MAKKAH, 21 July 2007 — Many people may not be aware that the women in Saudi wedding tend to party longer than the guys and have a good time well toward dawn. At these celebrations one will always find a wedding band, comprised of a singer accompanied by drummers. The singers know all the favorite numbers for weddings, and their backups are women who are skilled with the rhythms of the Khaleej (the Arabian Peninsula), hired to tap out the beats on drums that resemble large tambourines (sans the castanets).
Wedding drummers have traditionally been uneducated, poorer women seeking a livelihood by entertaining at the weddings of the rich. Nowadays it’s not uncommon to find women who attend university seeing the trade of wedding drummer as something either to earn a few extra riyals during the high wedding season (the summer, when school is out anyway) or who devote themselves to the craft not out of need, or for lack of anything better to do, but because they love it.
Nofe, a 20-something Saudi woman who didn’t want to provide her family name, said she’s following in her mother’s footsteps. “My mother used to take me to weddings where she played a drum,” she said. “Eventually I excelled in playing the drum and then formed my own band. I never felt that I wanted to leave this trade. My mom used to tell me that I’m not a college-bound type, that I am only good at what I do at weddings and that this would be my future.”
Nofe said her mother’s advice used to make her depressed because though she enjoyed playing drums she also wanted to continue her education. “Then I went to college, and felt better about continuing to play,” she said. “I didn’t even look at it like a job, but rather something I did for my mother to help out.”
Nofe said when her teachers found out what she did some of them told her that playing music is haram, or “forbidden” in Islam. (Most scholars agree that it isn’t haram to play music so long as it doesn’t take one away from the spiritual responsibilities.) Other teachers were simply trying to get a discount by hiring the mother of one of their students.
“Fortunately, most of the weddings are held during the summer breaks or at weekends. So that’s helped me to coordinate between my study and work,” she added.
The prices of the drummers in the band she mentioned, depend on each one’s role in the band. For instance, the normal drummer takes SR250 per day but the main one (the one who plays the larger “duf”, as the tambourine-like drum is called, takes home SR600.
H. Al-Ghobaishy, a Saudi university graduate, said she plays in a wedding band but hides this from her parents. “I met some girls who work in a band as drummers,” she said. “I started working with them. It was just for fun at the beginning. My family didn’t know about it except after graduation, they only noticed that I attend a lot of weddings.” Then Al-Ghobaishy graduated and became a full time wedding drummer, a job she held for five years. “I worked with different bands,” she said. “My daily payment depended on the singer’s take, since she is the one who consigns us to play. So if she got SR3,000 my payment would be SR200. If she got SR6,000, I got SR400 or SR500, etc.”
Samra, a high school graduate of a technical school, said she works at a hospital but moonlights as a wedding drummer to supplement her SR1,200 monthly salary. “I tried several times to change my other job away from being a wedding drummer because of the way society looks down at them,” she said, adding that she’s heard people say musicians are perverts that commit sins and do not fear God.
“Why don’t they realize that we earn each riyal providing a simple service, while also helping us to make a living?” she asks, pointing out that she works to help support her family after her father died.
Amal is the singer in a wedding band who knows by heart some of the most recognized wedding songs in Saudi Arabia. “I started this job with little bands,” she said. “Our fees never exceeded SR1,500 at the beginning.”
Amal says that now she demands higher fees because her voice has become well known among the wedding circuit of Jeddah. Unlike the other university-bound students, Amal says her teachers never gave her strife over her job.
Fatema Al-Malfy, a high school counselor, says that all instruments are forbidden in Islam and that kids that express an interest in music should be treated kindly but carefully. “Those who took this profession only for fun knowing that it is an illicit thing should be watched especially if they are older than others,” she said. “They could affect others negatively with their bad behavior and ideas.” She then said that kids that express an interest in music are “disturbed”. She says counselors should be careful but steer these children away from any interest in music. Obviously, quite a few wedding band singers and Saudis that attend weddings and enjoy music would disagree.
