Atlas Mountains

The Arabic word “Hikmah,” means wisdom. It was the word painted in all caps in navy blue on the side of drum. Visually, that’s what I remember most from a night I spent in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains outside of Marrakech. Famished and blistered after a day of hiking, my friend and I chose the first restaurant we met on our decline, a small outdoor eatery whose kitchen was a pair of stoves underneath a tin roof. Three middle-aged mustached and bearded men played instruments in the middle of a pair of white plastic patio tables.
The men used traditional Berber instruments in their seductive performance—the rabab, a pear-shaped fiddle-like wonder, the tabl, a double-sided goatskin drum, and a taghanimt, a reed flute with a haunting resonance. The instruments were formed mainly by ingredients of the earth—wood and animal hide with the exception of the nylon string. The bare modesty of the sound achieved something no audio engineer or amount of amplification can.
The beat began slowly, a preparatory thump, thump, thump. As the pace became fervent, the strings slowly made their way into the appetizer of song. As the rabab player tapped his foot, the tiny sequin-like cymbals that hung from his teal tunic jingled in response. The methodical plucking of the rabab left a mysterious buzzing in its wake. The main course of music, a soothing yet pleasingly disturbing rhythm made me think that for a moment, I’d touched upon some sort of knowledge or understanding that lingered just beyond my reach.
Around me, the dinner-goers laughed in between loud chatter, flashing photographs, and mouthfuls of hummus drenched pita, alarmingly oblivious to the meditative miracle of music flowing invisibly in our atmosphere that made my eyes water and my heart jump. The strings became more pronounced as the music progressed, evoking the colorful haste of Spanish folk. This, paired with the eerie tonality of Berber tradition, was bliss inducing.
The men played for just awhile longer. Then, dinner and life went on. It became clear to me why members of the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin travelled to Morocco to play with local Berber musicians—to attempt to gain access to a secret of sound that seems to skim the surface of some ancient hikmah. Or, wisdom. If you find yourself in the Atlas Mountains and hear the beat of a drum, I recommend you follow the sound.