceda’s field recordings, which encompass 51 language groups and include music, instruments, photographs, text transcriptions, and translations, are archived at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City. From 1997 to 2004, Maceda served as the executive director of the UP Center for Ethnomusicology in the Department of Music Research at the university.
The floorplan for Maceda’s Pagsamba, performed by 241 musicians at the Parish of Holy Sacrifice in Quezon City, Philippines (1968). Image courtesy of the UP Center for Ethnomusicology.
He received numerous prestigious scholarships and awards throughout his career, recognizing his contributions to music and ethnomusicology. He was awarded research scholarships for his work in Africa and Brazil by the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation in 1968. Maceda also received the Ordre des Palmes Académiques in France (1978), the Outstanding Research Award from the University of the Philippines (1985), the John D. Rockefeller Award from the Asian Cultural Council in New York (1987), and the Fondazione Civitella Ranieri Award in Italy (1997). In 2000, he was honored as a Filipino National Artist for Music by the Philippine government. Additionally, three of his albums–Gongs and bamboo (2001), Drone and melody (2007), and Ugnayan(2009)–were released on John Zorn’s Tzadik label.
This according to the entry on Jose Maceda in MGG Online.
From 1918 to 1928, Tin Pan Alley solidified its connection with the film industry. Although early films lacked sound, music played a crucial role in enhancing the viewing experience, often provided live by a pianist in theaters. Charles N. Daniels, writing under the pseudonym Neil Moret, teamed up with lyricist Harry Williams to compose the first commissioned title song for a film. The song, Mickey, was released by Daniels and Wilson in 1918 to coincide with the film’s debut, starring Mabel Normand, whose image was featured on the sheet music cover. Later that year, Mickey was acquired by Waterson, Berlin, and Snyder, who published it in two small editions, helping to launch the trend of title songs that remains popular to this day.
Many famous silent film stars, such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Pearl White, graced the covers of sheet music as early as 1914. March of the movies by M. A. Althouse (1915) features an illustration of an audience in a nickelodeon, watching Chaplin in his tramp costume, accompanied by a pianist in the pit. Those Keystone comedy cops by Charles McCarron (1915) showcases a classic photo of Mack Sennett’s Keystone cops on the cover, with Ford Sterling on the phone and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle eavesdropping on the conversation. Over the next twenty years, the film industry would become a powerful promoter of songs, with major studios even acquiring some of Tin Pan Alley’s most prominent firms to manage their musical needs.
The composer Ernö Rapée helped popularize the use of thematic music—stock melodies designed to accompany common silent film scenes—through two well-known collections he published in the mid-1920s. Many orchestra leaders in smaller towns and cities relied on these books as a guide to provide music for films. Rapée also composed several original scores, with his most famous being the 1926 What price glory? The theme song from the film, with lyrics by Lew Pollack, became a major hit under the title Charmaine.
Below is a recording of Charmaine performed by David De Groot and The Piccadilly Orchestra in 1927.
The advent of talking pictures made music’s role in film even more crucial. Broadway musicals were a natural fit for adaptation to the new medium, and film studios quickly realized the need to hire composers and lyricists to create both background music and songs for their films. Hit songs also served as excellent promotional tools to attract audiences to theaters, prompting studios to acquire music publishers to profit from their catalogs. Major studios like Warner Bros., MGM, and Paramount became heavily involved in music publishing.
The Great Depression had a significant impact on Broadway, forcing many writers who relied on the numerous revues and shows to turn to Hollywood for work. While some were dissatisfied with how their songs were often treated as mere commodities—added or removed from films at will—others found the medium creatively fulfilling. Over time, unique musical films emerged featuring songs that were just as memorable and well-crafted as the Broadway hits of the Tin Pan Alley era.
This according to Tin Pan Alley: An encyclopedia of the golden age of American song (2012). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias.
An example of the early use of music in film from One week featuring Buster Keaton (1920).
In 1976, four artists from England—Genesis P-Orridge, Chris Carter, Peter Christopherson, and performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti—formed Throbbing Gristle to challenge the conventional music of their time. Their goal was to create a new type of music free from traditional structures. Previously, they had collaborated in the performance project COUM Transmissions, which disbanded after a controversial live performance of Prostitution in London, featuring public nudity and masochistic art. Influenced by avant-garde composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Weldon (J.J.) Cale, as well as 1960s bands like the Velvet Underground, Throbbing Gristle took music innovation further. They completely dissolved conventional song structures and introduced noise generators and oscillators as musical instruments for the first time. Their abrasive and antagonistic approach to music delved into themes of fascism, death, mutilation, and industrial decay, incorporating a cacophony of mechanical noise, tape loops, anti-melodies, and harsh beats. An English member of Parliament once referred to the group as the “wreckers of civilization.”
In the years that followed, Throbbing Gristle released several albums that left many of their contemporaries perplexed. However, the adventurous and rebellious spirit of bands like Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, and Einstürzende Neubauten drew inspiration from Throbbing Gristle, leading them to create their own innovative sounds. By the late 1970s, Throbbing Gristle established the Industrial Music label, giving birth to a new genre known as “industrial”. In 1981, believing they had accomplished their mission, Throbbing Gristle disbanded.
Genesis P-Orridge performs in Culver City, California (1981).
The existence of the band was as much rooted in conflict as it was experimentation. In her memoir Art Sex Music, Cosey Fanni Tutti described at length an abusive relationship with fellow Throbbing Gristle member Genesis P-Orridge. “There was a lot of turmoil, emotionally and personally [in the group],” she said. “The music was like an outlet for that because it was–and it’s a bit of a cliché–the sum of the parts being greater than the whole. None of us really knew why it worked so well, but once we got into the studio, we just had a great time. But then once we were out of the studio, we were tearing each other apart. It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.”
Cover art for the album 20 jazz funk greats (1979).
After Throbbing Gristle ended, several other industrial acts continued to develop the new musical genre. Furthermore, former members Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti went on to form the group Chris & Cosey and the record label CTI.
This according to The Gothic and dark wave lexicon: The lexicon of the black scene (2003). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias.
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Afghanistan’s national instrument, the rubāb, a short-necked lute, is also popular in northwest India and Pakistan and may be the ancestor of the sarod. Carved from a single piece of mulberry wood and covered with skin, the instrument has a lively and percussive sound. The Afghan rubāb is often decorated with mother-of-pearl inlay, which accentuates the wood’s deep tones and textures.
The sound of the Afghan rubāb is easily distinguished from that of other Central Asian lutes, due to its unique construction and sympathetic (or resonance) strings. An unusually shaped instrument often richly ornamented with inlaid bone or mother-of-pearl, the rubāb is appreciated by musicians and collectors alike. Although the instrument first appeared between the 18th and 19th centuries, its sound as we know it today emerged in the 20th century. The musician and teacher Ustad Mohammad Omar, a singer from Kabul, led a highly prestigious band for many years and made the rubāb famous in Afghanistan and internationally. Legend has it that, inspired by another lute, the sarod, he altered the instrument to better suit the aesthetics of kiliwali, another genre of Afghan music. Luthiers in Kabul, most notably the celebrated Juma Khan Qaderi, began reproducing Mohammad Omar’s rubāb alterations. Distinct from other Afghan rubābs in the way it is played and its characteristic sound, the Kabuli rubāb quickly took hold in Central Asia, gradually supplanting all other Afghan rubāb practices.
In December 2024, UNESCO recognized the art of building and playing the rubāb as intangible cultural heritage in Afghanistan, Iran, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Master players of the rubab are deeply respected as elders within their communities, often taking the lead in initiating specific ceremonies and rituals. The craft of making a rubāb traditionally involves carpentry, woodcarving, marquetry, and inlay work, typically passed down as a family tradition through hands-on practice. Although rubāb craftsmanship is predominantly done by men, performers are of all genders, ages, ethnicities, and religious backgrounds. The rubāb has long been referenced in poems and literature, with various cultures sharing myths and stories about the instrument, which are often narrated by elders and masters during social gatherings.
An older woman teaches teaches a boy to play the rubāb.
This cultural heritage, however, is currently threatened in Afghanistan under the Taliban authorities’ near-total ban on music, considered corrupting in their strict interpretation of Islamic law. Since coming to power in 2021, Taliban authorities have banned music in public, from performances to playing tracks in restaurants, in cars or on radio and TV broadcasts. They have shuttered music schools and smashed or burned musical instruments and sound systems. Taliban authorities have encouraged former musicians to turn their talents to Islamic poetry and unaccompanied vocal chants–also the only forms of music allowed under their previous rule from 1996 to 2001. There is local resistance to the Taliban’s decrees, however. As a rubāb builder named Sakhi asserts, the cultural value of the rubāb in Afghanistan must not be lost. He states, “The value of this work for me is . . . the heritage it holds. The heritage must not be lost.”
This according to The Garland encyclopedia of world music. South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent (2013, find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias) and “Le timbre du rubāb de Kaboul” by Roy Sylvain (Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie 34 [2021] 77–94; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-10988).
Below is a performance of an Afghani folksong by Quraishi on rubāb and accompanied by Samir Chatterjee on tabla.
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The library of the Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute) in Paris is home to an extensive collection of writings on music from the Arab world, a region stretching from the Atlas Mountains to the Indian Ocean. This series of blog posts highlights selections from this collection, along with abstracts written by RILM staff members contained inRILM Abstracts of Music Literature, the comprehensive bibliography of writings about music and music-related subjects. The Institut du Monde Arabe Museum holds a permanent exhibition of select musical instruments from the Arab world. It features a ṭambūr (frame drum), a darbūkaẗ (drum), a few mizmār (flutes), a qānūn (box zither), and an ʿūd (lute), all on loan from the Musée du Quai Branly, as well as a rabāb (spike fiddle).
The ʿūd has lived countless lives. While empires, caliphates, and sultanates have faded into history, the ʿūd endures—a carrier of musical knowledge and a symbol of civilizations’ legacy whose influence stretches from the shores of Spain in the West to landscapes beyond the Zagros Mountains in the East. The ʿūd has had many shapes and answered to many names. In Iran, it is the barbat; in the Eastern Arab world, the ʿūd; in the Maġrib, the naqlāb and kuwītraẗ; and along the Arab Gulf, the qanbūs. When the ʿūd journeyed to Europe with the musicians of Arab Andalusia (711–1492), it transformed yet again. It acquired new shapes, new roles, and a new reverence, preserving fragments of its name across European languages: laúd in Spanish, liuto in Italian, luth in French, and lute in English. The ʿūd also borrows references to the human body, with its frets stretching on a “forearm” (zind), its strings anchored on a “nose” (anf), and its “face” (wajh) adorned with sound holes named after the “moon” (qamarāt) and the “sun” (šamsiyyaẗ).
Figure 1. The ʿūd of Rabat at the Musée Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, Essaouira [Photography collection of the Institut du Monde Arabe, inv. 99580 (copyright: IMA/MAROC IMAGES). Link to photograph.
In the Arab world, no instrument has been revered as much as the ʿūd that was bestowed with the title of the “sultan of instruments”. Starting in the 9th century, the ʿūd was used to codify music theory. References to the ʿūd date to as early as the 9th century al-Kindī (801?–866?) and evolved through the writings of philosophers and theorists such as al-Farābī (870?–950?), Iẖwān al-Ṣafá (10th century), Ibn al-Munaǧǧim (855?–912), and Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Urmawī (1216?–94). These scholars used the ʿūd as a model to illustrate music theory, conduct mathematical calculations of musical intervals, and analyze the relationships between string length and fingerboard proportions. Intriguingly, philosophical reflections of the era often linked the ʿūd to the cosmological and natural orders. Writings from the Islamic Golden Age (8th through 13th centuries) drew parallels between the ʿūd’s four strings, the four seasons, the four elements of nature, and human temperaments. The four ʿūd strings (bamm, maṯlaṯ, maṯná, zīr) were imagined to resonate with human moods. With that, the ʿūd became a link between human and nature and bore the scholarly concerns with connecting the physical and the metaphysical realms.
Figure 2. An illustration by Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Urmawī of the ʿūd fingerboard demonstrating the place of frets and musical intervals. Source: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts LJS 235: Kitāb al-adwār fī al-mūsīqá, https://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0001/html/ljs235.html.
In the centuries since its rise in intellectual circles, the ʿūd has been carried in the arms of countless musicians, accompanied singers across genres, and appeared in illuminated manuscripts, ornate miniatures, and decorative artifacts. By the late 19th century, as Arab societies were mobilized during the Nahda era, the Arab Renaissance, the ʿūd was reimagined in shape and use to suit changing aesthetic tastes and sensibilities. The ʿūd was not merely preserved—it became an active participant in the cultural revolution of the time.
Above is a concert by the Algerian group Trio Bouchala led by Yahia Bouchala playing the Algerian kuwītraẗ, also known as the Andalusian ʿūd. Source: Institut du Monde Arabe.
The 20th century brought further reinvention, as the ʿūd earned the status of a national symbol. Burgeoning nation-states considered the ʿūd a national hero whose history stretched back in the history of their nations and was to carry the fervor of rapid modernization. The ʿūd reasserted its central presence in art musics across the region: the Andalusian ālaẗ suite of Fès, the mālūf of Algerian Constantine, the waṣlaẗsuite of Cairo and Aleppo, and the Iraqi maqām of Baghdad. The ʿūd was no longer a bridge between humans and the cosmos but represented the musical ideals of entire nations.
Figure 3. A stamp depicting the ʿūd issued by the Republic of Iraq in the 1980s.
After Ziryāb (d. 852?), a polymath and musician of the Abbasid court in Baghdad who fled to Andalusia in the 9th century, graced the ʿūd with its fifth string, adapting it to the demands of new musical styles and planting its roots in Europe, the instrument embarked on a journey that would span centuries and continents. Nearly a millennium later, the sixth string was added, expanding, yet again, the ʿūd’s capacity for expression. And the ʿūd, cradled in the arms of generations, remains as cherished as ever.
The annotated bibliography below introduces the Institut du Monde Arabe’s holdings on the ʿūd as well as musical instruments, and their roles in Arab music.
Annotated bibliography
Abdallah, Tarek. “L’évolution de l’art du ‘ūd égyptien en solo à l’aune du 78 tours” [The evolution of the art of the solo Egyptian ʿūd as featured on 78-rpm records], Revue des traditions musicales des mondes arabe et méditerranéen 4 (2010) 53–66. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2010-29832; IMA catalog reference]
Presents an analytical study of the evolution of the art of the solo Egyptian ʿūd recorded on 78-rpm records between 1910 and 1930 and the influence of the recording medium on musical forms and the techniques of ʿūd making. The analysis of these recordings shows the impact of the recording format constraints on the development of independent instrumental music, in particular taqsīm and samāʿī. It also permits the development of a typology of playing techniques (the right-hand techniques such as rīšaẗ, octave shifting, and zīr bam; and left-hand techniques such as baṣm), which constitute characteristic signatures of the Egyptian school, and the manner through which soloists mark their style.
Abid, Mohamed. L’o̊ûd oriental: Pratique et méthodes d’enseignement en Tunisie [The oriental ʽūd: Practice and teaching methods in Tunisia] (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Septentrion, 2000) [Doctoral dissertation, Université Paris IV, 1997]. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1997-55215; IMA catalog reference]
The ʿūd is the central instrument for practical and theoretical application in Arab music. Its history and origins illustrate its long use in performance practice across the Arab world and beyond, and various organological descriptions reveal its varied forms across countries in the region. In Tunisia, masters of ʿūd have developed techniques and repertoire for the instrument that culminated in oral and written pedagogical methods. Excerpts from these methods are included.
al-Ašhab, Muḥammad. تعليم المقامات العربية على الآلات الموسيقية [Teaching Arab maqām on musical instruments] (2nd ed.; al-Dār al-Bayḍā’: [Muḥammad al-Ašhab], 1994). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1994-36229; IMA catalog reference]
Introduces 21 short exercises of various maqām applied on the ʿūd. The notated exercises are supplemented with illustrations of the fingers and the notes positions on the ʿūd.
al-Baṣrī, Ḥamīd. “بحث في تاريخ آلة القانون وأجزائها” [Research on the qānūn instrument], al-Ḥayāẗ al-mūsīqiyyaẗ/Music life 13 (1996) 31–43. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1996-44009; IMA catalog reference]
Discusses the history, the development, playing techniques, and the parts of the qānūn.
Bilqazīz, ʿAbd al-Ilāh. “حوار مع مرسيل خليفة” [An interview with Marsīl H̱alīfaẗ], al-Mustaqbal al-ʿarabī 25:285 (Tišrīn al-ṯānī/Nūfambir 2004) 83–97. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2004-47657; IMA catalog reference]
An interview with Lebanese singer, composer, and ʿūd player Marsīl H̱alīfaẗ about his album Concerto al Andalus, his compositional style, his approach to poetry in composition, his works for the ʿūd, and broader issues related to the history and current state of Arab art music.
Fāẖūrī, Kifāḥ. آلات الموسيقى العربية [Arab musical instruments] (Bayrūt: Šarikaẗ al-Maṭbūʿāt li-l-Ṭibāʿaẗ wa-al-Našr, 1998). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1998-50327; IMA catalog reference]
Introduces and describes instruments used in Arab music, including the ʿūd, the qānūn, the rabāb, the sanṭūr, the ṭanbūr, the ǧūzaẗ, the kināraẗ, the nāy, the mizmār, the mizmāraẗ, the darbūkaẗ, the riqq, the mizhir, the ṭabl, the ṣāǧāt, the naqqāraẗ, the ṣāǧāt.
Faraḥ, Ğūrğ. Iتمارين موسيقية لآلة العود [Musical exercises for the ʿūd. I] (3rd ed., rev. and enl.; Bayrūt: Manšūrāt Dār Maktabaẗ al-Ḥayāẗ, 1985).[IMA catalog reference]
Presents introductory exercises for playing the ʿūd.
Faraḥ, Ğūrğ. II تمارين موسيقية لآلة العود [Musical exercises for the ʿūd. II] (3rd ed., rev. and enl.; Bayrūt: Manšūrāt Dār Maktabaẗ al-Ḥayāẗ, 1985). [IMA catalog reference]
Presents intermediate exercises and compositions for playing the ʿūd.
Faraḥ, Ğūrğ. IIIتمارين موسيقية لآلة العود [Musical exercises for the ʿūd III] (3rd ed., rev. and enl.; Bayrūt: Manšūrāt Dār Maktabaẗ al-Ḥayāẗ, 1985). [IMA catalog reference]
Presents advanced exercises and compositions for playing the ʿūd.
Farraj, Johnny and Sami Abu Shumays. Inside Arabic music: Arabic maqam performance and theory in the 20th century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2019-6370; IMA catalog reference]
What makes hundreds of listeners cheer ecstatically at the same instant during a live concert by Egyptian diva Umm Kulṯūm? What is the unspoken language behind a taqsīm (traditional instrumental improvisation) that performers and listeners implicitly know? How can Arabic music be so rich and diverse without resorting to harmony? Why is it so challenging to transcribe Arabic music from a recording? These questions are addressed from the perspective of two “insiders” in the practice of Arab music by documenting a performance culture and a know-how that is primarily passed on orally. Arab music has spread across the globe, influencing music from Greece all the way to India in the mid-20th century through radio and musical cinema and global popular culture through raqs šarqī, known as “belly dance” in the West. Yet despite its popularity and influence, Arab music, and the maqām scale system at its basis, remain widely misunderstood. Understanding maqām requires an approach that draws theory directly from practice and presents theoretical insights that will be useful to practitioners, from the beginner to the expert, and those interested in the related Persian, Central Asian, and Turkish makam traditions. The discussion of maqām and improvisation widens the general understanding of music as well, by bringing in ideas from Saussurean linguistics, network theory, and Lakoff and Johnson’s theory of cognition as metaphor, with an approach parallel to Gjerdingen’s analysis of Galant-period music–offering a lens into the deeper relationships among music, culture, and human community. [synopsis by the publisher]
Ḥamīd, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. “العود في الآثار العربية” [The ʿūd in Arabic sources], al-Mūsīqá al-ʿarabiyyaẗ 1 (Tammūz/Yūlyū 1998) 11–44. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1982-49223; IMA catalog reference]
The use of the ʿūd can be traced in Arabic literary sources before Islam. Manuscripts that survived from the Abbasid period (750–1258) contain writings on the instrument by philosophers and music theorists and provide depictions of the ʿūd, its shapes, and uses.
al-H̱ulaʿī, Muḥammad Kāmil. كتاب الموسيقى الشرقي [The book of Oriental music] (al-Qāhiraẗ: al-Dār al-ʿArabiyyaẗ li-l-Kitāb, 1993). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1993-32078; IMA catalog reference]
According to traditional Arab music theory, music should be studied as two branches: melody (laḥn) and rhythm (īqāʿ). Sound and its physical characteristics, tones and intervals and their types, transposition, and what makes plausible intervals and tones, are also important topics in music theory. Performance styles in Egypt in the 19th and early 20th centuries reflect the broader social and aesthetic changes. Arrangements of 23 performance cycles of muwaššaḥāt with transcription of their poetry and rhythmic cycles are included. Biographies, chronicles, and selection from the repertoires of musicians serve as a rich reference for the musical and literary life of the period. The musicians include Aḥmad Abū H̱alīl al-Qabbānī, ʿAbduh al-Ḥāmūlī, Muḥammad ʿUṯmān, Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Maslūb, Muḥammad Sālim (al-Kabīr), Yūsuf al-Manyalāwī, Ibrāhīm al-Qabbānī, Salāmaẗ Ḥiğāzī, and Muḥammad Kāmil al-H̱ulaʿī.
Loopuyt, Marc. Le oud Nahhât: Luth mythique de Damas (Paris: Musée de la Musique, 2018). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2018-63384; IMA catalog reference]
Repository of a thousand-year tradition in which geometry, philosophy, and poetry conjoin, the ʿūd made in the 1930s by the luthier ʿAbduh Naḥḥāt in Damascus is a window on the art and the knowledge of the Arab world.
al-Mahdī, Ṣāliḥ. إيقاعات الموسيقى العربية وأشكالها [Arab music rhythms and forms] (Qartāğ: Bayt al-Ḥikmaẗ, 1990). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1990-43850; IMA catalog reference]
Īqāʿ (rhythm) is a defining feature of Arab music, its poetry, and musical and vocal forms. The relationship between poetic meter and rhythm in Arab music is of great importance, especially as it provides the foundation of many musical forms. Special attention is given to the art of ṣawt in the Arab Gulf, the nawbaẗ from the Arab Maghrib, the dawr, the muwaššaḥ, and instrumental forms such as bašraf, taḥmīlaẗ, samāʿī, and sīrtū. Arab music rhythms were documented in the recordings of the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music. Selections of compositions recorded during the congress are discussed.
Poché, Christian. Musiques du monde arabe: Écoute et découverte (Paris: Institut du Monde Arabe, 1994).[RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1994-21319; IMA catalog reference]
Presents an overview of the music of the Arab world, including repertoires, instruments, melodies, rhythms, and forms. The 25 musical examples illustrate the text and allow learners to complete the 82 proposed exercises. An answer key accompanies each of these exercises. Bibliographic references, an iconography of instruments, a glossary of terms, and a select discography complete this guide, whose objective is to facilitate the understanding and appreciation of Arab music.
Poché, Christian. “Le joueur magnifique” [The magnificent musician], Qantara 26 (hiver 1997-98) 22-24. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1997-55262; IMA catalog reference]
Munīr Bašīr was an ʿūd master who introduced new techniques and aesthetics to the playing of the instrument. His interpretation of the Arab maqām and his improvisations marked an important milestone in modernizing Arab music.
Poché, Christian. “Oud: Histoire de l’instrument qui voulait jouer tout seul” [The ʿūd: A history of the instrument that plays on its own], Qantara 35 (printemps 2000) 23–25.[RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2000-84943; IMA catalog reference]
In the context of modernization efforts throughout the 20th century, the ʿūd experienced significant stylistic and technical transformations. In the early 20th century, ʿūd masters in Turkey–such as Şerif Muhiddin H. Targan (1892–1967), Udi Hırant (1901–78), and Yorgo Bacanos–and in Egypt, including Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, played pivotal roles in developing a unique approach to the instrument within their respective musical scenes. In the latter half of the century, ʿūd players Ǧamīl Bašīr, Munīr Bašīr, Salmān Šukr, and Marsīl H̱alīfaẗ contributed to this evolution by introducing modernist elements that redefined the ʿūd ’s role and expression within Middle Eastern musical traditions.
Qaṭṭāṭ , Maḥmūd. آلة العود بين دقة العلم وأسرار الفن [The ʿūd: Between the accuracy of science and the secrets of art] (Masqaṭ: Markaz ʿUmān li-l-Mūsīqá al-Taqlīdiyyaẗ/Oman Center for Traditional Music, 2006) [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2006-52600; IMA catalog reference]
The ʿūd is an ancient Middle Eastern instrument that has endured through the ages, thriving and earning its reputation as the sultan of instruments. Its history is marked by significant changes in organology, size, and use, with many adaptations shaping its evolution. Archaeological evidence reveals depictions of various lute-like instruments dating back to the 3rd century B.C.E. in the Near East and Central Asia. By the medieval Islamic period, the ʿūd had reached a remarkable stage of development, undergoing further refinement in both construction and playing techniques, reaching its peak in the 10th century. During that time, it was used in performance and as a tool for studying music theory and exploring the philosophical dimensions of music. These references are found in manuscripts, archaeological artifacts, decorative objects, and illuminations, with connections to music and a range of other topics, including science, society, and literature. The introduction of the ʿūd to Europe, facilitated by the Muslim rule in Andalusia, also impacted the development of the lute in Europe, influencing both instrument construction and music theory. In the 20th century, master ʿūd players have embraced new enhancements and innovations, influenced by the modernization of music and the adoption of forms from Ottoman musical tradition. Today, the ʿūd is used across various genres in the Arab world, known by different names across the cultural regions of the Arab Mašriq, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Maghrib. Each area has distinct variations in the ʿūd’s shape, playing techniques, and repertoire. Modern instrument developments, including string construction and crafting techniques, have accompanied the rise of new performance schools.
Saḥḥāb, Fiktūr. السبعة الكبار في الموسيقى العربية المعاصرة: سيد درويش، محمد القصبجي، زكريا أحمد، محمد عبد الوهاب، أم كلثوم، رياض السنباطي، أسمهان [The seven wonders of contemporary Arab music: Sayyid Darwīš, Muḥammad al-Qaṣabǧī, Zakariyyaẗ Aḥmad, Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Umm Kulṯūm, Riyyāḍ al-Sunbāṭī, Asmahān] (Bayrūt: Dār al-ʿIlm li-l-Malāyīn, 2001) [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2001-48847; IMA catalog reference]
The 19th and early 20th centuries brought rapid modernization to Egypt, with technological and cultural shifts that profoundly impacted musical life. By examining the musical contributions of eight masters from the first half of the 20th century, often regarded as the golden age of Arab music, we gain insight into the evolution of Arab musical forms, the emergence of new styles, as well as about political upheavals, all of which still continues to shape Arab music today. The biographies, anecdotes, works, compositional processes, stylistic characteristics, and political engagements of these influential singers, instrumentalists, and composers are analyzed.
Ṣafadī, Rūbīr. تاريخ الموسيقى العربية [The history of Arab music] (Bayrūt: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, 2004). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2004-46854; IMA catalog reference]
In the first three decades of the 20th century in Egypt, music making was marked by the work and performance practice of musicians, composers, and singers who laid the foundation of Arab music aesthetics. The main master musicians of that period were: Muḥammad ʿUṯmān, ʿAbduh al-Ḥāmūlī, Salāmāẗ Ḥiǧāzī, Abū al-ʿIlā Muḥammad, Dāwūd Ḥusnī, Muḥammad al-Qaṣabǧī, Sayyid Darwīš, and Zakariyyā Aḥmad. The following two decades witnessed the introduction of changes and innovation in Arab art music. The most prominent figures of that period were Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and his contemporaries including Maḥmūd al-Šarīf, Farīd al-Aṭraš, Ḥalīm al-Rūmī, Ǧalāl Ḥarb, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Maḥmūd, Muḥammad Fawzī, and Midḥat ʿĀṣīm. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s career, his style of composition, and the songs and music he composed for films attest to his contribution to Egyptian music and cinema. Starting in the 1950s, a new generation of musicians and composers drew on the aesthetics of the early period of modernization. The works of Lebanese musicians and composers also had a great impact on the development of Arab music. Biographies of musicians and excerpts of lyrics of select composers and singers are included.
al-Sibāʿī, ʿAbbās Sulaymān. العود العربي وتجربته على النغمة الخماسية في السودان [The Arab ʿūd and the Sudanese pentatonic scale] (al-H̱arṭūm: Manšūrāt al-H̱arṭūm, 2007) [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2007-54096; IMA catalog reference]
The ʿūd was a subject of study among philosophers of medieval Islam, including al-Kindī, al-Farābī, Isḥāq al-Mawṣilī, Ibn Sīnā, and Ziryāb. In Sudan, the introduction of the Arab ʿūd occurred in the early 20th century and had attracted significant interest. The ʿūd was adapted to play pentatonic music traditionally known in the country. Detailed descriptions of the craftsmanship of the ʿūd, as well as its technical and aesthetic aspects, are provided. Selected compositions by Barʿī Muḥammad Dafʿ Allāh, al-ʿĀqib Muḥammad Ḥasan, ʿAlī Makkī for the ʿūd are also featured. Additionally, the transcription of melodic excerpts and the application of Sudanese pentatonic modes, along with distinctive playing styles and techniques on the ʿūd are examined. Exercises for the ʿūd and scores of well-known Sudanese melodies and songs are included, providing a practical resource for students and musicians.
Makhlouf, Hamdi. Métamorphoses du ʿūd: De l’organologie á l’espace compositionnel [Metamorphoses of the ʿūd: From organology to compositional space] (Sīdī Bū Saʿīd: Ennejma Ezzahra: Centre des Musiques Arabes et Méditerranéennes;Tunis: Éditions Sotumédias, 2020). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-76947; IMA catalog reference]
The morphological evolution of the ʿūd from antiquity to the present established a foundation for understanding the ʿūd both as a material object and as an influential element in musical culture and provided the background of a semantic analysis of modern compositional techniques and styles. The epistemological framework of the compositional space for the ʿūd is structured on three levels: knowledge attained through listening, formal structuring, and semantic interpretation. Close analyses of a taqsīm by Ǧamīl Bašīr, and compositions by Munīr Bašīr (al-ʿUṣfūr al-ṭā’ir), Le Trio Joubran (Masār), and Naseer Shamma (Ḥadaṯ fī al-ʿāmiriyyaẗ) are presented.
Vigreux, Philippe. La derbouka: Technique fondamentale et initiation aux rythmes arabes [The darbūkaẗ: Basic technique and introduction to Arab rhythms] (Paris: Edisud, 1985). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 1985-31342; IMA catalog reference]
Rhythm in Arab music is discussed through its quantitative (time unit, measure, and rhythmic cycle) and qualitative (accentuation and ornamentation) aspects. Fundamental techniques of the darbūkaẗ are explained through illustrative images and notated practices of basic rhythms and their applications.
Written and compiled by Farah Zahra, Associate Editor, RILM
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