Research
A synthesis of what scholarship, ethnography, and the public record say about Gnawa music — paired with confidence labels so you can see what's settled, what's contested, and what only a maâlem can answer.
The guembri (also sintir, hajhuj, gnibra, gombri) is a three-stringed fretless plucked bass lute. Its wooden body — typically walnut — is coated with camel-throat skin; the three strings, traditionally goat-intestine, attach to spikes next to the soundhole and are tied at the neck with leather bands (or, increasingly, metal tuning pegs). The middle string is shorter and reaches only the middle of the neck; the other two reach the head. Construction vocabulary below comes from Hanáková, Dobbelaere & Sechehaye (2016); their footnote 3 also notes that hajhuj means literally “there are two [strings]” in Moroccan dialect, hinting the instrument originally had only two.
The dominant tuning is described as D – D – G: fundamental, octave, and a fourth above the fundamental. From the player's perspective the strings run top-to-bottom as below.
Pitch order, low to high: D2 — G2 — D3. The interval structure (root / 4th / octave) is the invariant; absolute pitch is tuned by ear to the singer or to other instruments in the lila. String 2 is the short string — it reaches only to the middle of the neck and is always played open (no fretted positions).
This confirms our standard_d preset and the project owner's reference instrument. Other documented absolute pitches in luthier sources include C, F, and G as fundamentals — the structure (root – fourth – octave) is what stays constant.
Maâlem Abdallah Gania's tuning was measured across three performances in 2009, naming each in his own vocabulary: a low extreme (msawi Abdellaoui), a high extreme (msawi tal'a), and the universal/average tuning (msawi 'alamiya). Cents values show the deviation from the tempered pitch of the named note.
Low extreme
msawi Abdellaoui
| String | Pitch | Cents |
|---|---|---|
| zir | B1↓ | -30 |
| tahtiya | E2↓ | -20 |
| ntoi | B2↑ | +10 |
Sum's lowest documented tuning for Maâlem Abdallah. Used in the 2009 Ya Rasul Allah recording she analyses against Maâlem Mokhtar's higher version of the same piece.
High extreme
msawi tal'a
| String | Pitch | Cents |
|---|---|---|
| zir | C2#↑ | +5 |
| tahtiya | F2#↑ | +5 |
| ntoi | C3#↑ | +5 |
More than a step above the low tuning. Closer to the range Sum's brothers Mahmoud and Mokhtar tend to use.
Average — universal
msawi 'alamiya
| String | Pitch | Cents |
|---|---|---|
| zir | C2↑ | +20 |
| tahtiya | F2↑ | +10 |
| ntoi | C3↑ | +20 |
Sum calls this the typical tuning of the Gnawa repertoire — neither the low nor the high extreme.
Sum reports that Maâlems Mahmoud Guinia and Maâlem Mokhtar Gania tend toward the higher range. The same maâlem may vary tuning between performances; the relative intervallic spacing (root – fourth – octave) is what stays roughly constant.
The terms m'allems use for the parts of the instrument, in the transliteration the paper's authors collected from their Brussels and Morocco informants.
| Arabic | Part / function | Material / note |
|---|---|---|
| wajh | wooden body / face of the instrument | wood (typically walnut) |
| — | skin covering the body | camel throat skin |
| awtār | strings (3) | goat intestines |
| masṭara | three spikes the strings attach to | located right next to the sound hole |
| l-fumm | sound hole | literally 'the mouth' — the Gnawa say the lute 'speaks' (itkellmū) when played. |
| makhzina | oval neck | Strings are tied with leather bands around the makhzina; contemporary players often replace these with metal tuning pegs. |
| hmmāl | wooden bridge | removable |
| sersera (rîsha) | removable metallic jingle inserted into a hole at the very end of the neck | iron or aluminium plate with metal loops on its edges — Named after the sound it makes ('srsrsr'); also called rîsha, 'feather', after its shape. See SERSERA below. |
In Moroccan dialect, hajhuj literally means 'there are two [strings]'. Several musicians the authors interviewed said the instrument originally had only two strings, the third being a later addition.
A detachable idiophone: a thin metal plate (iron or aluminium) with small metal loops or rings fixed around its edges, slid into a slot at the very end of the neck. Each guembri has its own sersera because the slot's diameter varies; the same person who builds the lute usually builds it. Produces a high-pitched metallic shimmer (1000–3000 Hz) that contrasts with the guembri's bass. Strengthens the spectral region the human ear is most sensitive to, helping the lute cut through krakeb players and singers in unamplified contexts. — Named after the sound it produces ('srsrsr'). Also called rîsha — 'feather' — for its shape. Some m'allems call it the 'tongue' (lisān) of the spirit asleep in the soundbox.
Warm / cold complementarity — wood, goat-gut strings and skin (warm) need iron and metal (cold) to be complete.
— Maâlem Rachid (Brussels, 2015) and Baldassarre 1999.
Slave-chains — the metal recalls the chains the Gnawa's enslaved ancestors wore; the rattle's sound recalls the noise of slaves walking. (Contested: Maâlem Rachid argues slaves were tied with ropes, not chains.)
— Maâlems Rida and Hicham (Brussels, 2015).
Three living kingdoms — animal (camel skin, goat guts), vegetal (the wood) and mineral (the metal of the rattle). The sersera completes the categorisation of the guembri as a coherent assembly of the elements.
— Pouchelon 2015, citing sub-Saharan animist conceptions.
Calls and announces the spirits — 'the rattles of the Gnawa lute tremble when the spirits are there'.
— During 2001; Pâques 1991; Baldassarre 1999.
Should have 64 rings, corresponding to the number of pieces a body virtually breaks into during trance and is then gathered back together by the guembri-and-sersera sound.
— Pâques 1991 (the m'allems Hanáková et al interviewed disagreed: the number of rings is whatever sounds right).
Georg Høst, Danish consul in Essaouira (1760)
'Gnawa guitar, which is used only by the Blacks. It is played with the fingers. At the upper extremity a thin metal plate with rings inserted which gives off a strong noise.'
Eugène Delacroix, *Two Studies of a Moorish Musician* (1832)
Sketches of a player whose lute clearly shows a sersera.
Henry George Farmer, *A North African Folk Instrument* (1928)
'In the more primitive types the upper extremity of the neck is quite plain, save perhaps for the addition of a metal ferrule' — i.e. early guembris existed without the slot the sersera plugs into.
Sum (2012, §5.3) divides the all-night ritual into three acts. The structure is shared across regions and lineages; what varies is duration, repertoire selection, and which moments are publicly viewable. The contrast with festival shows is stark — a sacred lila runs four-and-a-half to nine hours, a festival show runs about one.
Krakeb-led procession that consecrates the space and warms the audience. Around 30 min – 1 hour in a sacred lila; 10 min on a festival stage.
The audience joins; pieces are 'safe' to perform out of ritual context, so this is also where festival shows live. 1–2 hours sacred; up to 1 hour at a small festival lila; 30 min on a big stage.
The ftuh-ar-rahba (literally 'opening of the grain market') segues into the eight ritual suites. 3–6+ hours in a sacred lila; rarely more than 15–20 minutes on a big stage. M'allems who play full suites in sequence on a stage are quietly criticised — 'we don't do a lila on stage' (M'allem Hamani, in Sum 2006).
| Act | Sacred lila | Small festival lila | Big-stage show |
|---|---|---|---|
| I — al-‘ada | 30 min – 1 hour | 10 min | 10 min |
| II — koyo & nugsha | 1 – 2 hours | ~1 hour | 30 min |
| III — mluk | 3 – 6+ hours (all mhallat) | ~1 hour (one or two mhallat) | 15 – 20 min (select pieces) |
| Total | 4.5 – 9+ hours | ~2 hours | ~1 hour |
Source: Sum 2012, Figure 5.12.
Nine roles, distinct but overlapping in trance. Sum's partnership-of-leaders observation is load-bearing: the m'allem and the moqaddema together govern ritual success — the m'allem improvising motives and tempo, the moqaddema organising the event and channelling the spirits.
| Role | Function | Activity |
|---|---|---|
| m'allem | musical leader | plays the guembri, sings the lead, sets and changes tempo, chooses repertoirePrivileged role: only he improvises motives and sung text. |
| qarqabiya (male) | rhythmic accompanists | play Q1 / Q2 ostinato, sing chorus, danceRestricted to a fixed rhythm; follow the m'allem's tempo cues. |
| moqaddema | spiritual leader and officiant | organises the lila, channels the spirits, oversees participants' welfareMastered trance; her partnership with the m'allem governs ritual success. |
| ‘arifat | moqaddema's assistants | support initiates, bring out ritual accessories, may engage in possession dance |
| sponsor | commissions the lila | may go into possession dance themselves; ululateHas the right to ask the m'allem to adapt the repertoire. |
| guest moqaddema | supports the host moqaddema | mastered or generic trance; ululate |
| adept | initiated participant | dances when their affiliated mlouk's piece is invoked |
| non-devotee | spectator from the community | may dance, sing, ululate without being initiated |
| non-Moroccan | guest spectator | may dance / experience generic trance |
On a festival stage the cast is different (Sum Fig. 5.3): the producer (A3 Communication for Essaouira) takes the moqaddema/sponsor role, female Gnawa accompanists join the chorus and perform 'mock' trance dance, and the audience is a mix of Gnawa, press, managers, and tourists.
Between Acts 2 and 3 the qarqaba pause and the ritual assistants prepare the space for possession dance.
hmal
bundle of coloured veils and tunics
donned by adepts during the dances corresponding to each mlouk
tboqa
wicker tray
holds the boxes of powders and incense for each cohort
—
vaporiser of orange-blossom water
the m'allem and assistants spray the space and the dancers
—
brazier (kanoun)
burning incense — placed in front of the musicians; each cohort has its own incense profile
Ftuh ar-rahba — 'opening of the grain market' — segues into Mulay Abdelqader Jilali, the protector saint who guides travel between seen and unseen. The marketplace is a metaphor for the world; a liminal place where spirits and humans intermingle.
Sum reports that the progression of the possession act is 'totally invisible during the evening' to unseasoned guests — the themes flow without interruption and the change of cohort is signalled most visibly by the change of veil colour (Majdouli 2007:44).
“After much discussion by the Gnawa masters and the festival organisers in the initial years of the festival, the lila was transformed into what is called a fraja — a show, a spectacle — in Gnawa terminology, a term that distinguishes the sacred from the profane for Gnawa who perform for foreign audiences. Still billed as 'lila', the shows no longer invoke the entire pantheon of spirits, each with their own colour, music and incense. A public sacrifice is not enacted and the 'lila' lasts only a few hours. The music, in other words, has been separated from its ritual function incrementally — at least as it is performed for foreigners and Moroccan tourists.”
“It's a very personal state. It's a space where one forgets everything. One is cut off from everything. That's the mystical side of it — to create the void. It's hard to liberate the spirit. Here, they are seeking humanity, peace, harmony.”
Performances on the big stages — collaborations and random selections — are governed by an unspoken rule that forbids any kind of sequential ordering of pieces. M'allems who transgress the rule are subjected to public critique by the Gnawa community.
Three versions of the Gnawa origin story, all centred on Bilal ibn Rabah — the Abyssinian slave freed by the Prophet, the first muezzin, and the figure under whose aegis the West African and Arab/Berber genies merged in North Africa as rijal Allah. Each version sets up the same deep structure: a provocation between people who should be in harmony, a mediation through music and dance performed by an emancipated sub-Saharan Muslim with baraka, and a resolution.
Version 1
Lalla Fatima — daughter of the Prophet — locks herself in her room after being upset by the way her father handled a situation. Bilal intervenes, adorned with cowry shells across his chest, a red checia embroidered with cowries to which he attaches the tail of a bull. Dancing as he plays the qraqab all the way to her room, he succeeds in making her laugh. The Prophet, relieved, tells him: 'Your bones — your children — will never be thrown to hell.'
— Pâques 1991:53 (Version 1)
Version 2
After fighting with her husband Sidi Ali, Lalla Fatima takes refuge in a grotto enclosed by seven magical doors. The Prophet sends Bilal to reconcile his daughter and nephew. 'Bilal, equipped with the instrument [qraqab] he just invented, started dancing while turning and making funny faces… Fatima Zohra laughed and opened the seven doors. Thus Bilal having reconciled the couple, invented the game of dance belonging to the Gnawa.'
— M'allem Si-Mohamed (in Claisse 2003:96), Version 2
Version 3
Lalla Fatima, having fought with her husband, refuses to leave her room. Bilal invents the qraqab and dances. 'Lalla Fatima laughs, leaves her room and follows Bilal until she finds herself before her husband.'
— Dermenghem 1953:331 (Version 3)
provocation
Anger, pain, isolation between people who should be in harmony.
mediation
Music and dance, performed by an emancipated sub-Saharan Muslim man with baraka.
resolution
Anger → laughter, pain → relief, isolation → unity.
“The gumbri is the sultan, or Allah, and the player [m'allem] is Bilal, his slave. Bilal makes Lalla Fatima Zohra laugh, and that — according to legend — acts as a connection between her and the Prophet (Pâques 1991:220).”
The Bilal myth gives the brotherhood its theological lineage; two events in Moroccan history give it the material substrate that allowed it to entrench:
1591 — Fall of Songhai
Sultan Ahmed al-Mansur of the Saadian dynasty defeats the Songhai Empire (in present-day Mali). Trans-Saharan slave routes already feeding Marrakech intensify; the prisoners of war funnel into the city as labourers, soldiers, and household captives — and bring their ritual practices with them.
1672 — Moulay Ismail's ‘Abid al-Bukhari
The Alaouite sultan Moulay Ismail builds his personal guard — the ‘Abid al-Bukhari, the “slaves of al-Bukhari” — exclusively from Black Sudanese, housing them at Meknes. By the time the corps disperses, an institutional Black-African population is rooted in Morocco. The Gnawa as a recognisable confraternity consolidate from this matrix.
Source: Baldassarre 1986 (drawing on Pâques 1964 and El Hamel 2014). See /bibliography for the full citation.
Etymology — the Tamazight reading
Viviana Pâques (1964) reads the word Gnawa as a contraction of the Tamazight phrase igri ignawen — “in the field of the cloudy sky” or “turbulent wind.” The Gnawa, in this gloss, are the “people of turbulence.” The reading sits in tension with both Westermarck's 1899 Sus-region hypothesis and the dominant 20th-century American framing of the term as a Guinean / Ghanaian transliteration — which Aidi 2023 surveys at length.
Schools, zaouias, shrines, festivals, and historical anchors of the brotherhood's trans-Saharan origin story, on an OpenStreetMap base. Click any pin for sources.
Sum (2012, Fig. 5.15) documents eight ritual suites, not seven — the count depends on whether you split or combine certain cohorts. Each mhalla (cohort) is identified by a leader, a colour, a sensory profile (incense, offerings), and a repertoire of named pieces. The first two cohorts (Mulay Abdelqader Jilali / the Whites and Sidi Mimun and Lalla Mimuna / the Blacks) are polar opposites that must be propitiated first; the last (L'Ayalet, the female spirits, yellow) closes the lila with rebirth and procreation. The 'Aisha suite is sequenced flexibly and, when invoked, is always before sunrise.
jilali· white
Sultan of the Saints, protector
bouhala· multi-coloured
Vagabonds of God
sidi_mimun· black
Guardian to the door of Sudan
musawiyin· dark blue
Sea Spirits
samawiyin· light blue
Sky Spirits
houmar· red
Spirits of the Abattoir
ulad_agh_ghaba· black
Spirits of the Forest
shorfa· green and white
Descendants of the Prophet
layalet· yellow and various
Female Spirits
aisha· black
Ravishing Spirits
Source: Sum (2012, Figure 5.15) — sequence, colour, and cohort-leadership documented with the Gania family in Essaouira. Other lineages (Marrakech, Fez, Rabat) sometimes split, combine or recolour cohorts; Fez, for example, uses brown rather than black for Ulad Agh-Ghaba. Colour swatches on this site are research-derived placeholders.
The standard analysis of traditional Gnawa pieces is four beats × twelve sub-pulses, often notated as 12/8. The guembri carries one rhythmic motive; the krakeb carries another; the 3:2 hemiola between them is the engine of the trance.
Six- and eight-pulse cycles in early demo tabs are likely misreadings of faster pieces (where a sub-pulse may feel like the pulse) or of modern fusion. The seed library should default to 12 pulses per cycle for traditional suites.
Sum documents two indigenous qarqaba ostinati and one borrowed figure. Maâlem Outanine teaches them with vocal mnemonics; the Gania m'allems liken them to galloping and trotting horses.
“ta- ke ta ke-”
galloping horse · ternary (felt as 3-against-2 hemiola)
Right hand plays a binary subdivision, left hand a ternary subdivision. The composite is a hemiola; tactus is marked only by the right hand, so the first beat of the left hand is empty.
“ta- ke ta ke- ta ke”
trotting horse · binary (duple)
Pulsations alternate between the right hand on the first 'ta' and the left hand on the second 'ke'. The double iteration is required to return to the initial 'ta', so two units complete a cycle.
“ta ke”
metric continuum · even / unaccented
Played to support 'Aisha Hamdushiya / Aisha Dghoughiya — pieces imported from the Hamadsha brotherhood. The Gania m'allems do not consider Q3 part of tagnawit; when asked how many qarqaba figures exist they always answer 'two' and demonstrate Q1 and Q2.
As the music intensifies (and tempo increases), Q2 mutates from a 211 grouping toward an even 111 (Q2'); Q1 transforms from a ternary feel to an evenly spaced four-stroke (Q1'). Gnawa musicians consider Q1 and Q1', and Q2 and Q2', to be the same — culturally equivalent — and play the standard version when asked to demonstrate even after a recording has clearly mutated.
Sum tested this hypothesis on several occasions: she would play recordings at heightened moments where Q1 had already mutated to Q1', then ask the m'allems to play her the pattern they had just heard. They would always demonstrate the standard version, insist there are only two patterns, and reiterate that the pattern is the same from beginning to end of a piece. (Sum 2012, §4.3.1 fn. 28–29, Fig. 4.14)
Within most suites, both Q1 and Q2 are heard — pieces alternate between groups carried by each pattern. Sum reports the typical sequence as documented with the Gania family. Bu Hala and Ulad Agh-Ghaba are the exceptions: a single pattern carries the whole suite.
The repertoire is basically pentatonic; a sixth “extra” tone arises in special situations as a passing or neighbour tone. The fifth note in pentatonic pieces is either pitch 7 or pitch 6 — never both. The 'Aisha suite is the exception, with tetratonic and (since the Hamdushiya borrowing) heptatonic sets that introduce pitch 3 — a fingering otherwise absent from the Gnawa inner tuning model.
Pentatonic with pitch 7
4.8 (row 3)1 · 2 · 4 · 5 · 7 · 8
Most pieces of Mimun (1–3, 5); Jilali Rasul Allah; Lalla Mimuna
Pentatonic with pitch 6
4.8 (row 4)1 · 2 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 8
Mimun 4 (Gnawa Baba Mimun); Allah Allah Ya Mulay Abdelqader Jilali
Pentatonic, sixth-tone variant
4.8 (row 5)2 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 8
Mimun 6 (Fufu Dinba)
Tetratonic — original 'Aisha
4.8 (row 6)1 · 4 · 5 · 8
The older 'Aisha pieces (pre-Hamdushiya borrowing)
Heptatonic — new 'Aisha (Hamdushiya)
4.8 (row 7)1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7
'Aisha Hamdushiya — borrowed from the Hamadsha brotherhood; introduces pitch 3 (the 'extra' fingering on the zir).
Sum prints her transcriptions in a compact digit notation. The digits 1–8 map to a string and fingerboard position via Figure 4.4; three punctuation marks carry the timing.
| Cipher | String | Position | Pitch |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 (zir, top) | open | D2 — low drone, the fundamental |
| 2 | 1 | p1 | ~E2 |
| 3 | 1 | p2 | added with 'Aisha Hamdushiya |
| 4 | 3 (tahtiya, bottom) | open | G2 — perfect fourth above the drone |
| 5 | 3 | p1 | ~A2 |
| 6 | 3 | p2 | ~Bb2 / B2 |
| 7 | 3 | p3 | ~C3 |
| 8 | 2 (ntoi, short middle) | open | D3 — high octave, always open |
Timing marks
(1 4) = the low D drone plus the open G fourth.[7 7 7] = three rapid hits on string 3, p3.What the cipher does not print: an absolute meter or tempo — the msawi is rubato, played as the m'allem feels it.
Worked example — system 1 of Mahmoud Guinia's msawi
(1 4) 1 1 (1 4) 1 5 8… (7 8) 7 5 (4 4) …
D+G open · D · D · D+G · D · A (string 3, p1) · sustained high D · C+D simultaneous · C · A · G+G doubled · …
Before each performance the m'allem plays the msawi — a prescribed sequence resembling an Indian alap that verifies the tuning and unfolds the Gnawa scale to the audience and the spirits. Sum prints two versions in cipher notation; the brackets and parentheses are her annotations: (…) = simultaneous, […] = shorter time span, … = sustained.
Audio 4.1 in Sum 2012 — Two systems: an opening sweep through the gamut, then a closing line that reasserts pitches 1, 4, 8 (the open strings) as the points of reference.
Audio 4.2 in Sum 2012 — half a step higher than notation — Longer and more elaborated than Abdallah's. Substitutes pitch 6 for pitch 7 in some systems, and adds entirely new phrases (systems 5–9) that Abdallah does not play.
What the msawi reveals
In tuning the guembri the m'allems are concerned to adjust the sound at five different fretboard positions in a given phrase — creating a pentatonic framework. The Gania-family teaching that the strings form a 'family' (zir = father, tahtiya = mother, ntoi = child) embodies a triadic social structure that Sum reads as analogous to the m'allem, his offspring, and the moqaddema.
The two cipher figures above turned into tabs the editor can play. Each is published as a guembri.com official tab — open either to hear it played through, switch between Sum's measured maâlem tunings, or fork it into the editor.
Caveat: the msawi is rubato — the step durations there are stand-ins so you can follow the pitch sequence; the Audio 4.1 / 4.2 recordings in the dissertation are the ground truth for each maâlem's actual phrasing.
Where Sum measures absolute pitches per maâlem, Lorenzo Vanelli measures the intervals between strings and fretted positions. Two of these are distinctively Gnawa microtones — a raised neutral second (~164¢, between a minor and major 2nd) and a raised major sixth (~923¢, between a major 6th and a minor 7th) — and Vanelli argues they function as identity markers tied to the brotherhood's West/Central African origins. He notes that commercial recordings forced to follow keyboard accompaniment flatten these microtones to a tempered Dorian.
| Position | Interval | Cents | Sum cipher |
|---|---|---|---|
| dir open | tonal center | 0.0 | zir open (pitch 1) |
| dir 1st position | raised neutral secondmicrotonal | 163.9 | zir 1-A (pitch 2) |
| tehtia open | perfect fourth | 500.0 | tahtiya open (pitch 4) |
| tehtia 1st position | perfect fifth | 698.7 | tahtiya 2-A (pitch 5) |
| tehtia 2nd position | raised major sixthmicrotonal | 923.2 | tahtiya 2-B (pitch 6) |
| tehtia 3rd position | minor seventh | 1005.0 | tahtiya 2-C (pitch 7) |
| westia open | perfect octave | 1200.0 | ntoi open (pitch 8) |
Vanelli's informants: Khalid Amenhouce (Apprentice to the late Maâlem Mahmoud Guinia, Essaouira), Yassine Boubker (Professional player since age 16), Azouz Soudani (Veteran player), Mahmoud (Guembri / hajhuj instrument maker).
Gnawa modal structure is partially Dorian but resists tempered tuning at the second and sixth degrees, where a raised neutral second (~164¢) and raised major sixth (~923¢) function as identity markers tied to the brotherhood's West/Central African origins. Commercial recordings with keyboard accompaniment flatten these microtones to tempered Dorian.
Short, citable lines from fieldwork — what the maâlems and moqaddemas actually say about their own practice. For Arabic terminology used across the site, see the dedicated glossary.
Short, citable lines from Sum's 2006–2009 interviews with the Gania family and their collaborators — selected because each says something the published literature does not say so plainly.
Children learning krakeb
“I started with qraqab made from wooden crates that transported fish. My hands were too small and they didn't used to make the small [metal] qraqab like you find in the medina today. I played with M'allem Boubeker.”
— Maâlem A. Gania (2009)· Sum §4.3.1
Krakeb discipline
“One player does this 'ta - ke ta ke - TA KE', another does this 'TA KE TA KE'. They should listen and follow. When I was little I followed calmly. I listened to the others, to the guembri.”
— Maâlem A. Gania (2009)· Sum §4.3.1
Krakeb discipline
“We have to play the same thing from start to finish. We cannot follow the m'allem's rhythm. There can only be one driver.”
— Maâlem M. Outanine (2009)· Sum §4.3.1
What music is
“Music is what brings the soul into the body of man.”
— M'allem teaching reported by Pâques (1991)· Pâques §4. A young adept gave the Larousse Encyclopedia definition — 'a collection of sounds pleasing to the ear'. The maâlem ironically replied 'nice', then corrected him with the line above.
Doing a lila on stage
“He's doing a lila, playing the pieces one after the other. We don't do a lila on stage. We should not do a lila on stage. No, no, no, we cannot do a lila on stage.”
— Maâlem Hamani (2006)· Sum §5.3.2.1 — watching another well-reputed m'allem at the 2006 Gnaoua Festival.
On stage repertoire
“There are many koyo and nugsha pieces. The m'allem has a lot to choose from.”
— Maâlem Si Mohammed (2009)· Sum §5.3.2.1 — never has to play the mluk on stage.
The lahsor
“The ntoi (child) is the lahsor in many pieces — the resting note often heard at the end of a motive.”
— Maâlem A. Gania (2009)· Sum §4.2.2
Pre-possession dance
“[The pre-possession acts are] to forget the tiredness of the day.”
— Maâllem Boussou (in Baldassarre 1992) (1992)· Sum §5.3.1