The lute was the drum, the organ, the marching instrument, the vocal accompaniment, the portable instrument, the magic salve of the ages, the founder of all music, and a visceral part of all human beings. Its weak great-great grandson, the guitar, and the modern ‘ud, are simply helpers for their singers, dwarfed by electronic effects, beats and produced records blasting on the streets. The world is no longer ruled by the ‘prince of all instruments.’

The lute, also known as the ‘queen of all musical instruments’ (regina omnium instrumentorum musicorum) was the main instrument in Europe as well until the organ took over in the 16th century, and stands in the grand scheme of instruments as the mother of all stringed instruments except for the harp and lyre, (Valentin, 1954: p. 207). The lute is a large-bellied instrument with a long neck and a fingerboard. Some theories, however unsubstantiated say that the instrument came from a hunter’s bow originally, plucked while singing in the fields. Not strange, then is the classification of one primitive form of the ‘ud, the ‘mizhar’, in the Glossarium latino-arabicum of the 10th century, translated, along with its counterpart the ‘mazhar’, as tympanum. The double-meaning implies the idea that the early lute was a percussive or percussion instrument, used to accompany singing with rhythm. Both the drum in question and the lute in question are both made of skin, wood and strings. (Hickmann, 1970: p. 63)

Where did music come from? What does western tradition say? Maybe western scientists would find some way of scientifically determining when vocal chords had evolved to the point of turning a shout into a song… The Arabs hold dear a tradition for the origins of music that varies a little with each telling, but stays relatively similar all in all. Lamech, as the Hebrew bible named him, or Lamak, as he is called in Arabic, is thought to be the father of all music. All myths agree that he is in some way related to the biblical Cain.

Bar Hebraeus of the 13th century AD writes of an Arab legend that credits Jubal in the Hebrew bible, a descendant of Cain, with the first song, an elegy on the death of Abel. Cain’s daughters were said to be the first musicians and inventors of instruments, and still the word for ‘singing girl’ is used in Arabic (kaina), (Polin, 1954: pp. 78-79).

An Iraqi myth handed down in the 9th century AD, and an Iranian myth from the 10th century both say that the ‘ud was invented by Lamak, the 6th grandson of Adam, (a direct descendant of Cain) on the death of Lamak’s son. He hung the boy’s body in a tree, and the dried-out skeleton suggested the form of the ‘ud. The myth also says that the lyre was first made by Lamak’s daughter, (http://www.kairarecords.com/oudpage/Oud.htm).

A contemporary Palestinian telling of the myth embellishes the story about Lamak, and tells of his having had a son at a late stage in life, overjoyed with his good fortune. Lamak loved the boy more than himself, and when the boy died, Lamak promised never to live another day without seeing the boy’s form hanging up in the tree. He took and carved the first ‘ud in the shape of his son’s thigh and foot bones, and he sat and played the first lament. (A variation of the story tells that Lamak actually takes the bones of his son and makes them into the first lute.)

The Palestinian myth appears to come from Ibn Hurdadbih, in the 9th century, who described to his Khalif the invention of the ‘ud (my translation, from Perkuhn, 1976: p.155):
The first person who used the lute was Lamak, the son of Matsulah… [Ibn Hurdadbih names here the following genealogy: Adam, Cain, Hanug, Abad, Mahawil, Matusalah, Lamak]… This Lamak had a son, who he loved tenderly. When his son died, Lamak hung his body upon an tree. The bones fell apart and there was nothing left but the thigh, the calf, and the foot with the toes. Lamak took a piece of wood and built, after he had carefully cut to size and planed it, an oud from it; he gave the body the form of the thigh, the neck, the form of the calf, and the head that of the foot. The pegs imitated the toes, and the strings the tendons.

Another version of the story says that God gave the sons of Cain the ability to make musical instruments; Lamak invented the lute, Tubal the drum, Dilal (Noah’s daughter) the harp, and Lot’s people the pandore, (http://www.kairarecords.com/oudpage/Oud.htm).

Were the myth of Lamak true, what would his lament have sounded like. Of course all guesses are true stabs in the dark, but Hickmann describes the vocal sounds of primitive Arabic music. He claims that they liked the nasal sound of castrated men, and also the overtones of a voice made nasal by a technique of the hands.

According to Hickmann, there were two essential forms of music in the early history of Arabic music, and both took after instruments that were played to accompany them, or perhaps the instruments imitated the voices. The first type of vocal timbre was the one employed by country folk, nasal and overtone rich, much like American rural music. Children’s, women’s and farmers’ (fellahin) songs were in this category. The music was very quiet, introverted, and, as Hickmann describes, ‘half-loud’ (literal translation from German). The instruments that accompanied the singing were the endblown flutes, rich and huskily played with much breath and a nasal sound, and the scratchy sound of the bow on the rabab, also very breathy and nasal. These were high and dark-colored sounds. The contrasting sounds to these were those in upper-class and art music; hard, loud and bright sounds were most beloved, and emphatic and high voices. Hickmann describes this music as extroverted, with horns, the mizmar (a loud reed instrument), the hard plectrum hits of the lute and the qanun. (Hickmann, 1970: p.53)

The lute, as Hickmann further speculates, was the backpacker guitar of its era. It was an instrument that one could strap on and go into battle with, or bring home to practice for all historians might guess. In the second millennium BC, or perhaps earlier, depending on the estimate, harps were common, and lyres were all the rage; new designs kept secret from other countries, (Polin, 1954: p.45). And then some fellow developed the first long-necked lute. And music was changed forever. Perhaps it was a hunter who somehow fingered melodies on his bow while he played,
The idea for [the lute], a small soundbox and a long neck on which strings could be stopped by the fingers, must have arisen from the hunting bow or primitive musical bow.” (Polin, 1954, p. 20)

or perhaps it was a mathematician who began to understand the overtone series. Regardless, the variable string-length instrument was first invented sometime far before ‘history’ as we know it. (Hickmann, 1970: p. 194)

Harps were getting to be as heavy as pianos might be today, up to 7 feet tall and built of solid woods, with dozens of strings:
“The most magnificent of all harps was the standing harp of Rameses III (circa 1230 BC), seven feet tall and decorated with paintings and mosaics.” (Polin, 1954: p.45)

Not an instrument that musicians liked to haul around to gigs in the nearby kingdoms! One could only play one note per string, so as musicians got better, and as kings got pickier, and as critics started writing their papyrus column critiques (that’s a joke), there had to be bigger and better harps (the Assyrian harps were especially large, with the Sumerian and Babylonian harps coming a close second). Lyres were designed for ease of movement and ease of transportation, but the things were still cumbersome and huge, and there were only a limited number of strings one could fit on such a little instrument. (Hickmann, 1970: p. 194)

The new concept in sound was in changing the length of the strings to get different pitches, something one might take for granted these days, but a phenomenon that must have revolutionized the music world back then. Because it is fairly impractical to shorten the string length on a harp or a lyre due to the fact that they are hanging freely in the air, a fretboard of some sort was necessary, so they put wood underneath the strings, and this was the first lute. The instrument had a long neck bound to a small round resonating body. The resonator was probably either a turtle shell, a pumpkin or coconut shell, halved and covered over with animal hide on one side. The lute most likely had few strings, but was most likely very usable and portable, and playable while marching. (Hickmann, 1970: p. 194-195)

One common guess to the true origin of the lute is the Caucasus mountains of Asia, though it is impossible to know what might have happened in the formative stages of Arabic music upwards of five millennia ago. Hickmann presents his argument: (my translation)
“If one tries now to order the early pictures of lutes to order and make sense of them, it becomes evident that from the first half of the second millennium pictures of lutes turn up in the most varied of locations from near Asia outwards. These This proof not only comes together in the correct time period with the appearance of the mountain peoples, but the places the lute representations were found are also in areas that belong to the sphere of influence of these people, so that one must accept that the lute was brought by these mountain people to near Asia. Possibly, the home of the lute is with the old settlers of the Caucasus mountains. (Hickmann, 1970: p. 196)