Note 58 — The Third Book.
Reading edition
The music of the Bedoweens rarely consists of more than one strain, suitable to their homely instruments, and to their simple invention. The Arabebbah as they call the bladder and string, is in the highest vogue, and doubtless of great antiquity, as is also the Gaspah, which is only a common reed, open at each end, having the side of it bored, with three or more holes, according to the ability of the Person who is to touch it: tho’ the compass of their tunes rarely or ever exceeds an octave. Yet sometimes, even in this simplicity of harmony, they observe something of method and ceremony, for in their historical Cantatas especially, they have their preludes and symphonies; each stanza being introduced with a flourish from the Arabebbah, while the narration itself is accompanied with the softest touches they are able to make, upon the Gaspah. The Tarr, another of their instruments, is made like a Sive, consisting (as Isidore describeth the Tympanum) of a thin rim or hoop of wood, with a skin of parchment stretched over the top of it. This serves for the Bass in all their Concerts, which they accordingly touch very artfully with their fingers, and the knuckles or palms of their hands, as the time and measure require, or as force and softness are to be communicated to the several parts of the performance. The Tarr is undoubtedly the Tympanum of the Antients, which appears as well from the general use of it all over Barbary, Egypt and the Levant, as from the method of playing upon it, and the figure of the instrument itself, being exactly of the same fashion, with what we find in the hands of Cybele and the Bacchanals among the Basso Relievos and Statues of the Antiets.
Shaw.
The Arabs have the Cussuba, or cane, which is only a piece of large cane, or reed, with stops, or holes, like a flute, and somewhat longer, which they adorn with tossels of black silk and play upon like the German flute.
Morgan’s Hist. of Algiers.
The young fellows, in several towns, play prettily enough on pipes made, and sounding very much like our flagelet, of the thigh bones of cranes, storks, or such large fowl.
Morgan’s Hist. of Algiers.
How great soever may have been the reputation the Libyans once had, of being famous musicians, and of having invented the pipe or flute, called by Greek author Hippophorbos, I fancy few of them would be now much liked at our Opera. As for this tibicen, flute or pipe, it is certainly lost, except it be the gayta, somewhat like the hautbois, called zurna, in Turkish, a martial instrument. Julius Pollux, in a chapter entitled de tibiarum specie, says, Hippophorbos quam quidem Libyes Scenetes invenerunt, and again, shewing the use and quality thereof, hæc verò apud equorum pascua utuntur, ejusque materia decorticata laurus est, cor enim ligni extractum acutissimam dat sonum. The sound of the gayta agrees well with this description, tho’ not the make. Several Poets mention the tibicen Libycus and Arabicus: and Alhenæus quotes Duris, and says, Libycas tibia Poetæ appellant, ut inquit Duris, libro secundo de rebus gestis Agathoclis, quod Scirites, primus, ut credunt, tibicinum artis inventor, è gente Nomadum Libycorum fuerit, primusque tibiä Cerealium hymnorum cantor.
Morgan’s Hist. of Algiers.