Yatathanna Model

Fourteenth century — present tense.

Lamma Bada Yatathanna is among the few melodies still living. Like Dies Irae, it is performed today — and remains one of the most emotionally intense works ever written.

Lyrics possibly by Ibn al-Khatib, whose poetry adorns the walls of the Alhambra, written in 8/10 meter and maqam Nahawand — a world of modes once common, now absent from Western music.

The nature of sound and its overtones is microtonal, not tempered to twelve equal semitones. This is what makes this project both profoundly challenging and deeply inspiring.

The work on the Yatathanna Model asks whether an instrument can embody the true, objective nature of sound while retaining the form of a classical violin — whether it can offer the musician that same intensity and grace contained in this timeless melody, at the instant it is lifted from its case.

On rare occasions, a Lineage Study gives rise to a small number of complete instruments while the work is still unfolding. These are not finalized models, nor steps toward one. They are singular outcomes of a specific inquiry, shaped by the same listening, constraints, and responsibility as any instrument that leaves the atelier — yet bound to the moment in which the question was asked. To carry such an instrument is to accept its unfinished nature not as a limitation, but as a form of shared authorship.