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start:
09 january 2007, up-date: 09 january 2007
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Safi
al-Dîn says that all the sounds exist in one string but one string
is not enough to compose and perform it and that two, three, four or more
stringed instruments were invented for this purpose. Two stringed instruments
can be accorded in different ways. The most common one is the tetrachordal
accord. The ûd, which is considered to be the most perfect and well
known of the instruments, is a five string instrument. The one at the
top is the bamm and then comes mathlath,
mathnâ, zîr and hâdd
strings.
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| Ûd instrument is named as the most excellent instrument of all in Ikhwan al-Safâ (12) and the most famous one in al-Fârâbi. (13) The same idea is expressed in the following books. The reason why the instrument is called "ûd kâmil/the perfect lute" is because it includes all the notes. (14) |
The names of bamm, mathlath, mathnâ, zîr are the same in each music manuscript. (15) Besides, al-Kindi mentioned about the ones tying one more string named hâdd below zîr string in his age, and he adds that they take five things, five senses, five fingers and planets and five prosody circles into consideration while doing this. (16) Al-Fârâbi allocated a great part for the ûd while he was explaining the subject of producing notes at instruments and talked about the tunes of four strings of the ûd instrument mentioned above and about the accord orders in many ways. At the end he pointed out that one of the three ways he mentioned is to add a fifth string to the ûd instrument in order to achieve the two octaves/haddetu'l-hâddât. Two octaves will be completed with the note the ring finger touched on the fifth string. (17) |
| In the following works the instrument of ûd has five strings with hâdd. (18) The accord of ûd is a tetrachordal accord. In this case there is two octaves between the open position of the bass at the top and the key where the ring finger touches at the lowest string. A-Lh. In all music manuscripts (Adwâr) the accord order between the strings of ûd is the same. According to al-Fârâbi well-known accord is the one where the sound of ring finger tune of each string and the sound of open position of the lower string is equal. (19) This expression is the same as the one Safi al-Dîn presented above. (20) |