Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Music Traditional Russian Folk Instruments Traditional Russian Folk Instruments Traditional Russian Folk Instruments There are many instruments found in the Russian culture that we as Americans know nothing about. I know that before I wrote this paper I didn't even know some of the names that I came across. There are many different groups of instruments, not just in Russian culture, but in all cultures. There are the woodwinds, the brass, the percussive instruments and the stringed instruments. We are going to focus on the last, the stringed instruments, more specifically, the balalaika. http://www.kairarecords.com/oudpage/home.htm The Balalaika, the most well known Russian stringed instrument has a triangular body, basically flat, with a small round sound hole near the narrow top of the belly; a long, narrow neck; and three gut or metal strings, normally plucked with the fingers (a leather plectrum is sometimes used with metal strings). A member of the guitar family, this instrument is sometimes called the "Russian lute". The balalaika is built in six different sizes, from the piccolo to the contrabass. When all the different sizes are used at the same time, a balalaika orchestra is formed. Typically, the balalaika is used to accompany song and dance. It was made popular in the 1800s in both city salons and in the countryside it developed in the 18th century from the similar domra or dombra of Central Asia and Siberia. The representative balalaika, the treble or prima, is usually tuned e1 (e1 = E above middle C). The range and versatility of the instrument are astounding in view of the fact that two strings are tuned alike in the prima, secunda, and alto instruments. The prima blalaika is tuned E, E, A; the secunda balalika is tuned a fifth below the prima (A, A, D); the alto an octave below the prima. The bass balalika is tuned E, A, D; the counter-bass sounds an octave below the bass. http://www.duke.edu/%7Eruslan/russwind.html When played, it sounds similar to a tremelo sound. Because the soundboard is not crowned like it is in the piano, and the wavelengths of the sounds are short, it makes this tremelo sound. When playing the balalaika, you can't just play one note at a time like a quarter note. Out of that came the whole style of the background of Russian traditional music --- which could be why it's so upbeat. "Belly Scratchers" was their nickname given to them by the musicians. They were given this name because it mad sense, because the balalaika hangs down by the belly, and they make rapid "scratching movements" when they play. The origin of the balalika takes us way back probably to the XIIth century, but the "father" of the Russian balalaika orchestra was Vassily Andreyev (1861-1918), a balalaika virtuoso who modified and improved the traditional balalaika and enlarged its family by introducing piccolo, secunda, alto, bass and counter-bass instruments. With one of the greatest balalaika makers ever, S. Nalimov, he gave birth to an entire family of instruments pretty much like the violin family. While the balalaika as we know it today was first seen in France in Paris in 1900 at the Universal Exposition, musicians such as Troyanovsky, Ossipov, Shalov, Glukhov, and lately Nitsheporenko or Zazhigin have contributed to the amazing reputation of this instrument. http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/music.html Created in Paris, France in 1994 by Petia Jacquet-Pritkoff, the "St-Georges" Balalaika Orchestra is a 20-member group of balalaika enthusiasts under the direction of Petia. This truly Russian instrument regularly brings together the orchestra members in a quite unique way (even in Russia): a balalaika-only ensemble. All sizes are present from bass to piccolo. The Balalaika Orchestra is headed by Petia Jacquet-Pritkoff who also writes arrangements and own compositions in a very Russian repertoire. The music is based on Russian melodies and in particular on the balalaika repertoire. It tries to take full advantage of the many sounds the orchestra withholds. "Beriozka" (The Birch Tree), "Korobushka" (The Peddlers), "Yablotshka" (The little apple), "Ossennii son" (Autumn Dream), "Vetshernii Zvon" (Evening Bells), "Podmoskovnye Vetchera" (Moscow Nights), but also waltzes, marches, polkas, and Russian suites are part of the repertoire. http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/MHN/pages/blka_gnrl.html The balalika is similar to the oud of the Middle Eastern area. Compared to the lute, the oud (also spelled ud) is a short-necked, half pear-shaped, plucked lute of the Arab world, the direct ancestor of the European lute. Oud's name derives from al-oud (branch of wood.) An oud has five pairs of strings, each pair tuned to the same pitch, and a single string, which is also the thickest and is known as the "bamteli" in Turkish. The most common way to tune the oud is to tune each string a fourth apart. There is also an Arabic variant of this tuning where the intervals stay the same but the pitch of each string is dropped down by a full step; CGDAEB. Some other tunings are CGDAGD, GDAEDA, DAEBAE, GDAEDA. "Known both from documentation and through oral tradition, it is considered the king, sultan, or emir of musical instruments, "the most perfect of those invented by the philosophers". The lute is the principal instrument of the Arab world, and is of secondary importance in Turkey, Iran, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. It plays a lesser role in Greece. It also plays an important role in North African countries, such as Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, and Sudan. http://www.necco.net/category/arts_culture/music.htm Another stringed instrument of Russian is the Domra. The Domra is a three or four stringed instrument of Mongolian heritage and could be found among the Attars, Kirghiz, Kalmyks, Altaians and other natives of Siberia. In contemporary Russian orchestras the domra usually plays the melody and is played with a pick. The domra is used in classical Russian music as well as folk music. Another instrument is the Zhaleika. The zhaleika (pronounced "zhal-YAY-ka," crudely put) is the most commonly possessed and used Russian folk wind instrument. It's a "folk clarinet" or hornpipe. It has a single reed, which may be covered by a mouthpiece (or "wind cap"). There's a wooden barrel with finger holes and a flared bell. It can be made of various natural or man-made materials; cow horn bells are common, but all wood and even birch bark zhaleikas exist too. There are many types of Zhaleika's. The zhaleika has a diatonic tuning, comes in various keys (G, A, D, sometimes also C, E, F) and can come in soprano (i.e. "normal"), alto, and even piccolo forms. They can be tuned by adjusting the reed. The tuning of the instrument is very interesting, and is normally tuned to the Mixolydian mode (which means, in the key of G you get all naturals, no accidentals) and you only get one octave's worth of notes. (In some books on the topic they say you can also get the final non-diminished 7th tone with alternate fingering.) Yet another instrument is the Volynka. The volynka (pronounced "val-In-ka"; or "val-Yn-ka" if you can manage...) or Belarusian "duda" is a basic Slavic bagpipe. Its chanter is called a zhaleika (and is functionally equivalent). It also has 1-2 drones; all those and the mouthpiece are attached to a bag. You may not have encountered any Russian or East Slavic pipers (who'd be called a "volynshchik" (Russian) or "dudar" (Belarusian)). That's because the instrument has been neglected for at least a century and is only now being revived. However, the sound of the volynka has been preserved both in the zhaleika (which has allowed the playing technique to be preserved as well) and to some extent by the droning sound of the hurdy-gurdy (known in Russia as the "lira"). The Brelka, (pronounced "brIOl-ka") is a double-reeded zhaleika; a sort of diatonic "folk oboe." Most have a (wooden) bell which narrows back down at the end like a bulb or egg, but some recent instruments just have a larger tubular section at the end past the fingered part of the barrel. "Brelka" used to be just a regional name for a zhaleika, until Andreev used it to distinguish the double-reeded instrument from the single-reeded zhaleika. Like the zhaleika and volynka, you have a diatonic instrument set up in the Mixolydian mode, with one octave available. http://www.mappamundi.com/myrtle.html The Russian trumpets are called Rozhok. The rozhok (pronounced "ra-zhOk", plural rozhki: "razh-KI") or "Vladimir horn" is a wooden horn with trumpet-style mouthpiece and finger holes. It has historically been most common in the northeast-central parts of European Russia near Vladimir (hence the name "Vladimir horn") and Iaroslavl. There are many types of Rozhki. The basic diatonic set of rozhki would include one or two sopranos in G, an alto in C, and a tenor (an octave below the soprano) in G. Besides the diatonic instruments; there are now chromatic rozhki (as pictured). The rozhok can play its first octave in pure tones; then by overblowing you can go into further (higher) registers. (So, unlike the previous instruments, you get more than an octave.) The Russian flutes are called Svirel'. The svirel' (pronunciation approximately [svir-YEl']) is a basic Russian pennywhistle. The sopil'ka is more common in the Ukraine, this is their version of a recorder. The fingering system is basically chromatic unlike the svirel' which is mostly diatonic. The sopil'ka comes in Piccolo (Fa or F), Soprano (Do or C), Alto (?), Tenor, and Bass. The Dvadyensivka is a diatonic double sopil'ka. The one I have is in Do (C) major. Using both hands to finger, one on each "barrel" one can play a Do major scale in thirds. Fingering with seconds, thirds, or fourths allows one to fit the harmony of most folk songs. I have seen other versions of this from Romania but they have been tourist models. The Kugikly (sometimes called kuvikly) are panpipes. They can have anywhere from 1 to 8 pipes, though 2-5 pipes glued together seems to be a common set. (They're not as complex in construction as either the Romanian or full South American types of panpipes.) They seem to be most often played by groups of women. http://www.grovereference.com/Libraries/ One type of folk percussion instrument is the spoons. The Russian style of (wooden) spoon-playing is rather a lot different from either American/Appalachian or Balkan traditions. One easy way to start: take two spoons in one hand. Put the first spoon with its tail out between your thumb and index finger, and the food holding "cup" down against your palm. Put the second spoon with its tail between your middle and ring finger, and put those fingers into the "cup" to secure it. Now you have the spoons back to back, so to speak, in one hand, and you can "clack" them by bringing those two middle fingers up and down. The fun part of the Russian style, though, is to add a third spoon. In your other hand. With it (held gently by its tail) you hit one or both of those spoons you're trying to clack together with your other hand. So... it ends up allowing you to do "clack-whap" (or better yet, "whap-whock-clack") polyrhythms, if you can imagine. Treshchotki (pronounced approximately "tri-shOt-ki") are a set of wee boards on a string that get clapped together as a group. The more (and bigger) the boards, the louder the sound. Other percussion instruments I won't delve into further include the "rubel'" (a washboard-affair you scrape a spoon along), various tambourines and bones and drums, and the "circular treshchotka" (which you can probably hear in medieval European music). Bibliography: SOURCES http://www.kairarecords.com/oudpage/home.htm http://www.duke.edu/%7Eruslan/russwind.html http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/music.html http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/MHN/pages/blka_gnrl.html http://www.alpine.net/~chylin/sierra-balalaika/shows.html http://www.necco.net/category/arts_culture/music.htm http://www.mappamundi.com/myrtle.html http://www.grovereference.com/Libraries/ Word Count: 1896
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