Traditional Emirati Music and Dance

Abu Dhabi's musical heritage stretches from the desert to the sea. You can hear it live at festivals, in fort courtyards and concert halls, throughout the year. Here's what to listen for, and where.

Al-Ayyala, the national performance

UNESCO listed Al-Ayyala in 2014, which tells you its significance and nothing about what it feels like to watch. Two rows of men face each other, thin bamboo canes in hand, swaying to a rhythm laid down by drums at each end. Slow at first, almost meditative, then the beat builds, the canes rise, voices join, and by the end the whole thing pulses.

It began as a celebration of bravery, performed at weddings and national occasions, and it still is. Catch it at major national celebrations, and if you can stand close, do: the drum sound travels through the ground.

Al-Razfa, the ceremonial one

Where Al-Ayyala sways, Al-Razfa is sharp: precise formations carrying decorated canes or replica rifles, with poets reciting verse between the movements. It comes from the traditions of the desert interior and was made to mark significant moments, which it still does, mostly at weddings and major events.

You'll see it less often than Al-Ayyala, but the combination of chanted poetry and formal movement gives it a different weight when you do.

Nahma, the songs of the pearl divers

Before oil, the economy ran on pearls, and the men who dived for them sang to manage the work. Nahma is call-and-response: a lead singer, the naham, calls from the bow, and the crew answers, setting the rhythm for hauling ropes, marking the dives, keeping men together through genuinely dangerous work. Different songs existed for different tasks.

The instruments behind it

Three instruments recur. The oud, ancestor of the lute, is pear-shaped and fretless, which gives it a fluid, bending quality Western strings can't quite reach; it carries most of the melody. The drums drive the rhythm, from the frame drums of Al-Ayyala to smaller hand drums.

And the rababa: one or two strings, wood and goatskin, bowed. Droning, mournful, completely distinct. If you hear a sound that seems to come from somewhere older, it's probably the rababa.

To get closer to the instruments, visit Bait Al Oud, where master craftsmen build ouds by hand, and students learn to play them. Watch an instrument take shape, hear one played properly, and you'll understand why the oud carries the melody.

The sounds of Abu Dhabi: traditional Emirati music and dance

Al-Ayyala, the national performance

Al-Razfa, the ceremonial one

Nahma, the songs of the pearl divers

The instruments behind it

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