2º CONGRESSO DE ORGANOLOGIA

Universidade de Évora 18-20/04/2013

Rui Pedro de Loureiro Silva Março 2013

(Percussão Histórica)

AL-DUFF: developing contemporary prototypes steming from the traditional

adufe

AL-DUFF is an Arabic expression used since the 6th century AD which was

later integrated into the romance language and then used throughout the

Islamised Iberian Peninsula as a synonym for frame drums of big or small

proportions, with or without jingles, round or square shaped.

We consider the adufe, a traditional Portuguese percussion instrument and a

bimembranophone, square drum, to be part of a larger, more diverse and

shared Mediterranean heritage. Our starting point to explore this connection

was the contemporary oral tradition of the region of Idanha-à-Nova as well as

its broader performative use in the 21st century.

Recently, the traditional performance of adufes and their songstresses has

found some hype namely due to the efforts of local governments and cultural

organizations seeking to promote tourism. However, the adufe in itself and its

construction, scarce exceptions notwithstanding, has evolved more in the

decorative sense and less in the musical sense which has led to the

production of poor quality specimens, build with inappropriate materials, with

little or no performative use.

Our organological review of the adufe, which focused on elements like weight

and skin density enabled us to understand how it is built, what are its

limitations (vulnerability to uncontrollable external variables, e.g., variations in

  

temperature and humidity, slacking skin, reduced timbre range) and possible

structural alternatives.

Based on our findings, we developed several prototypes built outside the

traditional context of the adufe and inspired by the perfomative techniques of

the Mediterranean frame drums. We used different materials as well as

different methodologies and created a ceramic adufe, an adufe with an

incorporated zipper to access a concealed air chamber, an adufe built by a

frame builder and another finished off by a saddler. Our main goals were to

establish innovations such as developing a fine tuning system for the head,

reducing contact between the head and the wooden frame and lastly we tried

new overall dimensions.

It is our belief that in undertaking these modifications we have been able to

enhance the adufe in terms of sound, timbre and musical range. We hope that

this work will contribute towards disseminating the adufe’s tradition and its

roots, whilst promoting its preservation and progress into the 21st century.

Bibliografia:

COHEN, Judith. El pandero cuadrado en España y Portugal. Cahiers du

P.R.O.H.E.M.I.O, 2004.

COHEN, Judith R. (2008) "This Drum I Play": Women and Square Frame

Drums in Portugal and Spain. Enthnomusicology Forum, 17:1, 95 - 124.

COHEN, Judith R. Dále, niña, al pandero! – Hit that drum, girl – Frame drum

traditions and changes in Portugal and Spain. In: Richard Graham and N.

Scott Robinson,eds. / Transculturation and Organology: Frame Drums in

Time, Space, and Context/. Ashgate Press, in preparation. 2012

HENRIQUE, Luís. Instrumentos Musicais. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste

Gulbenkian, 2004. ISBN 9789723110678

_. Acústica Musical, 2ª Edição, Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2007.

  

MOLINA, Maurício. Frame Drums in the Medieval Iberian Pensinsula. Kassel:

Edition Reichenberger, 2010. ISBN978-3-937734-71-2

OLIVEIRA, Ernesto Veiga. Instrumentos Musicais Populares Portugueses. 3ª

edição (1ª, 1966). Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Museu Nacional

de Etnologia, 2000. ISBN 972-666-075-0

Rui Silva

1984, Coimbra - Portugal

In 2012, was awarded the title Master in Early Music Interpretation - Historic

Percussion, at ESMUC (Barcelona, Spain) under the supervision of Pedro

Estevan and having graduated top in his class.

Currently, he is following up on the theme of his dissertation "Al-duff: applying

mediterranean frame drums techniques to the adufe in the 21th" by further

researching the Adufe, the portuguese traditional square frame drum. He is

doing this by developing performance techniques which connect the Adufe to

classic mediterranean frame drums and also through building inovative

prototypes of the Adufe which aim at broadning the instrument's sound and

playing range.

He is resident percussionist at Sete Lágrimas - Old and Contemporary Music

Consort and also at Touli Ensemble.