Recordings and Found Sounds of Marrakesh (Moroccan Holiday Part III)

This is the third instalment of pictures and sounds from Morocco.

(See Part I here, and Part II here.)

Let's start with some traffic recorded on the way to the centre:

Traffic in Marrakech

Wandering around in the square I recorded some drummers in the main square of Marrakech, the aforementioned Jemma el Fna:

Drumming

More drumming

Moving around the same square from one group of drummers to someone playing a wooden trumpet called a raita - the sort of thing they use for fanfares in the more authentic music recreations at the Globe theatre in London.

Drumming, singing and wooden trumpet

More drumming, this time you can hear the omnipresent krakesh, castanets made out of what look like clinky pieces of iron:

Drumming, krakesh and a man on a megaphone

Novel at first, after a few days there's only so much of that you can take.

The sound of cicadas in the Olive groves at La Menara.

Cicadas

Here are five clips, which, although not whole songs, illustrate the kind of thing being played on the radio in Marrakech:

Radio - Arabic song

Radio - Arabic dance music

Radio - Spanish-tinged music

Radio - Trite dance music

Radio - jingle

This is perhaps the recording I'm most proud of getting - a group of musicians in what seemed to be an impromptu circle, the focus of which was a man playing an amplified, distorted banjo on a tiny amp.

Arabic musicians led by electric banjo

The banjo plays a long introduction, but when the rhythm (a man with an enormous tamourine - and yes, it was actually supposed to sound like that) kicks in so do the crowd. A man elbowed me gingerly and said (in English; I don't think you can hear it on the recording) "This... is real Arabic music!"

We fade out here because my girlfriend was uncomfortable with the man who was rubbing up against her. Who wasn't me.


The song alone sent a shiver down my neck, but put it in the context of the seeming exclusivity of the circle we were on the edge of and the man with the itchy crotch, and the experience is frightening and unrepeatable.

It still gives me the shivers.

To end, a recording from our visited the Cascades d’Ouzoud for a sprightly trek which offered the possibility of seeing some monkeys.

We saw no monkeys, but my musical tastes were indulged by this man

...who you can hear playing the rebab, an instrument very limited in range but played with such insouciance (or insolence, depending on your perspective) it was worth whatever I paid him:

Serenade at the Cascades d’Ouzoud

Sadly, we never got to visit the place where swimming is, according to looklex.com, "both possible and legal".

See Part I here.

See Part II here.