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Playable heritage gameQanun
Also known as قانون · plucked trapezoid zither
The qanun is a flat trapezoid zither laid across the player's knees, strung with groups of three strings over a long bridge and plucked with a small pick on each index finger. Rows of tiny levers beside the strings let the player raise or lower a note by a fraction of a semitone in the middle of a tune.
How to play
- Twelve strings run low to high from left to right; the lower seven belong to the left hand and the upper five to the right.
- Marks fall toward the line. Pluck the string as its mark arrives, on the beat or on the half beat.
- Choose a rhythm cycle: a four-beat, a six-beat or a nine-beat pattern; each is played twice.
Rules at a glance
- The notes belong to a makam, a melodic mode: the scale here is the hicaz mode, with its wide step between the second and third notes.
- Several steps are smaller or larger than a piano's, as on a qanun whose levers are set for that mode.
- Each cycle groups its beats as its name says: sofyan has four, semai six in two threes, aksak nine as 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus 3.
- A pluck on the beat scores in full, a near one scores less, and an extra pluck costs a little.
About the tradition
The qanun is played in Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran and across the Arab world, in court, city and village music, as a solo instrument and in ensembles. Turkish makers fit several levers to each group of strings so one set of strings can serve many makams.
Origins
Usually placed in the era of Classical Worlds (about 1000 BCE to 500 CE), although its exact origins are uncertain, within the cultural world of Mesopotamia, Levant and Arabia.
Credits
- Rhythm patterns: World Heritage Games (original teaching patterns)
- Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0, source on Wikimedia Commons
- Text: CC BY-SA 4.0, World Heritage Games.
Sources
Get the app
Qanun is one of 11 instruments in the String Music of the World app for iPhone, iPad and Android. Live on Google Play. Submitted to the App Store; in review, and the store link appears here the day it goes live. One app, many traditions, no account needed.
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