Comparing the music of two cultures

This lesson asks you to compare some aspects of the music of one culture or period with the music of another. The museum holds only one side of such a comparison: a record about a string of the oud. Your class will bring the music of another culture or period to set beside them. ¹

Look at the expectation: it asks for some aspects, not all of them. Choose two or three you can name, such as the instrument, who plays and who listens, or how the music is learned, and compare them one by one.

Al-Maqqari's account has a second change that has nothing to do with the number of strings: a plectrum of eagle quill in place of wood. ² The account praises it for its lightness and gentleness on the strings. ² The record keeps this apart from the fifth string, because changing the plucking tool is not the same act as adding a string. ² A modern Al Jazeera account adds a detail: seven eagle-wing feathers soaked in oil for months until softened, replacing wood. ³ The record notes that this is a named journalistic account, not a new primary text verified in al-Maqqari. ³

It is easy to read that Ziryab "added a string" and conclude that he invented the oud. The record says the subject is an extra string within the oud's arrangement, not a separate new instrument. ⁴ Maqqari begins with a four-string oud, so the addition presupposes an existing instrument and performing craft. ⁴ In his Baghdad training story, Ishaq al-Mawsili's oud stands beside Ziryab's. ⁵

Choose one change in the record, the extra string or the eagle-quill plectrum. Which of the two would tell you more about how the instrument was played, and why?

• Ziryab's reported fifth oud string: the strings, the colours and the plectrum, and what the record says each source can and cannot show.
• Ziryab: his training, his travels and his teaching, as the records report them.
• An oud in Cleveland: a wooden oud with a pear-shaped body, made long after Ziryab.

Read Ziryab's reported fifth oud string and write down what it tells you about the instrument. Then choose an instrument from another culture or period and make a two-column chart that answers the same questions.