The lute and the lyre
The lyric songs of northern Sudan were originally played on the
tambour, or lyre, using pentatonic scales, and are quite
distinct from the Arabian maqam structures. When the far
more sophisticated oud or lute was introduced from across
the Red Sea, Sudanese players developed a style of plucking and
striking the strings of the oud from the technique they
had used on the lyre.
Some of the more basic lyre-players scrub jerkily across the splayed strings, a sort of acoustic grunge to western ears, while others extract a plaintive quality. The lyre is also common in south Sudan, where these days the instrument is just as likely to be made from a hub-cap or a land-mine casing as from the gourds of old.
Plenty of horns
Odd and tantalising styles
of horn playing crop up in unexpected places - traditional Nigerian
Fellata and Blue Nile Berta, post-imperial quasi-military, James
Brown funky, smooth makossa . Some resemble wounded cows, and
take a while to get used to; some are just badly rehearsed. Others
are immediately uplifting. A generation ago it was Juma'a Jabir,
who once taught in the Army Music Section and later became a valued
session player, who pioneered the contemporary use of horns. These
days the best-known - at least among outside collectors - is Hamid
Osman.