Takht Performance in Kuwait

While I was cleaning my computer for unnecessary files, I stumble upon a few pictures that I took last August. It was included in the Ramadan picture folder that I have in my D drive. They were photos of three Arab musicians playing at a local mall here (Al Fanar). I didn't know their names nor the kind of instruments that they were using but I have to say that their melody was good. Not the typical pop, rnb, hip hop or soul music that you'd hear on the radio because it presents more of an ethnic feel, you know something that would remind you about folk songs, more like probably how Arab traditional music sounds like. Reminiscing back that memory, I know I was with my cousins that day and I had been surprised to see that there's such a performance occurring on this place. I mean back home mall tours of different local and international artists were a common thing but in Kuwait? I was like...really?! I know we listened to their performance - mind you it was all instrumental - for more than 15 minutes because it was really soothing to the ears. It felt like a lullaby.

Looking at the photos, I googled to know what the instruments that these musicians were playing. Unfortunately blogger diasbled the caption feature for each photos so I'll just describe who plays which instrument. The man on the left happened to be playing what they call Oud. At first glance you'd thought it's a banjo, because of its strings but with a bigger pear-shaped body, lacking frets and appears to have a rather small neck. The other man on the right side was seen playing a Riq. I thought it was a typical tambourine at first glance but according to what I read it's mainly composed of wood and fish or goat skin. Among the three, the girl's instrument really caught my attention. I've never seen such a flat-stringed instrument like what she was using and thanks to Wikipedia, I found out that it was called Kanun. It's a type of zither that has a trapezoidal body. If you look closely she placed it on a table to have the ease of playing it instead of putting it on her lap. Then as I continued to read what each does, I found out that what I have just seen back then at the mall was called a Takht Performance or what they'd call an ensemble of Arabic musical instruments. The only question left in my mind was who were these people, I mean if they're known artists and what musical genre were they really playing? Anyhow, I'd probably see more of these kinds of performances later on since I'll be staying here for a while.