Two main musical styles are characteristic of the Gulf: pearl divers’ songs and traditional urban music (for an overview, see Dōkhī 1984; Ḥanẓal 1987; Maṭar n.d.; Røvsing-Olsen 1980).
Pearl divers’ songs are known locally as aghānī al-ghawṣ ‘diving songs
’ or nahma ‘animal sound
’ or ‘voice of the whale
’. The first transcriptions were published in 1960, and the first commercial recordings were issued in 1968 (by Røvsing-Olsen, whose archives are preserved at the Danish Folklore Institute,...