My theory on the origin
of quarter-tones in Egypt
Before reading on, please be warned that my views are not backed
by any of our academicians. I am not an academic researcher, and thus I
never could show my views to academic bodies to have their blessings. That
said, I still believe I have every right to claim my reasoning as at least
an enlightened guesswork or an educated conjecture.
Unlike music historians, I believe that our
Egyptian music took shape only with the advent of the Naï,
our Egyptian local flute variety. Those historians believe that humans
first discovered/invented singing, then endeavoured to shape their instruments
in such a way so as to enable them to play the same tunes they already
could sing. If that were true, then I firmly believe our music should be
considered the exception to the rule.
Although I intend to provide a detailed view
on the possible phases of development of the Naï in another
dedicated document, I shall share with you the physical characteristics
of this instrument in the hope that you will be able to appreciate my doubts
as to whether it could be constructed after the conception of scales.
The Naï is made of a local variety of bamboo that grows by the banks
of the river Nile. Its reeds have a diameter that ranges between 1 and
2 centimetres, and have varying segment lengths, which makes it possible
to build different sizes of the instrument. All segments of the chosen
length of reed must be of the same size (some resourceful makers
would even glue together separately cut segments, end to end, just to meet
this condition). The Naï's most frequently used size is the one whose
lowest pitch is middle C (concert pitch, though notated one octave too
low). It is essentially the same size depicted on our ancestors' temple
walls; even with the selfsame manner of holding the instrument and blowing
into it.
This should normally have sufficed to assure
us of the ancient Egyptian origin of the Naï. But... Unfortunately,
our neighbours, the Syrians and the Lebanese in particular, have always
found delight in telling everyone who would listen that there was nothing
Egyptian in the music heard in Egypt! And that the Naï, whose modern
name happens to be a shortened form of a Turkish word (Sernaï
= whistle), is in fact a Turkish instrument. Which goes in direct contrast
to two historical (unbeatable) facts:
-
Egypt always had the biggest politico-cultural weight in the area, so much
so that when the Turkish Sultan Selim I set to build his capital Istanbul,
he imported a multitude of Egyptian workmen and artists in all domains
to help make the city the new Mecca, not just of the Ottoman Empire, but
of the whole Islamic World of which he was the self-assigned new Caliph!
-
During the Middle Ages (our Golden Era), not one single book in
Iraq or Iran in the East, nor in Morocco in the West, mentioned anything
whatsoever about quarter-tones. Indeed, the traditional music in Morocco
adopted the piano without the slightest fear that it could have any adverse
effect on its nature. It seems that our home-grown quarter-tones seduced
them quite later on. (The Jews just might have helped spreading our modal
system, after the Exodus, in ancient Palestine and Phoenicia.)
Now, the Naï comprises seven whole
segments (sounds familiar?), but its two ends are made of two extra segments
cut at their two-thirds, each. In the rest of this description, I shall
be numbering those segments from up downwards, starting from the first
whole one. The Naï has six holes on its front side, and only one on
the back. The six frontal holes are arranged is as follows:
-
At the junction of the upper 1/3 and the lower 2/3 of segment 5. Produces
G, G', D' and G''.
-
Exactly at the middle of the previous and the next holes, above the node
between segments 5 and 6. Produces F#, F#', C#' and F#''.
-
At the start of the upper third of segment 6, right below the node between
segments 5 and 6. Produces F, F', C' and F''.
-
At the end of the lower third of segment 6, right above the node between
segments 6 and 7. Produces E
b (E half-flat), Eb',
Bb' and Eb''.
-
Exactly at the middle of the previous and the next holes, below the node
between segments 6 and 7. Produces Eb, Eb', Bb' and Eb''.
-
At the junction of the upper 2/3 and the lower 1/3 of segment 7. Produces
D, D', A' and D''.
As for the back hole, it is roughly at the middle
of segment 4, and is used to provide the lower Bb, and lower A (by half-closing
it), as well as the lower Bb (by exaggeratingly slanting
the instrument away from the vertical position). [The only fingering
left is when all holes are covered, which produces C, C', G', C'' and E''
(note, this one is natural), though the third and fourth tones are more
usually produced using the above-mentioned respective fingerings.]
I wonder how it could have been possible for
anyone to come up with such a perfect symmetry if he/she started off with
a song in his/her head and then wanted to invent a wind instrument able
to reproduce his/her singing!! Too highly improbable a coincidence, in
my book. Especially if we consider that musicologists have always believed
that wind instruments historically preceded all other types of musical
instruments, themselves preceded only by drums; i.e. they are the first
instruments with definite pitch.
It is thus my firm belief that it was the Naï,
with its straightforward fingering technique, that brought forth both the
quarter-tone phenomenon and the multiplicity of scales in our Egyptian
music (which later spread to our neighbours all around).
