Generic term from the Arab world for various kinds of wind instrument with single or double reed.
In the past in Arab cultures the term mizmār applied to all wind instruments. Later any instrument meeting one of the following criteria could be called mizmār: a single-reed instrument with two tubes of different or equal lengths (double clarinet); an instrument with one tube and a single or double reed (simple clarinet and shawm); an instrument that uses circular breathing (simple and double clarinet, shawm and related bagpipe instruments).
Today the term mizmār is usually applied to specific types of reed instruments; the precise meaning varies according to region. In Egypt and parts of the Arabian Gulf mizmār is applied to the folk shawm; see illustration for an example from Bahrain. This shawm is of the type found throughout West and Central Asia, south-eastern Europe and parts of North Africa under various other names: Surnāy, sornā, zurna and ghaita. In Yemen mizmār is a double clarinet, but nowadays zamr, zammāra, Arghūl and Mijwiz are more common and widespread terms for double clarinet. Zammāra is derived from the same linguistic root (zamr) as mizmār. Other terms apply to related wind instruments (see §4 below).
The Semitic linguistic root zamr has a long history pre-dating the Islamic period by many centuries. The evidence suggests a prototype instrument constructed of two parallel tubes having a narrow compass of notes, probably without a drone. Instruments of this type were widely found on the Mediterranean coast, and must have spread long before the rise of Islam. A double-pipe instrument from Syria from the Roman period (locally known as abuba) is documented with a drum, played by prestigious women (possibly priestesses) mounted on a camel. Later, in the early Islamic period, the mizmār was much discussed and fiercely condemned by certain legists.
Historical evidence reveals that the mizmār used to be played with string instruments, a pairing that has fallen into disuse. In a bas-relief in the British Museum, a procession of Elamite musicians from the court of Ashurbanipal is shown with seven vertical harps and a psaltery which balance the presence of two wind instruments of the mizmār type. Later, in the 10th-century Kitāb al-aghānī (‘Book of Songs’), al-Isfahānī mentions the legendary musician Zalzal playing his ‘ūd with a singer named Ibrāhīm and a mizmār player, Barsum. More recently the double clarinet and shawm have been played with a cylindrical drum (Arabic: tabl; Turkish: davul), having important roles within life-cycle ceremonies.
In early Islamic literature, mizmār could mean either a beautiful voice or a wind instrument; this relationship explains features that survive today. Sometimes a single or double flute is called mizmār when the player sings into it at the same time (e.g. the tazamar of the Algerian Sahara) or plays and exhales loudly. This occurs in some techniques of the mijwiz (double clarinet), where the player blows and makes a low growling sound. Similarly, the Afar shepherds of Djibouti punctuate their playing on the obliquely held flute (fodhin) with singing.
In Egypt the mizmār is found in three different sizes, played with cylindrical drums (tabl). Corresponding to the surnay and zurna, these shawms have a detachable double reed, a pirouette and a flared body carved from apricot wood. In less than a century the shawms have discarded Turkish names probably derived from the Ottoman period. The most important of the group, the smallest, was called goura (from the Turkish cura: ‘small, shrill’), and is now called sibs; the second, zamr, has become shalabiyya or mizmār sa‘īdī; and the third and largest, in Turkish kaba (‘big’), has become tult (‘third’). The mizmār ensemble has its own strictly instrumental repertory, alternating between free, improvised sections and rhythmically strict, melodic ones which are specific dances.
In Egypt the double clarinet is called zummāra. It has two parallel tubes of the same length, 30 to 35 cm, each with a reed (balūs) which fits into the body. The tubes are bound together with string dipped in tar and wax. The melodic or principal tube (rayyis: ‘master’) has four to six holes. The adjacent tube (nawti), sometimes with no holes, serves as the drone. Some examples are bored similarly in both tubes and possess no drone. In practice, the compass is no more than a 4th. The instrument is played solo or, at public celebrations, with the darbukka (goblet drum).
In Iraq, the zummāra can be a simple clarinet with one tube and six holes (zummāra mufrad), a double clarinet with identical tubes similar to the mijwiz. It is played solo and favoured by shepherds. In popular celebrations, it is supplemented with a drum, often a goblet drum (khashaba), and required to lead the dances. Of limited compass (a 4th or a 5th), it does not have a drone.
In Yemen the double clarinet (mizmār) is fixed round the player's mouth by a muzzle, reminiscent of the early Phrygian or Greek aulos. In Tunisia and Morocco the double clarinet (zamr) has a bell-shaped single or double horn extension; in Morocco the pipes have six parallel holes. The Albanian zumare also has a horn bell; its pipes of cane, bird-bone or (more recently) metal are bound together with wool and wax and have five parallel finger-holes.
In Morocco the mizmār or zamr rīfī is a large double hornpipe, over 1 metre long, terminating in two bulls' horns. It comprises three sections: two parallel pipes of reed about 35 cm long, with six finger-holes; these are fitted into two slightly divergent metal pipes, with no holes, about 40 cm in length; these in turn are inserted into two separate horns about 30 cm long. The pipes are held together by metal wire, and the instrument is highly decorated.
The zumbara is a long obliquely held flute found in Sudan. Played by nomads, it has two finger-holes and a perforated metal disc that partly closes the open end.
EI1 (H.G. Farmer)
A. Shiloah: The Theory of Music in Arabic Writings (Munich, 1979)
C. Poché: ‘David et l'ambiguité du mizmār’, World of Music, xxv/2 (1983), 58–73
P.R. Olsen: ‘Enregistrements faits à Kuwait et à Bahrain’, Ethnomusicologie III: Wégimont V 1960, 137–70
S.Q. Hassan: Les instruments de musique en Iraq (Paris, 1980)
M.A. Hifnī: ‘Ilm al-ālāt al-mūsīqiyya [Study of musical instruments] (Cairo, 1971)
A. Weber: disc notes, Egypte, les musiciens du Nil, ii, Ocora 558 514 (1977)
A. Chottin: Tableau de la musique marocaine (Paris, 1938)
J. Jenkins and P.R. Olsen: Music and Musical Instruments in the World of Islam (London, 1976)
S. al-Sharqī: Adwā ‘ala al-mūsīqā al-maghribiyya [Studies in Moroccan music] (Rabat, 1977)
CHRISTIAN POCHÉ/R