Amazigh song in the Middle Atlas... from ancestral songs to digital ringtones
From the peaks of the majestic mountains of the Middle Atlas, its soft voice emanates, breaking the silence of the rocks, letting the oaks of Khenifra, azilal pine, and Ifrane cedar dance to its tones. In her third decade, Aisha’s voice seems young and pure, imposing its presence even if it is not accompanied by musical instruments or sound effects.
On a tall rock near her rural home in the Ayoun Oum Er-Rbia area, the young Khenifari woman chants fragments of the art of “Tamawit,” which is a lyrical song characterized by its long breath, and is performed by a man or woman with intense emotions that reflect audio images of human monologues that are difficult to ignore.
While immersed in Tamawight, Aisha seemed to be at the peak of fusion with the melodious melody pouring out of her pristine voice, and with the expressive words emanating from her eloquent Amazigh tongue. After a few minutes of her singing monologue, Aisha smiles and tells a press statement about her strong attachment to this art since her childhood.
With keen eyes, she contemplated the mountains standing in front of her and the valleys extending within her sight, before she sighed and said: “ I love singing and I find my freedom in Tamawight.” I learned this art as a child, and over time it became an integral part of my daily rituals .”
Like Aicha, Morocco is full of hundreds of talents in Tamawite and other Amazigh musical genres. Among these, there were amateurs who practiced this art in the shadows for the purpose of pleasure and domestication, and others invested in their innate talents, becoming professional singers during independence, and laying the foundations of modern Amazigh song, and those who came after them followed in their footsteps, led by the wheel of development and innovation, and motivated by the need to keep pace with the times.
From Tamawite to contemporary singing, passing through Ahidous and other types of sung poetry, the Amazigh song appeared in the Middle Atlas centuries ago, and adapted to different time periods, forming an element of enrichment for Moroccan culture that is deeply rooted in history. In an interview with the Moroccan Press Agency, the professor and researcher in Amazigh art and heritage, Abdelmalek Hamzaoui, believes that Amazigh music appeared with the Amazigh person, just as the rest of the other musical genres appeared with its people, each with its own tongue and characteristics. “ The Amazigh man in the Middle Atlas used to sing while he was chopping wood, plowing, or reaping, and the same thing was done by the woman while she was engaged in weaving, spinning wool, or grinding wheat, for example .”
According to Professor Hamzawi, the art of “Tamawit” is a product of the Amazigh human environment in the Middle Atlas, as “ it was used in times of war to send encrypted messages from mountain to mountain, and in times of peace for symbolic communication between a man and a woman united by love and disturbed by passion .” One of the features of this art is its reliance on melody, message, and the power of sound. The late Yamna Naziz Tiversit, who grew up in the Khenifra province in 1930, was the first to record this art, and she has five immortal recordings in the archives of the National Radio.
If the art of Tamawite and Ahidous are the legitimate fathers of the Amazigh song in the Middle Atlas, as Professor Abdel Malik Hamzaoui says, then the late Hamou Al-Yazid Al-Mazdad in 1927 in Ain Louh was the first to compose the Atlantic Amazigh song and establish its foundations, before those who contemporaries or came after him followed in his footsteps. He passed away years later. This man was distinguished by his many talents. He was a brilliant singer and a brilliant composer, and he collected the lyrics of his songs intelligently from the poets he met in the markets by virtue of his profession as a cobbler.
Among the other names that were contemporary with Hamou al-Yazid and contributed to putting the Berber song in its first direction in the Middle Atlas, we mention: Osidi Benassir, Muha Oali Omozon, Esho Hassan and many others. Based on the legacy of the pioneers, a second generation emerged that developed the song in its own way, moving it from the foundation stage to the self-assertion stage. Among these artists were artists who did not deal with musical instruments as they existed, but rather changed their characteristics and adapted them to suit the Amazigh melody and sung poetic verses.
According to Professor Abdel Malek Hamzawi, “Lotar”, for example, featured only two strings, before the third string was added to it by an unknown person. The late Mohamed Rouisha was credited with adding the fourth string, thus contributing to creating a wider space for playing the popular musical maqams in the Middle Atlas. Unlike the late Rouicha, the artist Aouchouch Lahcen was known for removing the fourth string from the violin so that he could play more comfortably. One of the changes affecting musical instruments in the Middle Atlas is replacing the goat skin used in the “Amazigh bandir” with artificial leather that is not affected by the cold weather.
In light of these transformations, the Amazigh song was able to be accurately documented during the 1950s. This is because recordings of the Amazigh song in general and the Atlantic song in particular began - according to Professor Hamzaoui - in a modest way in 1952, but were confirmed and strengthened immediately after independence when the Amazigh section was launched on the national radio, and the late Hamou al-Yazid was the first to record on the radio, beginning this important stage in the history of the country. Atlantic Amazigh music.
As a result of radio recordings, the emergence of production studios, and the huge technological revolution that followed, successive generations were able to continue the pioneer journey in various forms. Among these, for example, is the Khenifran artist Sharifa Cresset, who revealed in an interview to the Moroccan Press Agency that since the beginning of her artistic path in 1980, she has remained faithful to her style at the vocal level, but she was forced to keep pace with the times by singing accompanied by new musical instruments such as the piano, keyboard, and others. Moreover, the Atlantic artist explained that the era of speed forced her to perform short songs that did not exceed 4 minutes, while her old songs were approximately 90 minutes long.
In a similar statement, the artist Abdelaziz Ahouzar highlighted that he learned a lot from the generation of pioneers, but he took a special path that draws from the authentic Moroccan rhythms without others, and preserves the Atlantic Amazigh song’s uniqueness throughout the world, pointing out that his style has allowed him since 1992 to enrich the treasury of the Amazigh song. In the Middle Atlas there are more than 35 thousand tapes so far. In contrast to Ahouzar, the artist Mustafa Oumkil Al-Mazdad revealed in 1973 in Al-Qubab that he was influenced by the art of Rai and Indian music, indicating that his singing style, although inspired by these and other musical genres, provided an addition to the Berber song of the Middle Atlas. What the artists Ahouzar and Oumkile agree on is that the technological revolution, although it contributed to the spread of the Amazigh song nationally and internationally, nevertheless caused the emergence of a generation that relies on effects and “audio tricks” to hide its artistic weakness and creative dryness.
In his response to this situation, the young artist Nabil Baja confirmed to the Moroccan Press Agency that the goal of relying on sound effects and digital distribution is to keep pace with the times, and to make the Berber song in the Middle Atlas popular with the rising generations, noting that his fame on YouTube is due to his innovative style of re-performing it. Pioneer songs, which mix Amazigh originality with Eastern and Western rhythms and others. In the same context, the young artist Younes El Hawari revealed that his love for Amazigh song prompted him to create his own studio, noting that his singing style “ draws from the well-known Amazigh styles in the Middle Atlas, and at the same time keeps pace with digital developments at the level of music and sound.” The song “Nada Nada,” for example, is old in origin, but I produced it with a modern arrangement that made it gain the audience’s approval .”
Between demands to cling to classical Atlantic Amazigh melodies and calls for openness to international rhythms, research indicates that the Amazigh song in the Middle Atlas has influenced and been influenced over time by different musical styles, giving it a uniqueness that enriches Moroccan culture. In this context, the professor and researcher in music, Ahmed Eidoun, believes that the maqams used by the Atlantic song are of Eastern origin, and the most frequent ones are Bayati, Saba, and Hijaz. However, these Maqams “ differ from their Eastern counterparts in the formulation of the musical phrase and a specific type of decoration, and the composers of the Atlas do not use from the Maqam only its type and not its branch .” In the same regard, Professor Aidoun believes that the Amazigh song in the Middle Atlas has a mutual influence with the art of the malhoun in relation to poetic meters (measures and lemmas), and that the Atlantic maqams and rhythms influenced certain aspects of the art of the aita and popular song in general.
In contrast to Andalusian tarab and malhoun, which are strongly present in Moroccan musical institutions, Professor Aidoun revealed that most of the music institutes in our country do not teach regional musical styles, including Amazigh-Atlantic music, pointing to previous attempts to integrate the regional dimension into musical education through two experiments that did not continue, They are the introduction of the mountain taqtouga at the Tangier Institute and the Soussi rubab at the Agadir Institute, before concluding by saying: “The time has come to think about approaching Amazigh music in a systematic and scientific manner in order to preserve our traditional musical styles and contribute to their advancement through approaches based on strengthening oral traditions with tools and techniques.” “ Modern .”
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