A Personal Foot Note: In the years 1985 to 1988 I purchased this instrument during one of the years in the Vancouver Folk Festival. After these Egyptian musicians performed on stage after the performance the musicians had to sell their instruments. I happily purchased this instrument as one of my first ever ethnic instruments purchased.
Name: Rebebe.
Regions: Egypt > Middle East.
My Specimen: Egyptian.
Dimensions:
Acquisition Date: Circa 1980s.
Acquisition Source: Vancouver Folk Festival, Vancouver Canada.
Description: The rebebe is a two or four stringed bowed chordophone classified as a
"spike fiddle". In which many close cousins of rebebe are found in Iraq
a four stringed relative to similar bowed instrument in Morocco. The
rebebe is played amongst Egyptian musicians is tuned often in fourths,
accompanied by the dumbek, and midjweh. The rebebe can be found all
over the Arab-Middle-East, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco and
Egypt; through out Egypt the rebebe is also been played by the Roma
(Gypsies). The rebebe constructed from a coconut shell sound holes are burnt into
the back of the coconut-shell and often fish-skin is stretched over the
coconut-shell to create the sound resonator. The rebebe has an iron
spike which is used as a rest and is attached into the shaft. The
rebebe has two friction tuning pegs in which horse hair is attached
from where the shaft meets the body, then a bridge often hand carved is
underneath.