Rus: Folk Musik Instruments - Part 1© Dr. Donald R. Houston
Oct 1, 2005
In the Rus there is a fairly variety of folk musical instruments. Tympanic or percusiion instruments include bells, drums of all types, cymbals, gongs and other struck instruments. String instruments will be covered in other articles. Wind instruments including woodwinds and so-called " brass" horns are the material of coverage in this article.
Rozhok
A rozhok also known as the Vladimir Horn is a wooden horn with trumpet-style mouthpiece and finger holes used to differentiate the tones and notes. Historically iit is most common in the northeast- & central parts of European Russia & northeastern Ukraine near Vladimir and Yaroslavl.
Svirel'
Basically nothing more than a "pennywhistle" this instrument is more usually found as a children's instrument but is found in rural areas,in the backpacks of hikers, in the rucksacks of soldiers and aboard ships.
Zhaleika
The zhaleika is the most commonly owned and used Russian folk wind instrument. It's a form of "folk clarinet" or perhaps a hornpipe. It has a single reed which is sometimes be covered by a mouthpiece or wind-cap. The all wooden barrel with finger holes and a flared bell which is sometimes an animal horn, is played much like any clarinet or oboe type instrument. A variety of natural and/or man-made materials are used to make these instruments. Cow horn bells are common, but all-wood or even birch bark zhaleikas are seen and used as well. The instrument can be tuned to the major scale or the Mixolydian mode (with a flatted 7th note) and you only get one octave's worth of notes. Some zhaleikas can be cross-fingered for a couple of additional accidentals, but most cannot. Brelka
A most common double-reeded zhaleika; a form of folk oboe. Most have a wooden bell which narrows down at the end like a bulb although some of the more modern instruments have a larger tubular section at the end past the fingered part of the barrel. Brelka was originally only a regional name for a zhaleika, until Andreev began to use the term to distinguish the 2-reeded instrument from the 1-reed zhaleika.
Volynka or Duda
The volynka or more commonly called duda is nothing more than a basic Slavic bagpipe. The chanter is called a "zhaleika", being functionally equivalent to that instrument. It also has 1 or 2 drones which along with the mouthpiece are attached to a air-bag. These pipers are called a "volynshchik" in Russian or "duda." This wonderful instrument has been sorely neglected for 100+ years, a century. and is only recently being revived.
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