Cairo is a good place to buy traditional musical instruments such as the kanoon (dulcimer), oud (lute), nai (flute), rabab (viol), mismare baladi (oboe), tabla (drum), riq and duf (both tambourines; the latter is played by Sufis). All of them are made and sold by half a dozen shops on the right-hand side of Sharia Qalaa (walking from Midan Ataba towards the Islamic Art Museum), which also deal in Western instruments and cheaper imitations from China.

 

Traditional instruments are also sold by itinerant vendors, especially during moulids, when a favourite buy is a hand-held dummy that claps its cymbals together when squeezed (known as a Shoukoukou after the famous comic monologist).

As the centre of the Arab music world and a melting pot for every tradition, Cairo is a superb place to buy recordings . Authorized cassettes (there are very few CD recordings of Arab music and no one uses vinyl LPs) and pirated versions are sold from kiosks where it's quite acceptable (indeed, advisable) to listen before buying. Given that non-Arabic labelling is minimal, it helps to recognize labels like Sout el-Beiruit (a green cedar-pine logo; Gulf and Levantine music), SLAM! (mostly Al-Jeel music) and the Shaabi imprint Fel Fel Phone (which has a retail outlet on Sharia Khulud, near Midan Ramses).

The kiosk beside the Café Riche is good for all kinds of music, whereas those on Ezbekiya chiefly stock religious and folk cassettes (often cheap, inferior copies). For quality recordings of Umm Kalthoum, Abdel Wahaab and orchestral music, visit Sono Cairo on Sikket Ali Labib Gabr, between Qasr el-Nil and Talaat Harb (opposite the Radio Cinema). Cairo's main distributor, Abdullah, has a shop in the alley behind the Café al'Americaine at the top of Sharia Talaat Harb, with vast stocks and an even bigger mail-order catalogue of new wave Arab music. Western music is also available in many kiosks on tape, but for CDs try the shopping malls in places like Heliopolis or Dokki.