Music of the...gourd?

When I enrolled in the “Music of Afghanistan” class at college (because why not?) our professor, Lloyd, handed each of us a bizarre instrument on the first day and told us to “figure it out.” No music or instructions, he just played the song on his instrument and we were supposed to pick out our parts on whatever was in front of us. The instruments range from a drum, a small recorder, a horizontal harp, a 5 foot long violin, and a hollow gourd turned into a sort of ‘banjo,’ which is what I play. I did a Google search and found out that it’s called the Tanbur. Never heard of it? Join the club. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we weren't allowed to take our instruments home because they were "irreplaceable." You think we're going to be able to play these songs, really? After a couple months in the class our teacher told us that we would be playing our final concert in front of 1,000 people at the BYU Hunger Banquet. The funny thing is that none of us could play the songs except the professor, his wife, and the TA. We ran through our program in a dress-rehearsal and Lloyd told us that we were "just about good enough for them to throw up on. But don't worry," he said "I'll bring the barf bags..." He was probably half-kidding? But we students played it off like pros: I mastered the first song, and then during the next two pieces, I rocked-out by just repeating the first song over again and mouthing different words. So did the other guys. It was all for the sake of the audience, seriously. Thank goodness their music is supposed to sound dissonant! Can you believe we all got A's in the class?