The qanun, kanun, ganoun or kanoon ( ar, قانون, qānūn; hy, քանոն, k’anon; ckb, قانون, qānūn; el, κανονάκι, kanonáki; he, קָאנוּן, ''qanun''; fa, , ''qānūn''; tr, kanun; az, qanun; ) is a
string instrument played either solo, or more often as part of an ensemble, in much of the Middle East, North Africa, West Africa, Central Asia, Armenia, and Greece. The name derives ultimately from Ancient Greek: κανών kanōn, meaning "rule, law, norm, principle". The qanun traces one of its origins to a stringed Assyrian instrument from the Old Assyrian Empire, specifically from the nineteenth century BC in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
.
This instrument came inscribed on a box of elephant ivory found in the old Assyrian capital
Nimrud
Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a m ...
(ancient name: ''Caleh'').
The instrument is a type of large
zither
Zithers (; , from the Greek word ''cithara'') are a class of stringed instruments. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat ...
with a thin trapezoidal soundboard that is famous for its unique melodramatic sound.
Regional variants and technical specifications
Arabic qanuns are usually constructed with five skin insets that support a single long bridge resting on five arching pillars, whereas the somewhat smaller Turkish qanuns are based on just four. This allows Arabic variants of the instrument to have more room for the installation of extreme bass and treble strings. Kanuns manufactured in Turkey generally feature 26
courses of strings, with three strings per course in the case of all regional variants. Contemporary Arabic designs use
Nylon
Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic.
Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from pe ...
or
PVF strings that are stretched over the bridge poised on fish-skins as described on one end, and attached to wooden tuning pegs at the other end.
Ornamental
sound hole
A sound hole is an opening in the body of a stringed musical instrument, usually the upper sound board.
Sound holes have different shapes:
* round in flat-top guitars and traditional bowl-back mandolins;
* F-holes in instruments from the vio ...
s called ''kafes'' are a critical component of what constitutes the accustomed timbre of qanun. However, they normally occupy different locations on the soundboard of Turkish kanuns compared to Arabic qanuns, and may also vary in shape, size and number depending on geography or personal taste.
The dimensions of a Turkish kanun are typically 95 to 100 cm (37–39") in length, 38 to 40 cm (15–16") in width, and 4 to 6 cm (1.5–2.3") in height. In contrast, an Arabic qanun measures a bit larger as mentioned.
Qanun is played on the lap while sitting or squatting, or sometimes on trestle support, by plucking the strings with two
tortoise
Tortoises () are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin: ''tortoise''). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like oth ...
-shell picks (one for each hand) or with fingernails, and has a standard range of three and a half
octaves from A2 to E6 that can be extended down to F2 and up to G6 in the case of Arabic designs.
The instrument also features special metallic levers or latches under each course called ''mandals''. These small levers, which can be raised or lowered quickly by the performer while the instrument is being played, serve to slightly change the pitch of a particular course by altering effective string lengths.
Tuning and temperament
On the regular
diatonically tuned qanun, ''mandal'' technology was first implemented, according to Turkish musicologist
Rauf Yekta
Rauf Yekta Bey (27 March 1871 – 8 January 1935) was a Turkish musician, musicologist and writer on music.
Biography
Rauf Yekta was born on 27 March 1871, in the Aksaray area of Istanbul, Turkey to his father Ahmed Arif Bey. He was named Mehm ...
, some 30 years prior to his submission of his invited monograph on Turkish Music to the 1922 edition of Albert Lavignac's ''Encyclopédie de la Musique et Dictionnaire du Conservatoire''.
Levantine qanuns, prior to that time, remained rather inflexible and cumbersome to perform on (especially as demanding modulations/transpositions came into vogue that were increasingly emulating Western
tonality
Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is ca ...
and
key change
In music, modulation is the change from one tonality ( tonic, or tonal center) to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature (a key change). Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, a ...
s), requiring the player to use the fingernail of the thumb to depress on the leftmost ends of the courses to achieve on-the-fly intervallic alterations.
With the advent of
electronic tuner
In music, an electronic tuner is a device that detects and displays the pitch of musical notes played on a musical instrument. "Pitch" is the perceived fundamental frequency of a musical note, which is typically measured in Hertz. Simple tuner ...
s some decades later, standardization of the placement of ''reference mandals'' on the qanun began. While Armenian kanuns now employ only equidistant
half-tones and Arabic qanuns exact
quarter-tones
A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which itself is half a whole tone. Quarter tones divide the octave by 50 cents each, a ...
as a result, Turkish kanun-makers went so far as dividing the electroacoustically referenced
equal-tempered
An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning system, which approximates just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into equal steps. This means the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, w ...
semitone of 100 cents into 6 equal parts, yielding – for all intents and purposes – 72 equal divisions (or
commas) of the
octave pitch resolution. Not all pitches of
72-tone equal temperament are available on the Turkish kanun, however, since kanun-makers affix mandals that only accommodate modulations/transpositions popularly demanded by performers. This has subsequently led to the familiar interrupted and irregular pattern of mandals on the Turkish kanun becoming a visual guide for players, in facilitating modal and intonational navigation on an instrument which is ordinarily bereft of pitch markers. Some kanun-makers may also choose to divide the semitone distance from the nut of the lower registers into 7 parts instead for microtonal subtlety (and the highest registers, conversely, into 5 parts due to spacing constraints); but do so at the expense of
octave equivalence
In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...
s. Despite the mentioned discrepancies, hundreds of mandal configurations are at the player's disposal when performing on an ordinary Turkish kanun.
On the other hand, the nowadays widespread application of equidistant 24-tones on Arabic and 72-tones on Turkish qanun models presents an ongoing source of controversy. This is particularly in regards to how adequate such
Eurocentric
Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism)
is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western worl ...
octave divisions are in faithfully reproducing the traditionally or classically understood fluid pitches and inflexions of
Arabic music
Arabic music or Arab music ( ar, الموسيقى العربية, al-mūsīqā al-ʿArabīyyah) is the music of the Arab world with all its diverse music styles and genres. Arabic countries have many rich and varied styles of music and also man ...
or
Ottoman classical music
Ottoman music ( tr, Osmanlı müziği) or Turkish classical music ( tr, Türk sanat müziği) is the tradition of classical music originating in the Ottoman Empire. Developed in the palace, major Ottoman cities, and Sufi lodges, it traditional ...
scales. Pitch measurement analyses of relevant audio recordings reveal that, equal temperaments based on bike-chained "multiples of twelve" are essentially not compatible with authentic Middle Eastern performances; substantiating the notion instruments strictly based on them would clash audibly with a justly tuned/intoned
tanbur
The term ''Tanbur'' ( fa, تنبور, ) can refer to various long-necked string instruments originating in Mesopotamia, Southern or Central Asia. According to the '' New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', "terminology presents a compli ...
,
oud
, image=File:oud2.jpg
, image_capt=Syrian oud made by Abdo Nahat in 1921
, background=
, classification=
* String instruments
*Necked bowl lutes
, hornbostel_sachs=321.321-6
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded with a plectrum
, ...
,
ney
The ''ney'' ( fa, Ney/نی, ar, Al-Nāy/الناي), is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Persian music and Arabic music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. The ney has been played continually ...
, or
kemenche
Kemenche ( tr, kemençe) or Lyra is a name used for various types of stringed bowed musical instruments originating in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly in Armenia, Greece, Iran, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. and regions adjacent to the Black S ...
.
Alternate tuning approaches for the qanun thus also exist. Turkish music theorist Ozan Yarman has proposed, for example, an academical 79-tone temperament for the expression within tolerable error-margins of
Maqamat /
Makam
The Turkish makam ( Turkish: ''makam'' pl. ''makamlar''; from the Arabic word ) is a system of melody types used in Turkish classical music and Turkish folk music. It provides a complex set of rules for composing and performance. Each makam spec ...
lar /
Dastgah
Dastgāh ( fa, دستگاه) is the standard musical system in Persian art music, standardised in the 19th century following the transition of Persian music from the Maqam modal system. A consists of a collection of musical melodies, . In a son ...
a at all pitch levels, that was implemented by the renowned late
luthier Ejder Güleç (1939–2014) on a Turkish kanun. Likewise, the late Swiss-French qānūn performer Julien Jalâl Ed-Dine Weiss (1953–2015), who was critical of the tuning deficiency of Eurocentric octave divisions in approximating
just interval
In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals as whole number ratios (such as 3:2 or 4:3) of frequencies. An interval tuned in this way is said to be pure, and is called a just interval. Just intervals (and c ...
s, is known to have conceived, since 1990, a number of prototypes that were entirely based on low
prime-limit or simple integer ratio
Pythagorean
Pythagorean, meaning of or pertaining to the ancient Ionian mathematician, philosopher, and music theorist Pythagoras, may refer to:
Philosophy
* Pythagoreanism, the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs purported to have been held by Pythagoras
* Ne ...
and
harmonic intervals; which were once again built, on instructions from Weiss, by Ejder Güleç.
Notable players
*
*
*
Petros Tabouris
Petros Tabouris ( el, Πέτρος Ταμπούρης; born 1967) is a Greek musician, composer and Musicology, musicologist. He is a professional player of the kanonaki and other instruments.
Biography
Petros Tampouris was born in Athens in 19 ...
*
Ara Topouzian
See also
*
Çeng
The ''çeng'' is a Turkish harp. It was a popular Ottoman instrument until the last quarter of the 17th century.
The ancestor of the Ottoman harp is thought to be an instrument seen in ancient Assyrian tablets. While a similar instrument als ...
*
Psaltery
*
Santur
*
Zither
Zithers (; , from the Greek word ''cithara'') are a class of stringed instruments. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
* William McClure Thomson, (1860):
The Land and the Book: Or, Biblical Illustrations Drawn from the Manners and Customs, the Scenes and Scenery, of the Holy Land' Vol II, p. 577.
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