Doum Tak Shak Tak
Learning the darbubka and diving into Arabic music classics
I’ve always enjoyed the concept of playing an instrument but I’ve never quite committed enough to learning one that I would develop any proficiency. As a teenager, I had both an acoustic guitar and an electric bass. I can dabble on either but it’s really nothing special. However, it’s now been just over a year that I’ve been learning the darbuka, or as Egyptians call it, the tabla, a Middle Eastern goblet drum.
Living in London, there are a number of different institutions and organizations related to Arab culture. In particular, my teacher is Iraqi Oud Master and percussionist Ahmed Mukthar, who is the founder of the Taqasim Music School. This school teaches oriental instruments such as the oud and the darbuka, as well as Arabic music theory. The school is affiliated with the Arab British Center in London and our lessons are held at the Center.
I contemplated trying the the oud but the darbuka seemed a bit easier to manage and carry around. Also, being a fan of bass and rhythm, I figured it would be nice to complement this with some sort of drumming. The idea of drumming in a group was also appealing. I started as a beginner in January of 2023 and I, along with two others, have continued through the terms to go on to intermediate, upper intermediate and to the advanced levels. We are now something “Advanced I.” We can play most basic rhythms fairly well and it’s been a fun journey to learn in a structured environment with weekly lessons.
It turns out, the darbuka is more interesting than I anticipated. Truth be told, I didn’t quite know what to expect. As an Egyptian with some familiarity with broader Arabic music culture, I was familiar with some repeating rhythms that you’re likely to hear in many Arabic songs. I had never considered the intricacies of an instrument like the darbuka however. Conceptually it’s simple as you just have a single drum head and both of your hands. With these, there’s the open palmed “doum”, that producers more of a bass tone and is often struck with the dominant hand. The other main sounds are the “tak”, which is usually done by striking the edge of the darbuka with one or two fingers from either hand, and the “shak”, which is similar to a “doum” but rather than lifting your dominant hand as it strikes the drum head, you leave your hand to mute the strike, producing a louder percussive sound. It’s kind of like a slap.
While you can largely get by and produce rhythms with these basic sounds, an important part of Arabic music in general is ornamentation. Any time there’s a silent note in a rhythm can be an opportunity to “fill the gap.” At a basic level, that might be just adding a tak, but you can also be quicker and and a “ta-ka,” played by hitting two taks in succession with either hand. Gradually you learn how to mute your “tak” with your right hand, and eventually with your left hand. You learn to add trills and rolls. As you learn all of these, the major challenges is to stay on time and manage your coordination between both of your hands. As our teacher often reminds me, as percussionists, we are the “second leaders” and timekeepers in an ensemble (behind a conductor). So while it can be easy to play a rhythm over 2 or 4 bars, playing it consistently for 8 or 12 bars while keeping time and coordination is actually much harder than it sounds.
In our last lesson, we finally got to a level where we could play a real song. We were able to accompany our teacher as he played some songs on oud and we provided the required rhythm on the darbukas. It’s a very rewarding experience to play music in a group and have multiple instruments and sounds come together. I won’t say that we were amazing but I think we’re all excited to see what comes next. There’s also a possibility that we participate in a student concert of sorts towards the end of March. This is an exciting prospect. While I’m not yet nervous about it, I’m sure I will eventually be nervous about it. However, the good thing is that most of the songs we might play use the maqsoum rhythm, which is probably my favourite rhythm to play, the one that comes the most naturally to me.
One of the other big advantages of learning the darbuka is that I’ve also been learning more about Arabic music classics. These are songs that everyone in my parents generation knows. I would go so far as saying that most baby boomers, gen Xers and probably millenials from Arabic countries are familiar with many of these songs. We’re talking classics from Umm Kulthum, Fairouz and Abdel Halim Hafez. This music would often be playing from a cassette in my kitchen when my mom would be cooking, or on road trips in Egypt as a younger boy. Back then, and until very recently, this music never really clicked with me. I’m not quite sure why that is. I consider myself to have very broad and open taste when it comes to music but much of this music just didn’t resonate with me.
Perhaps one reason is that many of these classics are really long songs. They’re more like classical compositions from Western music in that they can easily be 30-50 minutes long. I know listen to them in the same way that I would sit down a listen to a Pink Floyd album for example. I think that with some focus and intentional listening, you can be transported on a journey in the same way that listening to a concept album can do that. Perhaps it’s a concidence, but I started collecting these songs exactly a year ago (ok off by one day) in a playlist on Spotify. I would like to highlight a few songs in particular:
Umm Kulthum - El Atlal
Both my parents agree that this is the definitive masterpiece for Umm Kulthum
Abdel Halim Hafez - Qareat El Fengan
Same goes for this one for Abdel Halim
Abdel Halim Hafez - Kamel El Awsaf
This one is only 13 minutes and has a really awesome musical interlude midway through the song
Fairuz - Saalouny El Nas
A shorter classic and also the name of Danny Hajjar’s substack
Fairuz - Nassem Alayna El Hawa
Another short one and would of the maqsoum rhythm based songs we’re likely to learn
Warda - Batwanes Beek
A bit newer and more modern sounding but it just has such a groove!
Umm Kulthum and Abdel Halim are both Egyptian icons and considered the greatest singers of their generation within the Arabic world. Fairuz, who is Lebanese, also belongs to this group and is a bit more modern. The compositions of the Rahbani brothers feel like they could easily belong on a contemporary record label looking to discovery groovy tunes from the Middle East.
Speaking of contemporary tunes, we’re now deep enough into 2024 where I can post my list of favorite albums of 2023. These are sort of in order for me, but not strictly:
Queens of the Stone Age - In Times New Roman
Andy Shauf - Norm
Altin Gün - aşk
Wednesday - Rat Saw God
Hiromi - Sonicwonderland
Noname - Sundial
Voice of Baceprot - RETAS
Yussuf Dayes - Black Classical Music
TEKE::TEKE - Hagata
Tinariwen - Amatssou
(Honourable mention for this EP): Tashkezar - Ew’aa
Next week is the first race of the year, with the Londer Winter Run, a 10k through the streets of central London. You’ll likely read more about it if you check in next weekend!