The ''rhaita'' or ''ghaita'' ( ar, غيطة) is a double reed instrument from

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

. It is nearly identical in construction to the Arabic '' mizmar'' and the Turkish ''

zurna The zurna ( Armenian: զուռնա zuṙna; Old Armenian: սուռնայ suṙnay; Albanian: surle/surla; Persian: karna/Kornay/surnay; Macedonian: зурла/сурла zurla/surla; Bulgarian: ''зурна/зурла''; Serbian: зурла/zu ...

''. The distinctive name owes to a medieval Gothic-Iberian influence.Pierre Bec, Les instruments de musique d'origine arabe, sens et histoire de leurs désignations, Toulouse, Isatis, Conservatoire Occitan, 2005 In southern

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

, various sorts of wind instruments, including the related

shawm The shawm () is a conical bore, double-reed woodwind instrument made in Europe from the 12th century to the present day. It achieved its peak of popularity during the medieval and Renaissance periods, after which it was gradually eclipsed by th ...

, are known as '' gaitas,'' but in northern Iberia ''gaita'' refers only to bagpipes. The rhaita was featured in ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...

soundtracks A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

by Howard Shore, specifically in the

Mordor In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Mordor (pronounced ; from Sindarin ''Black Land'' and Quenya ''Land of Shadow'') is the realm and base of the evil Sauron. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, an ...

theme. American composer John Corigliano calls one of the movements of his 1975 Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra "Rhaita Dance", asking the oboist to imitate a rhaita by pushing the reed further into his or her mouth. In 1981 while composing the soundtrack to

Altered States ''Altered States'' is a 1980 American science fiction body horror film directed by Ken Russell and based on the novel of the same name by playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. The film was adapted from Chayefsky's 1978 novel and is his fi ...

Corigliano again called for oboists to mimic the rhaita sound during Three Hallucinations.

References

Single oboes with conical bore Moroccan musical instruments North African musical instruments Arabic musical instruments fr:Ghaïta {{DoubleReed-instrument-stub

See also

References