Little there is to say about the guitar in Kurdish traditional music. The reason is simple. It is not a native instrument from the culture. In similar cultures where the guitar was not found originally it was adopted and musicians made a splendid job using it for their traditional music. However interestingly enough Kurdish people are not playing their traditional music on guitar.
But far from this being an impediment I found the guitar proofs to be an amazing instrument for this music. It really captures the power of Kurdish music compositions and reflects the depth needed for the details and nuances of the style.
THE KURDISH TANBURAll the Kurdish music I play on guitar is based on Tanbur compositions. The tanbur is one of the most cherished Kurdish instruments. It has less strings than the guitar and its sound is very delicate. The right hand of a tanbur player is, we could say, a mirrored image of that of the guitarist. Let me explain this. Many right hand techniques used in tanbur playing are the same as those of the guitar but go in the opposite direction. For instance, Kurdish players use a type of tremolo called shor. It is exactly like a guitar rasgueado. However where the guitarist would start by striking with the little finger towards the index the tanbur player would do it from index to little. In a way it reminds me of traditional Chinese Pipa players techniques. |
|
Another great advantage of Kurdish music based on tanbur is that it does not use microtones. Don’t get me wrong, microtones are beautiful sounds but they can be very challenging for musicians not used to them.
All traditional Kurdish music can be played on standard guitar tuning so if you are the type of player who likes making a fusion of styles this will make your life easier. However, there are alternative tunings in order to get the most authentic possible sound while playing the style.
This article comes from the book “Kurdish Music for Guitar by Fernando Perez”.