When I hear the sound of the Rebab, my hair stands on end. The haunting sound of the Rebab mesmerizes. It is like a weeping human voice that cannot be ignored. It calls to you and your very spirit to listen to it.
The 3-string Rebab is a traditional Malay instrument that plays the lead in Mak Yong. Mak Yong, a dance drama theatre performance. Makyung is the only Malaysian performing art that was awarded the Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity title by UNESCO in 2005. . Why Mak Yong? Makyong is a unique performance known for its ritualistic elements and mysticism. The Rebab plays a fundamental role as the leading instrument. According to Mubin Sheppard, a reknown expert in Malay arts, Rebab has “its close association with the supernatural, notably in the Malay spirit raising and healing ceremony (Main Putri) and the Malay dance drama (Ma’yong).
The Rebab is so important that a Mak Yong performance can only commence after a 20-minute ritual of “Mengadap Rebab” or paying respect to the Rebab. Mengadap is a term usually reserved for a respectful posture to adopt by a commoner when meeting a King or Queen. At a Mak Young performance, I have seen Mak Yong dancers pay respect to the Rebab by entering the stage and face the Rebab and its player.
As one performer said to me, the Rebab is deemed as the “teacher” or “guru” as without the Rebab leading the whole Makyong performance, there will be no Makyung. The Rebab triggers the performance and will lead the rest of the performance – the singer and the musicians will follow its lead in every single piece. Rebab is the master or the guide of the musical piece (Pamurba Lagu).
In a Makyung Teri, the Rebab is the piece carrier or guider. It provides the introduction, background, counter music, mimicking sounds of nature andkeeping to the tone of dialogue and singing throughout the performance.
The 3-string Rebab or “Spike Fiddle” is accorded the highest prestige amongst all Malay music instruments. ...it may have been originated in the Near East…and ancestor to the bowed lutes in Europe.” Research points out to the origin of Rebab to Persia from as early as 8th BC.
The astonishing sound of the rebab that is said to resemble the human voice, and its fundamental leading role in Mak Yong makes Mak Yong unique.
“It has a variable pitch, like the human voice, and its sound more nearly resembles the nasal hum of a man than the notes of a violin…the near-prodigal extent of its decoration bears witness of its status.
The Rebab’s voice has been compared to that of a woman’s weeping voice. The anatomy of the Rebab is also named after a woman’s anatomy. This is strange and intriguing. In ancient Malay legends, it is whispered that the skin used in the Malay rebabs used to be from the belly of a mother who has died in childbirth of a first son, thus evoking her sad, weeping sounds.
I found this quite mysterious, as the sad weeping voice of the Rebab has even inspired and manifested in Malaysian visual arts. A Malaysian artist sculptor, Mad Anuar Ismail created a sculpture called “Pemain Rebab No.1”. He was apparently inspired by a vivid, ancient tale from Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa. It was about a person crying out in pain under torture when his back is sliced by a sword by an evil creature. The sound of a sad, weeping human voice is compared to that of the sound of the Rebab.
Nowadays, the skin of the rebab face is made of the a cow or buffalo’s stomach – however, it has to be the soft, thin internal part of the belly thus it is not called leather as it is not the outer skin. The thin belly creates the high-pitched distinctive sound of the Rebab. Listen to this unique sound again:
What is interesting is that Rebabs or similar instruments in other cultures are also valued for their human like tone, usually a sad, weeping voice (like the Er Hu in China, Rababa in the Near and Middle East, Kamanche in Iran, Rebab in Indonesia and Thailand).
A famous Rebab player, Che Mat Jusoh even makes his own rebab. Made from a type of Malay wood called Sira Tanduk, it is embedded with ivory and sea-shells that bear his name.
There is little recognizable melody in Ma’yong song. The soloist is expected to demonstrate her vocal facility and the music from the Rebab to accompany the song is an arabesque woven round a melody which is seldom directly stated, instrumentally and vocally. It has been compared to ancient Near Eastern art music not to be found in other forms of South-East Asian music. The tonal system used in traditional Mak Yong is different from that in general use in South-East Asia, and according to Sheppard, it represents a riddle, which only a dedicated ethno-musicologist is likely to solve.