Yvan Gastaut

 

This short excerpt, broadcast in August 2010 in a educational magazine programme made for Algerian television by Sidi Ahmed Houlala, shows a musician, Mohamed Kanou, playing a guembri.

 

A traditional musical instrument with plucked strings, the guembri is used in ritual songs by the Gnawa (a term derived from “Guinea”), descendants of slaves and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Settled for centuries in Morocco since the beginning of the Arab slave trade, the Gnawa have, through their music, been seen as a cultural minority. It is only since the late 20^th century, as people became aware of a sub-Saharan presence in the heart of North African societies, that works of the Gnawa have become popular not only in Morocco but also across the whole Mediterranean basin.

The guembri has three strings, originally made from goat gut but today more likely from nylon fishing-line. The body is often made from a turtle shell, its elongated shape inspired by African canoes: it’s 20 to 40 cm long with tanned camel skin stretched across its soundboard. Its long, rounded wooden neck ends with a “sersar” or sistrum, a kind of rattle that shakes and rings with the vibrations of the strings, producing a very particular sound. The guembri is played by a maâlem (master of ceremonies)  who plucks the strings while hitting the skin under the strings at the same time, in order to obtain a dual register “bass” and “percussion”. Accompanied by krakebs, a kind of metal castanet, and a big drum, the maâlem guides the trance of the adepts during nocturnal rituals.

In Gnawa music the sintir or hajhouj is a larger form of guembri while the gumbass is another variant combining the body of a guembri and the neck of an electric bass guitar.

An instrument specific to Gnawa troops, for a long time the guembri remained separate from other harmonies used in Morocco. But with the success of Gnawa music, certain groups such as Nass Al Ghiwan or Jil Jilalai have adopted the guembri in their orchestration.

Now used by musicians from Mali, Guinea, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, French, but also in Tuareg and Berber groups, the guembri symbolizes the hybrid nature of Mediterranean culture. Its shape may vary according to the context, such as in Algeria with guembri made of a wooden neck and two strings or in Europe where it’s called the lute-drum.