Būq

(Iran. bāq).

Generic term of the Arab world denoting an aerophone. It is used in written records but unknown in oral transmission. In modern Iraq, the horn is called tūata, a word with which būq is associated (see Qassim Hassan, 1980, p.50). The instrument has been much modified. From being crescent-shaped, it became straight or coiled; it was originally of animal horn, but was later made of wood, metal or ivory. The determining factors are that the instrument ends in a bell and that the longer the pipe, the more powerful the sound. In Islam, the word was first used in the sayings of Mohammed, whose 9th-century biographer, Ibn Hishām, compared the būq of the 7th century to ‘the būq of the Jews, which was used to call them to prayer’.

The use of the instrument by Jews and Christians was inspired by emergent Islam. Like the zūrnā (oboe), the būq was used, at an early stage of its development, to lead the singing in responsories. Subsequently it was played in military bands and its function changed. It is referred to in literary sources in company with various other instruments: with the dohol (double-headed drum) and surnā (Cairo band, 11th century), the tabl (double-headed drum) and the nafīr(long trumpet) (Mogadishu band, 14th century), tabl, nafīr and the sornā (south Yemen band, 14th century) – a remarkable progression, recording an instrumental vocabulary of increasing richness in less than three centuries.

It is hard to establish whether the būq should be classified as a trumpet (straight or curved) or an oboe; students of Arab music now restrict the term būq to the trumpet (nafīr), while qarn denotes the horn. The following terms may be derived from būq: albogón(Spanish: hornpipe), alboka (Basque), bānkiā (Indian: trumpet), buki (Georgian: trumpet) and buçalla (Albanian: the drone pipe of the gajdë). These instruments have no organological connection with each other, still less with the būq, which has never been precisely defined.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

EI1 (‘Buk’, H.G. Farmer)

A. Chottin: ‘Notes sur le nfir’, Hesperis (1927), 376–80

F. Butros: Al-mūsīqā wan ghināl’ [Music and singing] (Alexandria, n.d.)

H. Hickmann: Terminologie arabe des instruments de musique (Cairo, 1947)

M.A. al-Hifnī: ‘Ifīm al-ālāt al-mūsīqiyya [Understanding musical instruments] (Cairo, 1971)

S.A. Rashīd: Al-Ālāt al-mūsīqiyya al-‘usūr al-islāmiyya [Islamic instruments] (Baghdad, 1975)

S. Qassim Hassan: Les instruments de musique en Irak et leur rôle dans la société traditionelle (Paris, 1980)

CHRISTIAN POCHÉ