Foreign Instruments

Being that I'm a fan of an Armenian rock band (System of a Down), I decided to dedicate this post on Middle Eastern instruments. I feel nostalgic when I hear artists like Arto Tuncboyacian because the melody in their songs is somewhat hypnotizing. It makes me feel at ease, maybe even "one with music". Instruments like the ud, and the Qanoon are heavily used in Arabic orchestra.

The ud has the shape of a pear with five double courses of nylon or gut and metal-wound silk strings, and is also fretless, which makes it a little hard to play without the proper knowledge. The Qanoon, on the other hand, resembles a harp in the sense that you must pluck the strings to hear a note. Interstingly enough, the bridge of the Qanoon rests on segments of fish skin covering small square spaces on the wood top, which means that the strings are tuned with the basic notes of a given scale.

THE SYSTEM

In the early 90's Armenian native, Serj Tankian, would like to jam with his band in a local recording studio near Glendale, California. Next to their studio room was another band, that included Daron Malakian, whom which will eventually convince Serj to leave his band and join Daron's as their vocalist. They both formed a jam band called Soil, not to be confused with the Chicago based band of the same name. The bassist quit the band thinking that it wasn't going to take them any where so Soil was looking for a bassist and a possible record deal.
The band met bassist, Shavo Odadjian in '94 who was also Armenian, and was planned to be the band's manager, but seeing that they needed a bassist, he became part of the band.Then their drummer suffered a hand injury and was later replaced with John Dolmayan. For the meantime, their name was later changed to Victims of a Down, until Serj thought that the word "System" applied more to society as a whole.Since then, System of a Down has released five albums and earned a Grammy award for "Best Hard Rock Performance" for the song BYOB. Their last concert was on August 13,2006 in Florida. Currently, Daron started his own band called, Scars on Broadway, along with John, and Serj started a solo career. Shavo also created his own band, ACHOZEN.