Guembri with a maâlem
Three hours in a maâlem’s own house with the three-string bass lute that holds Gnawa together. Two patterns, properly, rather than six badly.
Morocco · Learn from maâlems
Music workshops in Morocco
Sit down with the musicians who carry these traditions. Half-day to week-long, for players of any level.
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What a Moroccan music workshop actually involves
These are not classes in a school. A workshop here means a few hours in a room with someone who plays for a living — a maâlem in his own house in Essaouira, an oud player in a Fes riad, the women who carry the ahwach in a High Atlas village. Instruments are provided, groups are capped at six, and nobody is asked to read music.
Teaching happens by demonstration and correction. You are handed the instrument in the first ten minutes, your grip gets adjusted more than once, and by the end you will have played something complete rather than practised fragments. Most sessions run two to four hours; a few run across several days and finish with you taking part in a lila or a village performance.
Around half the people who book have never played anything. The others arrive as working musicians after a rhythm they cannot get at home. Both work — these teachers have had strangers in the room for decades and they read one quickly.
Before you book a workshop
No. About half the people who book have never held the instrument. Teaching is by demonstration and correction, so there is nothing to read and no theory to catch up on.
No — every workshop provides them, and for guembri and bendir you would struggle to bring the right one anyway. If you own an oud or a violin you are welcome to bring it, and the teacher will set it up for the tuning being used.
Most run two to four hours in a single afternoon. A few are multi-day: three days for the lila preparation in Essaouira, five for the ahidous week in the High Atlas. The card on each workshop states the length.
Yes, and people do. Phones are fine everywhere. If you are bringing proper recording equipment, tell us in advance so we can ask the teacher directly — and anything you intend to publish needs their agreement first, which we will help you get.
Darija and Arabic, with translation to English or French. Most of the teaching is physical anyway — hands, posture, timing.
Yes, and it is a common request. Private sessions can be longer, pitched harder, and built around whatever you are trying to learn rather than a standard outline. Tell us who is coming and what you play.
Two to three weeks is usually enough for a half-day session, and longer in festival season when the teachers are busiest. The multi-day workshops need a month or more because they are built around the teacher’s own calendar.
Yes — most of our journeys already include one, and any of these can be slotted into a trip you are already planning. It is usually cheaper that way, because the travel is already paid for.
Read before you go
Guides · August 2026 · 2 min read
How to behave in a room where music is happening.
Ten small things that make the difference between being a guest and being an audience. None of them are about music.
Culture · June 2026 · 2 min read
The guembri, in five minutes.
Three strings, a camel-skin face, a body carved from one piece of wood, and a bass line that has not changed in three hundred years.
Essays · May 2026 · 2 min read
Chefchaouen after the day trippers leave.
Between four in the afternoon and ten the next morning it is a different town. On staying two nights in a place designed to be seen in five hours.