Qanbūs [qabūs].

Short-necked lute of Yemen, widely disseminated with slightly varying terminology: gabbūs (Zanzibar), gabbus (Oman), gabusi or gambusi (the Comoros), Gambus (parts of Indonesia and Malaysia), qabūs (Saudi Arabia) and kabôsy (Madagascar). One of the earliest references to it is in Lane (1863–93): ‘a sort of tunbur made by the people of al-Yaman now called qabus or the lute’. The term derives from the root ‘q-n’, often found in the musical vocabulary of Semitic languages. A comparison between the existing ‘ūd and the qanbūs points to reciprocal influences and continuous interaction: the shape of the latter is certainly close to that of the early Islamic ‘ūd. The myths surrounding their invention are largely the same, and the influence of the ‘ūd on the qanbūs is observed in the borrowing of the former term to describe the qanbūs in Sana‘a, Yemen (the ‘ūd of Sana‘a) and in the use of double courses; the qanbūs has three double courses and one single string, the ‘ūd four or five double courses and one single string.

The qanbūs is shaped from a single piece of fir. Its size is determined by the player, and measured in fists, fingers and spans. The soundboard (jofra), covered in skin, should measure one span, and the total length is determined on that individual basis. The qanbūs has a distinctly ovoid shape, with the body extended at the base by an external tailpiece to which the strings are attached. The tailpiece serves principally as a support, enabling the instrument to be held on the right arm (see illustration). The body is covered with green lambskin. The fingerboard, beginning at the rose, narrows towards the top and ends at the neck with a pegbox in the form of a backward ‘S’, the scroll tipped by a small mirror with magical significance. Eight pegs are divided between the two sides, but they hold only seven strings, which pass over the nut and are stretched across a bridge to the tailpiece. There are no frets. A crow’s quill is used as a plectrum. The total length of the instrument varies between 90 and 100 cm, and it is about 25 cm wide and between 12 and 15 cm deep. At Sana‘a it is tuned c'–d'–g'– c'' (higher than the modern ‘ūd).

Rarely used alone, the qanbūs doubles a vocal line and is accompanied at Sana‘a by the mirwās (a double-headed drum) and the sahn nuhāsī (percussion idiophone in the form of a brass tray). In Hadramawt (Yemen) the instrument has been freed from the voice to develop its own instrumental repertory, particularly through the example at Sana‘a of Qāsim al-Akhfash (d 1973). There exist two performing styles: tafrīq, a melodic style used for the mutawwal, a prominent genre in the Sana‘a repertory; and khalt (‘mixture’), a harmonic style.

The qanbūs fell into disrepute during the reign of the Imām Yahyā (1904–48). Religious extremism dealt a severe blow to the instrument and to the lute-makers of the Yemen, and the qanbūs had to compete with the Egyptian ‘ūd. By the end of the 20th century the ‘ūd had almost replaced the qanbūs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

EI1 (‘‘Ūd’; H.G. Farmer)

E. Lane: ‘Azafa’, An Arabic-English Lexicon, ed. S. Lane-Poole (London, 1863–93)

L.W.C. van den Berg: Le Hadhramout et les colonies arabes (Batavia, 1886/R)

‘Les instruments de musique en usage à Zanzibar’, RHCM, vi (1906), 165–70

H.G. Farmer: ‘Meccan Musical Instruments’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1929), 489–505

C.S. Hurgronje: Mekka in the Latter Part of the 19th Century (Leiden and London, 1931/R)

C. Sachs: Les instruments de musique de Madagascar (Paris, 1938)

C. Sachs: The History of Musical Instruments (New York, 1940/R)

M. ‘Abduh Ghānim: Shi‘ir al-ghinā’ al-San‘ānī [Sung poetry of Sana‘a] (Sana‘a, n.d.)

C. Poché: disc notes, North Yemen, Odeon 3C 064 18352 (1978)

E.M. Frame: ‘ The Musical Instruments of Sabah, Malaysia’, EthM, xxvi (1982), 247–74

M. Domenichini-Ramiaramanana: ‘De quelques instruments de la grande île’, Musique traditionnelle de l'océan Indien: discographie, iii: Madagascar, ed. C. Nourrit and W. Pruitt (Paris, 1983)

C. Poché: ‘Introduction à la musique de Djibouti’, Musique traditionnelle de l'océan Indien: discographie, xvii: Djibouti, ed. C. Nourrit and W. Pruitt (Paris, 1983)

CHRISTIAN POCHÉ