Information about folk musical instruments. Woodwind musical instruments

23.09.2013

The history of the emergence of Russian folk instruments goes back to the distant past. Frescoes of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, iconographic materials, miniatures of handwritten books, popular prints testify to the diversity of the musical instruments of our ancestors. Ancients discovered by archaeologists musical instruments are genuine material evidence of their existence in Rus'. In the recent past, the daily life of the Russian people was unthinkable without musical instruments. Almost all of our ancestors owned the secrets of making simple sound instruments and passed them on from generation to generation. Introduction to the secrets of craftsmanship was instilled from childhood, in games, in work feasible for children's hands. By watching their elders work, teenagers acquired their first skills in creating the simplest musical instruments. Time passed. The spiritual connections of generations were gradually broken, their continuity was interrupted. With the disappearance of folk musical instruments that were once ubiquitous in Russia, mass participation in the national musical culture.

Nowadays, unfortunately, there are not many craftsmen left who have preserved the traditions of creating the simplest musical instruments. In addition, they create their masterpieces only according to individual orders. The production of instruments on an industrial basis is associated with considerable financial costs, hence their high cost. Not everyone can afford to buy a musical instrument today. That is why there was a desire to collect in one article materials that will help everyone who wants to make this or that instrument with their own hands. Around us there is a large amount of familiar materials of plant and animal origin, which we sometimes do not pay attention to. Any material will sound if touched by skillful hands:

From a nondescript piece of clay you can make a whistle or an ocarina;

Birch bark, removed from a birch trunk, will turn into a large horn with a squeak;

A plastic tube will acquire sound if you make a whistle device and holes in it;

Many different percussion instruments can be made from wooden blocks and plates.

Based on publications about Russian folk instruments and the experience of various people in their manufacture, recommendations have been made that may be useful in the process of working on them.

* * *

For many peoples, the origin of musical instruments is associated with the gods and lords of thunderstorms, blizzards and winds. The ancient Greeks credited Hermes with the invention of the lyre: he made the instrument by stringing strings over a tortoise shell. His son, the forest demon and patron of shepherds, Pan was always depicted with a flute consisting of several stalks of reeds (Pan's flute).

IN German fairy tales The sounds of the horn are often mentioned, in Finnish - the five-string kantele harp. In Russian fairy tales, to the sounds of horns and pipes, warriors appear against whom no force can resist; the miraculous samogud harp plays itself, sings the songs themselves, and makes you dance without rest. In Ukrainian and Belarusian fairy tales Even animals began to dance to the sounds of bagpipes (duda).

Historian, folklorist A.N. Afanasyev, author of the work “Poetic views of the Slavs on nature,” wrote that various musical tones, born when the wind blows in the air, identify “expressions for wind and music”: from the verb “to blow” came - duda , pipe, blow; Persian. dudu - the sound of a flute; German blasen - to blow, winnow, trumpet, play a wind instrument; whistle and harp - from buzz; buzz - a word used by Little Russians to designate the blowing wind; compare: sopelka, sipovka from sopati, snuffle (hiss), hoarse, whistle - from whistle.

The sounds of brass music are created by blowing air into the instrument. The blowing of the wind was perceived by our ancestors as coming from the open mouths of the gods. The fantasy of the ancient Slavs brought together the howling of a storm and the whistling of winds with singing and music. This is how legends about singing, dancing, and playing musical instruments arose. Mythical performances, combined with music, made them a sacred and necessary part of pagan rituals and holidays.

No matter how imperfect the first musical instruments were, they nevertheless required musicians to be able to make and play them.

Over the centuries, the improvement of folk instruments and the selection of the best samples have not stopped. Musical instruments took on new forms. Design solutions for their manufacture, methods for extracting sounds, and playing techniques arose. Slavic peoples were creators and keepers of musical values.

The ancient Slavs honored their ancestors and glorified the Gods. The glorification of the Gods was performed in front of sacred goddesses in temples or under open air. Rituals in honor of Perun (god of thunder and lightning), Stribog (god of the winds), Svyatovid (god of the Sun), Lada (goddess of love), etc. were accompanied by singing, dancing, playing musical instruments and ending with a general feast. The Slavs revered not only invisible deities, but also their habitats: forests, mountains, rivers and lakes.

According to researchers, the song and instrumental art of those years developed in close interrelation. Perhaps ritual chants contributed to the birth of instruments with the establishment of their musical structure, since temple prayer songs were performed with musical accompaniment.

The Byzantine historian Theophylact Simokatta, the Arab traveler Al-Masudi, and the Arab geographer Omar ibn Dast confirm the existence of musical instruments among the ancient Slavs. The latter writes in his “Book of Precious Treasures”: “They have all kinds of lutes, harps and pipes...”

In “Essays on the History of Music in Russia from Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century,” Russian musicologist N. F. Findeizen notes: “It is absolutely impossible to allow that the ancient Slavs, who had a communal life, religious ceremonies which were extremely developed, varied and furnished with decorative pomp, would not have been able to make their own musical instruments, completely regardless of whether there were similar instruments in neighboring areas."

There are few references to ancient Russian musical culture.

Musical art of Kievan Rus

According to researchers, in Kievan Rus The following musical instruments were known:

Wooden pipes and horns (for military and hunting);

Bells, clay whistles (ritual);

Pan flute, consisting of several reed tubes of different lengths fastened together (wind ritual);

Gusli (strings);

Sopel and flute (arshine-length wind instruments);

Materials used in preparing this article:

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Stringed folk instruments. Video lesson.

When asked which instrument was the prototype of the first string folk instrument , Usually you can hear from children that this is a balalaika or a guitar. Very few people realize that it was a simple hunting bow. Indeed, many times before a hunt, checking whether the bowstring was well tensioned, the man noticed that different bows did not sound the same and people decided to use the bow as a musical instrument. It was inconvenient to play different bows, so the man pulled not one string on the bow, but several. And as a result, the result was an instrument very similar in appearance to a harp.. It can be assumed that in this way a third group of musical instruments appeared -

string musical instruments But a string stretched on a bow will sound very quiet, and if you bring this sounding string to a hollow tree or an empty wooden box, the sound will intensify. Thus, obviously, people came to the invention of the resonator - an integral part of any stringed instrument that amplifies the sound. One of the most famous and ancient string instruments is gusli. The first mention of them dates back to the 6th century, and their name comes from the ancient Slavic word “gusty” - to hum, therefore

sounding string

received the name "gusla". Thus, the harp is a humming string.

1. Moreover, it does not matter what material the body of the musical instrument is made of. The body of the gusli resonator was usually hollowed out of pine or spruce, and the soundboard (the soundboard means the lid) was made of sycamore. This is where their name came from - the “yar-shaped” harp (distorted “yar-haired”).

Currently, there are three types of gusli: ringed or “verch” gusli, plucked gusli and keyboard gusli. Let's look at these three groups in order. The gusli is ringing.

The ringed gusli is the most

ancient look

But plucked gusli (the next type of gusli) significantly expanded the technical and artistic capabilities of this instrument.

They are a large rectangular table-shaped resonator standing on legs, on which metal strings of different lengths and thicknesses are stretched (more than 60 in total). They are plucked with the fingers of both hands, which is why they are called plucked. To make it easier to navigate so many strings, they are pulled in two rows. IN top row The main sounds of the scale are located, and at the bottom there are intermediate chromatic sounds.

At the end In the 19th century, another type of gusli appeared - keyboard harp. The mechanics of this instrument were largely borrowed from the piano. In appearance and size, they are similar to plucked psalteries, but on the left side of the psaltery there is a special box with a piano keyboard and mechanics.

I think you understand that the string only sounds when it is free. If you touch it, it will not sound. If on a ringed harp the performer himself presses the strings so that they do not sound, then on a keyboard harp this is done by the mechanics. When not a single key of the piano keyboard of the gusli is pressed, then the mufflers (dampers), which are located above each string, press down all the strings and prevent them from sounding. If you press, for example, the notes “do”, “mi”, “sol” on a piano keyboard, then the mufflers of these notes in all octaves will rise (and there are more than five octaves and in each octave there are these notes, but of different heights), making it possible these strings vibrate (i.e. sound). If you then pass along all the strings, then all the notes “do”, “mi”, “sol”, freed from mufflers, will sound in all octaves (more than 15 notes will sound).

Thus, the process of playing thanks to the mechanics is simplified, and at the same time the sound becomes richer and more saturated (thanks to a large number strings).

Single-voice melodies on the keyboard gusli are rarely performed; chords are often played on them, but you can also play single-voice melodies on them, and if necessary, you can unfasten the box with the piano keyboard, turning them into plucked psaltery.

The next string instrument that we will introduce you to will be balalaika.

The first mention of this instrument dates back to the end of the 17th century. Until the 19th century it was a very primitive but common instrument. He could be found not only, as they said, “among the common people,” but also in rich houses. The popularity of this instrument is evidenced by its frequent mention in songs, proverbs, sayings, and riddles.

Remember the popular folk song“There was a birch tree in the field”:

“I’ll make myself three beeps,

The fourth balalaika."

Or an example from proverbs:

“Our brother Isaika is a balalaika without strings.”

There are many references to this instrument in works of Russian literature. Here, for example, lines from Evgeny Onegin A.S. Pushkin:

I need other paintings:
I love the sandy slope,
There are two rowan trees in front of the hut,
A gate, a broken fence,
There are gray clouds in the sky,
Heaps of straw in front of the threshing floor
Yes, a pond under the canopy of thick willows
The expanse of young ducks;
Now the balalaika is dear to me...

And here are Lermontov’s lines:

So in front of an idle crowd
And with the folk balalaika
A simple singer sits in the shade
And selfless and free!..

Where did the name of this instrument come from?

Many researchers note that the root of the words “balalaika”, or, as it was also called, “balabaika”, is related to such Russian words as balakat balagurit, i.e. chatter, idle talk, therefore in ditties and sayings this very meaning is often emphasized, for example:

Balalaika - beep

Ruined the whole house...

Such popularity of the balalaika continued until the beginning of the 19th century, until the appearance in Russia of first the guitar and then the accordion, which forced it out of use.

And it is unknown what the fate of this instrument would have been if Vasily Vasilyevich Andreev had not paid attention to it. This is how Andreev himself described his first meeting with this instrument:

“...It was a quiet June evening. I was sitting on the terrace of my wooden house and enjoying the silence of the village evening... Quite unexpectedly, I heard sounds that were still unknown to me... The player played a dance song at first at a rather slow tempo, and then faster and faster. The sounds grew brighter and brighter, the melody flowed, full of rhythm, uncontrollably pushing me to dance... I jumped up and ran to the outbuilding, where the sounds were coming from; in front of me, on the steps of the porch, a peasant was sitting and playing... on a balalaika! sounds!.. Having looked closely at how Antip (employee’s name) played, I asked him to immediately show some playing techniques.” Andreev began to learn to play this instrument and soon felt that the capabilities of this instrument were very limited: there were few frets on it, and they were not fixed, but were forced, so they often slipped and had to be corrected. Andreev studied various balalaikas for a long time (at that time they were of different shapes and designs) before making the final drawing of a balalaika, with which he went to a violin maker with a request to make a balalaika according to his drawing. Making the first balalaika turned out to be very difficult. Here's how Andreev himself describes it:

“When in the 1880s I first turned to an instrument maker, a very talented one, famous for specially making bows and repairing ancient instruments, with a request to make, according to my instructions, from the best varieties tree balalaika, then at first he took my proposal as a joke; when I assured him that I was speaking completely seriously, he was so offended that he stopped talking to me and went into another room, leaving me alone. I was very embarrassed, but nevertheless decided to insist on my opinion; In the end, I managed to convince him not with words, but with deeds... I brought him a simple village balalaika, which cost 35 kopecks, which I played myself at that time, made of simple spruce, with attached frets, and played him several songs on it. My performance surprised him so much that he agreed to make me a balalaika so that I would give him my word never to tell anyone about it, since such work was humiliating for him and could seriously damage his reputation. I sat with him for long hours, monitoring his work... and repeatedly witnessed how, at each call, he quickly jumped up and covered the workbench with a handkerchief lying at the ready, so that one of his customers or strangers would not see the balalaika lying on the workbench. .."

Andreev's first concert was a great success.

In 1885, a new balalaika for Andreev was made by the famous St. Petersburg master Franz Stanislavovich Paserbsky.It was different from the first balalaika; for the first time, embedded sills appeared on it, thanks to which its structure was much better. There were five saddles, which is why it is sometimes called a “five fret”. There are more than 20 of them on a modern balalaika.

Let's take a closer look at its device.

The balalaika consists of a body, a neck on which the saddles and headstock are embedded; it is also called a blade. There is a tuning mechanism on it, with the help of which the balalaika is tuned. There are 3 strings on a balalaika: 2 of them are tuned the same (to the note “E”, the third string is tuned to the note “A”). The balalaika is played with a finger, most often with a technique called “rattling,” but sometimes it is also played with “plucking.”

Andreev’s next step was to create a balalaika ensemble of 8 people, then 14. He ordered different types of balalaikas: primu, second, viola, bass and double bass, and gave concerts with this ensemble.

In 1892, during a tour in France, Andreev was awarded the title of academician of the French Academy “for introducing a new element into music.” Andreev's ensemble began to be invited to the most honorable stages in St. Petersburg. Many Russian musicians listened to and admired him. In particular, P.I. Tchaikovsky said: “What a beauty this balalaika is! What an amazing effect it can give in an orchestra! In terms of timbre, this is an indispensable instrument!”

So, thanks to the efforts of Andreev, who was called the “father of the Russian balalaika,” this instrument was revived and is now perhaps the most famous Russian folk musical instrument in the world.

The next tool is domra.

Musician-scientists suggest that the distant ancestor of our Russian domra was the Egyptian instrument “pandura”. Some peoples have instruments with similar names: the Georgians have chunguri and panduri, the southern Slavs have tanbur, the Ukrainians have bandura, the Turkmen have dutar, the Mongols have dombur, the Kyrgyz and Tatars have dumra, and the Kalmyks have domra.

IN ancient Rus' Buffoons were very popular among the people. They, as we would say now, were professional artists, i.e. They walked around towns and villages and earned their living by giving performances. Their art was synthetic: they sang and danced and acted out various scenes, in which they often ridiculed church ministers, merchants, and boyars. One of the favorite musical instruments of buffoons was domra .

Not only clergy, but also princes, boyars, and then tsars saw harm in the art of buffoons. This was the main reason for the persecution of buffoons that soon began.

One of the royal decrees of the 15th century says: “Where domras, surnas and harps appear, order them all to be washed and, having broken those demonic games, order them to be burned, and those people who do not give up that ungodly deed, order them to beat batogs.” And according to one of the royal decrees XVII century, 5 loaded carts with musical instruments were brought to the outskirts of Moscow and burned. As a result of these actions, the domra was forgotten for several centuries and only thanks to the efforts of V.V. Andreev at the end of the 19th century this instrument was revived.

If you look at the structure of this instrument, then we will notice that, unlike the balalaika, the body of this instrument has a rounded shape.

It is played not with fingers, as on a balalaika, but with a mediator (a bone or plastic plate), due to which the sound produced is louder, but harder, compared to a balalaika. There are two types of domra: three-string and four-string. The four-string has the same tuning as the violin, so you can play all the works written for the violin on it. The sound of the four-string domra is quieter, so it is rarely used in orchestras, but is mainly used as a solo and ensemble instrument. Let's listen to how domra sounds.

Both balalaikas and domras are part of the orchestra of Russian folk instruments. There are different varieties of these tools: balalaika prima, balalaika second, balalaika alto, balalaika bass, balalaika double bass, domrapiccolo, small, mezzo-soprano, alto, tenor, bass and double bass. In the orchestra of Russian folk instruments, piccolo, small, alto and bass domras have become widespread.

And in conclusion I would like to say a few words about folk instruments harmonium And button accordions , although they are not strings, today we have our last lesson on folk musical instruments and it’s impossible not to talk about them.

It is impossible to say for sure where exactly the hand-held harmonica was first invented. It is widely believed that the accordion was invented in Germany, in early XIX

century.

But there is also other data. For example, according to the research of Academician Mirek, the first accordion appeared in St. Petersburg in 1783 through the efforts of the Czech organ maker Frantisek Kirshnik (he came up with a new way of producing sound - using a metal reed that vibrates under the influence of air flow).

Russian harmonicas can be divided into two types according to the type of sound production: harmonicas, in which, when the bellows is stretched and compressed, each button when pressed produces a sound of the same pitch, and harmonicas, in which the pitch of the sound changes depending on the direction of movement of the bellows.

The first type includes such harmonicas as “livenka”, “Russian wreath”, “khromka” (the most common in our time).

The second type includes “talyanka”, “cherepanka”, “Tula”, “Vyatskaya”. You can also divide the harmonies according to the type of right keyboard, depending on the number of rows of buttons. In general, it must be said that harmonicas are very different in appearance. The most common accordion in our time is the two-row “lame”, but there are also three-row instruments and instruments with one row of buttons.

What is the main difference between the accordion and the button accordion? The harmonica's tuning is diatonic. To understand what a diatonic scale is, imagine a piano keyboard. It has white and black keys. If a piano had the tuning of an accordion, it would not have black keys. You can easily play Russian tunes on the accordion (they do not have chromatic sounds).

To get rid of this drawback, a harmonica with a full chromatic scale was invented, and it was designed by the Bavarian master Mirwald from the city of Ziletuhe (Germany) in 1891. This instrument had a three-row right-hand push-button keyboard with a range of four octaves. The sound when opening and closing the bellows was the same. The accompaniment of the left keyboard at first consisted only of major triads, but it was soon improved. That is, it was already a button accordion, but it wasn’t called that yet.

Around 1892, such a harmonica became known in Russia, where the scale system of its right keyboard began to be called “foreign”, and later, in the 20th century, these instruments began to be made by Moscow masters, and then by Tula and others. In Russia, the Moscow layout is standard for button accordions to this day.

Since 1906, three-row button accordions with the Moscow layout were manufactured at the Tula Kiselyov Brothers factory.

Russian harmonica makers made important improvements to the design of the left keyboard of the Myhrwald harmonica.

In September 1907, the St. Petersburg master Pyotr Egorovich Sterligov made a button accordion, which he worked on for more than two years, for the outstanding harmonica player Ya. F. Orlansky-Titarenko, and gave this instrument a name in honor of the ancient Russian singer-storyteller Boyan (Bayan), mentioned in the poem “ The Word about Igor’s Campaign,” this name first began to be used on posters in early May 1908 in Moscow. Thus, an instrument now popular in our country, the button accordion, appeared.

In 1913, P. E. Sterligov manufactured the first in Russia, and possibly in the world, five-row button accordion with two auxiliary rows of buttons on the right keyboard, like a modern button accordion. Following Sterligov, other masters began to make five-row button accordions.

The button accordion consists of three parts - the right and left half-bodies, between which there is a bellows chamber. The sound in the button accordion arises due to the vibration of the reeds in the openings of the voice bar under the influence of an air stream from the bellows chamber or into the bellows chamber.

The right and, to a lesser extent, left keyboards may have a number of register switches, depending on the number of simultaneously sounding voices when pressing one button.

Bayans have a 3- or 5-row right-hand keyboard. In a 5-row keyboard, the first two rows (from the bellows) are auxiliary; they duplicate the notes located in the other three rows.

Let's listen to how a modern button accordion sounds. The play “Gallop” by Evgeniy Derbenko will be performed by the laureate of International competitions, professor of the Voronezh Academy of Arts Alexander Sklyarov.

Today we talked about the main stringed Russian folk instruments (gusli, balalaika, domra) and about the popular folk instruments harmonica and button accordion.

Our next topic will be the instruments of a symphony orchestra.

Wind folk instruments. Video lesson.

Wind folk instruments can be divided into 3 groups:

1. Whistling

2.Reed

3. Embouchure

Whistling wind instruments are the most ancient representatives of this group. The sound in them is formed due to the fact that the stream of air that is blown into them is cut into 2 parts. Perhaps, how many of you have ever blown air into a bottle and made it sound? Sound in in this case It turns out due to the fact that part of the air stream is directed into the bottle, and part - past it, and thanks to this it begins to sound. Using a whistle as an example, which we will talk about a little later, we can see that when blown in, some of the air gets inside the whistle, and some comes out past. The sound of all wind and whistling instruments is based on this principle. The only difference is that when playing on some of them, the performer himself has to direct the air stream in this way, and in some of them a special whistle is inserted for this purpose, thanks to which this stream is divided.

One of the most ancient instruments of this group is kugikly, which can be called a Russian version of the Pan flute.

In Russia, a type of Pan flute exists mainly in the southern regions (Bryansk, Kursk, Belgorod) and in different villages it has its own names - “kuvichki”, “kuvikly”, “pipes”, “tsevki”, but its most stable name is “kugikly” " Kugikly are called so because they were made from reed stems, which are called kugi. Reed pipes are harvested in late autumn, when the reed stems are fully mature. At the junctions of the tubes, the so-called “joints”, sharp knife cuts were made around the tube. Having slightly broken them, they were separated from one another. The resulting tubes were tightly closed at one end and open at the other. Then the inner walls of the tubes were cleaned of deposits either with a goose feather (a folk manufacturing tradition) or with a round stick. Sometimes other plants that had tubular stems were used to make kugikl. Usually kugikly consisted of 3 -5 tubes the same diameter, but different lengths (usually from 10 to 16 cm). The upper ends of the tubes were open, the lower ends were closed. The trunks, unlike the Pan flute, were not fastened together. Open tube ends brought to mouth, blew on the edges of the slices, thus producing sounds. You know that by lengthening the tube, we will get a lower sound, and by shortening the tube, we will get higher sounds, but kugykles were usually not tuned in this way, because by mistakenly shortening the tube more than necessary, it turned out to be unsuitable. Instead of shortening the tube, a pebble was placed at the bottom or wax was poured into it, i.e., in case of an error, it could be corrected. Sometimes the lower ends were plugged with plugs, which could be moved up and down, changing the volume of air in the tube and thus adjusting them.

Men usually didn’t play kugikl, it’s purely female instrument. They were usually played by an ensemble of 3-4 performers.

Very often, kugikly act as an accompanying instrument.

The next representative of this group that we will meet will be whistles.

A characteristic feature of which is that many of them are made not from wood, like most Russian folk instruments, but from clay. In many countries around the world there is a tool called akarina, which means gosling in Italian. Initially, it really resembled a gosling, but later these instruments began to be made in the shape of various animals.

In Rus', such instruments were simply called whistles. IN different areas they had different shapes, but most often they were made in the form cockerels with 2-3-4 holes. The coloring of the whistles had its own symbolism.

It must be said that some craftsmen, when making whistles, cared only about their appearance, and then, playing this whistle, it was only possible to create a certain background.

Some craftsmen, on the contrary, did not care too much about the appearance of the whistles, but carefully worked on their structure.

Many whistles have only two playing holes, but produce 4 different sounds from the instrument.

If you hold both holes, the lowest sound will sound; if you hold the left hole, releasing the right, the next sound in the scale will sound. By changing fingers, i.e. By holding the right one and releasing the left one, you can extract the third sound of the scale, and by releasing both holes we get the fourth sound.

The next, perhaps most common tool is pipe

This tool has different names: pipe, duda, nozzle, sipovka, arquebus, pyzhatka, etc. The structure of all these instruments is the same: a hollow tube with holes made, on one side of which a whistle is inserted. If you close all the holes and blow into the pipe, the lowest sound will sound. By releasing all the holes in turn, we will shorten the sounding column of air and each time the sounds will be higher and higher.

The pipe is made from various materials (it can be made from oak, pear, acacia, bamboo). However, they will sound slightly different.

The material from which a pipe is made does not affect its sound as much as, for example, the material from which stringed instruments are made. People sometimes made it from a branch of a tree. Remember the words of the famous folk song “There was a birch tree in the field”: I will cut three twigs from a birch tree, and I will make three buzzers out of them. This is sung about making a pipe. In the spring, during sap flow, they took a branch, pulled off the bark from it, thus obtaining a tube and made a pipe out of it (in the song it is called a “beep.” A pipe can also be made from some kind of metal tube (for example, from a ski pole), drilled into in the right places holes, and inserting a whistling device on one side.

The next group of wind folk musical instruments is reed wind instruments.

The very name of groups of musical instruments tells us how to produce sound on them. If in whistling instruments the sound is produced using a whistle inserted into a tube, then in reed instruments the sound is produced by a reed that vibrates when air is blown into the instrument.

The most common instrument in this group is pathetic. The name of the instrument comes from the fact that it produces a rather pitiful sound (though a little harsh if played indoors).

It consists of tubes with holes made in it, at one end of which there is a cow horn, and at the other a mouthpiece is inserted, on which there is a tongue that vibrates when air is blown into the instrument. Because of this cow horn, this instrument is sometimes mistakenly called a horn.

The longer the reed, the higher the sound of the pity, and vice versa, the shorter the reed, the higher the sound of the pity. Previously, the tongue was tied to the mouthpiece and it was very inconvenient to tune the pity. Worked in the Pyatnitsky Choir Orchestra for more than 30 years famous performer and master of wind folk instruments N.Z. Kudryashov, who came up with the idea of attaching the tongue using a ring made from a polyvinyl chloride insulating tube, which is used by electricians. Thanks to this, the process of setting up the pity has been greatly simplified. By moving this ring back and forth, you can change the length of the sounding tongue, thus customizing the pity

They play not only one pathetic, there are also ensembles of pity players, in which they play pity bars of different lengths, having different systems. Just like the choir parts, they are called: zhaleika-soprano, zhaleyka-alto, zhaleyka-tenor and zhaleyka-bass.

And the last instrument of this group (reed wind instruments), which we will introduce you to, is bagpipes.

It is believed that the name of the instrument comes from the name of the place where it appeared - Volyn, which was part of Kievan Rus.

On ancient maps you can see where it was located.

Many peoples of the world have an instrument of a similar design.

In Belarus it is called duda, its English name can be translated into Russian as a playing bag, in Holland it is called (translated into Russian) a buzzing bag, in Ukraine, Moldova and Poland it is called a goat, etc.

Why does it have such strange names?

The fact is that they used to make it, usually from goat or calf skin, sewing a bag out of it, into which they inserted, most often, stingers. A tube was inserted into one hole, from the front legs in the skin, through which air was pumped into the skin. In this tube there was a check valve that did not allow air to escape from this bag. A pity was inserted into the hole from the other leg, and one or two more pities were sewn into the neck hole, which sounded, always making the same sound. These drawn-out sounds are called bourdons; they sound continuously, creating a harmonic background of the melody. The bagpipes are often held under the armpit, periodically pumping air into the bag. When you pressed the bag, air came out of it through the pity, making them sound.

This instrument is especially popular in Scotland and is considered a national relic.

In Scotland, this instrument is even included in military bands.

It must be said that now when making bagpipes, most often the inflatable bag is made not from goat skin, but from an oxygen medical pillow, into which pity is sewn, and then this pillow is covered with goat skin. This makes it easier and more reliable to make bagpipes.

Well last group musical wind instruments that we need to get acquainted with is embouchure musical instruments . The most famous instrument of this group is horn . The name of the instrument comes from the French wordbouche- mouth, since the sound on them is formed from the vibration of the lips themselves, folded in a certain way. At the end of the instrument into which air is blown there is a special cup for the lips, which is called a mouthpiece, which is why this group of instruments is sometimes called mouthpiece instruments.

Horns were made in 2 ways.

The first method consisted in hollowing out and cutting out two halves of a horn in a longitudinal section from two blanks, and then gluing them together and tightly wrapping them in birch bark.

With the second manufacturing method , the horn was turned on a lathe from a solid blank, inside of which a hole was burned.

The mouthpiece was sometimes integral with the horn, and sometimes inserted into it. The first professional ensemble of horn players was created at the end of the 19th century by Nikolai Vasilyevich Kondratyev, which was called the choir of Vladimir horn players. This choir of horn players performed with great success not only in our country, but also abroad.

The ensemble consisted of 12 horn players, who were divided into three groups: high, medium and low. Therefore, the size of the horns was different (from approximately 40 to 80 cm). Later, similar ensembles arose in other cities.

Nowadays, there are quite a few teams of horn players who carefully preserve and develop folk traditions.

The history of musical instruments. Video lesson.

When did musical instruments originate? You can get very different answers to this question (from 100 years to tens of thousands). In reality, no one can answer this question, since it is unknown. But it is known that one of the most ancient instruments found during archaeological excavations is more 40 thousand years(it was a flute made from an animal bone, the femur of a cave bear). But wind instruments were not the first to appear, which means that musical instruments arose even earlier.

What instrument appeared first?

The first prototype of a musical instrument was human hands. At first, people sang, clapping their hands, which were, as it were, his musical instrument. Then people began to pick up two sticks, two stones, two shells, and instead of clapping their hands, they hit each other with these objects, producing different sounds. The tools people used largely depended on the area where they lived. If they lived in a forest area, they took 2 sticks; if they lived by the sea, they took 2 shells, etc.

Thus, instruments appear on which the sound is produced by striking, which is why such instruments are called drums .

The most common percussion instrument is, of course, drum . But the invention of the drum dates back to a much later time. We cannot say now how this happened. We can only guess something. For example, one day, after hitting a hollow tree in order to drive bees away from it and take honey from them, a man listened to the unusually booming sound that comes from hitting a hollow tree, and the idea came to him to use this in his orchestra. Then people realized that it was not necessary to look for a hollow tree, but that they could take some kind of stump and hollow out the middle of it. Well, if you cover it on one side with the skin of a killed animal, you will get an instrument very similar to drum. Many nations have instruments of similar design. The only difference is that they are made from different materials and slightly different in shape.

In the music of different nations, percussion instruments play different roles. They played a particularly important role in music African peoples. There were various drums, from small ones to huge drums, reaching 3 meters. The sound of these huge drums could be heard several kilometers away.

There was a very sad period in history associated with the slave trade. Europeans or Americans sailed to the African continent to capture and then sell its inhabitants. Sometimes when they arrived in a village, they found no one there; the residents managed to leave there. This happened because the sounds of the drum, which came from the neighboring village, warned them about this, i.e. people understood the “language” of drums.

Thus, the group was the first to arise percussion instruments .

What group of instruments appeared after the drums? These were wind instruments, which are called so because their sound is produced by blowing air. We also don’t know what prompted man to invent these tools, but we can only assume something. For example, one day, while hunting, a man came to the shore of a lake. Dul strong wind and suddenly the man heard a sound. At first he was wary, but after listening he realized that it was the sound of broken reeds. Then the man thought: “What if I break the reed myself, and blow air into it, try to make it sound?” Having successfully done this, people learned to produce sounds by blowing air. Then the man realized that short reeds made higher sounds, and long ones made lower sounds. People began to tie reeds of different lengths and, thanks to this, produce sounds of different pitches. This instrument is often called the Pan flute.

This is due to the legend that a long time ago in Ancient Greece Once upon a time there lived a goat-footed god named Pan. One day he was walking through the forest and suddenly saw a beautiful nymph named Syrinx. Pan to her... And the beautiful nymph disliked Pan and began to run away from him. She runs and runs, and Pan is already catching up with her. Syrinx prayed to her father, the river god, to save her. Her father turned her into a reed. Pan cut that reed and made himself a pipe out of it. And let's play on it. No one knows that it is not the flute who sings, but the sweet-voiced nymph Syrinx.

Since then, it has become a tradition that multi-barreled flutes, similar to a fence of shortened reed pipes, are called Pan flutes - from the name ancient Greek god fields, forests and grass. And in Greece itself it is still often called syrinx. Many nations have such instruments, but they are called differently. The Russians have kugikly, kuvikly or kuvichki, the Georgians have larchemi (soinari), in Lithuania - skuduchai, in Moldova and Romania - nai or muskal, among the Latin American Indians - samponyo. Some call the Pan flute a pipe.

Even later, people realized that it was not necessary to take several tubes, but that they could make several holes in one tube, and by pressing them in a certain way, they could produce different sounds.

When our distant ancestors made some inanimate object sound, it seemed to them a real miracle: before their eyes, dead objects came to life and found a voice. There are many legends and songs about the singing reed. One of them tells how a reed grew on the grave of a murdered girl, when it was cut and made into a pipe, she sang and spoke in a human voice about the death of the girl, and named the name of the killer. This fairy tale was translated into poetry by the great Russian poet M.Yu. Lermontov.

The fisherman sat cheerfully

On the river bank,

And in front of him in the wind

The reeds swayed.

He cut dry reeds

And drilled the wells

He pinched one end

It blew at the other end.

And as if animated, the reed began to speak -

Thus arose the second group of musical instruments, which are called brass

Well, the third group of musical instruments, as you probably already guessed, is string instrument group . And the very first stringed instrument was a simple one Hunter bow. Many times before a hunt, a person checks whether the tension is good bow string. And then one day, having listened to this melodious sound of a bowstring, a man decided to use it in his orchestra. He realized that a short string produces higher sounds, and a longer string produces lower sounds. But playing on several bows is inconvenient and the man pulled not one string on the bow, but several. If you imagine this instrument, you can find in it similarities with harp .

Thus, three groups of musical instruments arise: drums, winds and strings.

Percussion folk instruments. Video tutorial

Russian folk percussion instruments are the first of three groups of folk instruments.A characteristic feature of Russian folk percussion instruments is that some of them were household items.Perhaps one of the most common Russian folk instruments is spoons. There used to be spoons wooden, and people began to use these wooden spoons as percussion instrument. They usually played on three spoons, two of which were held in one hand, and the third in the other. Children often play on two spoons, fastened together Spoon performers are called spoons . There are very skillful spoon players who play on a large number of spoons, which are stuck both in their boots and in their belts.

The next percussion instrument, which was also a household item, is ruble . It is a wooden block with notches on one side. It was used to wash and iron clothes. If we run a wooden stick over it, we will hear a whole cascade of loud, crackling sounds.

Our next tool that we will get acquainted with will be ratchet . There are two varieties of this tool. A ratchet, which is a set of wooden plates tied together with a rope and a circular ratchet, inside of which there is a toothed drum, when rotated, the wooden plate hits it.

An equally popular percussion folk instrument is tambourine , which is a wooden hoop with small metal plates, with leather stretched on one side.

The next Russian folk percussion instrument is box . It is a block of wood, usually made from hardwood, with a small cavity underneath the top of the body that amplifies the sound produced by drumsticks or xylophones. The sound of this instrument conveys well the clatter of hooves or the clicking of heels in a dance.

Russia with its vast expanses cannot be imagined no C's horses, without coachmen. In the evening, in the snow, when visibility was very poor, it was necessary for people to hear the approaching three. For this purpose, bells and bells were hung under the horse's bow. Bell It is a metal cup open to the bottom with a striker (tongue) suspended inside. It sounds only in limbo. Bell it is a hollow ball in which a metal ball (or several balls) rolls freely and, when shaken, hits the walls, resulting in a sound produced, but duller than a bell.

So many songs and instrumental compositions are dedicated to the Russian troika and the coachmen that it became necessary to introduce a special musical instrument into the folk instrument orchestra, imitating the sound of the coachmen's bells and bells. This instrument was called - bells . A strap is sewn onto a small piece of leather the size of a palm to help hold the instrument in the palm. On the other hand, as many bells themselves as possible are sewn on. By shaking the bells or hitting them on the knee, the player produces sounds reminiscent of the ringing bells of the Russian troika.

Now we'll talk about a tool called kokoshnik .

In the old days, village watchmen were armed with so-called mallets. The watchman walked

at night around the village and knocked on it, letting fellow villagers know that he was not sleeping, but working, and at the same time scaring off thieves.

The percussion folk instrument kokoshnik is based on the principle of this sentry beater. Its basis is a small wooden frame covered with leather or plastic, which is struck by a ball suspended from the top. The player makes frequent oscillatory movements with his hand, causing the tied ball to swing from side to side and alternately hit the walls of the kokoshnik.

The next musical instrument is called firewood . It consists of logs tied with rope of different lengths. Not all wood will sound good. It is better to take hardwood firewood. The logs are taken of different lengths, but approximately the same thickness. After the instrument is made, it is tuned.

We have become acquainted with the main Russian folk instruments, and in conclusion I would like to introduce you to some of the most famous percussion instruments of other nations.

A very common Latin American instrument is maracas.

Maracas or maraca is the oldest percussion and noise instrument of the indigenous inhabitants of the Antilles - the Taino Indians, a type of rattle that produces a characteristic rustling sound when shaken. Currently, maracas are popular throughout Latin America and are one of the symbols of Latin American music. Typically, a maraca player uses a pair of rattles, one in each hand.

In Russian, the name of the instrument is often used in the not entirely correct form “maracas”. The more correct form of the name is "maraca".

Initially, the dried fruits of the gourd tree, known in Cuba as “guira” and in Puerto Rico as “iguero”, were used to make maracas. The gourd tree is a small evergreen plant that is widespread in the West Indies (Antilles), Mexico and Panama. Large higuero fruits, covered with a very hard green shell and reaching 35 cm in diameter, were used by the Indians to make both musical instruments and dishes.

For the production of maracas, small, regular-sized fruits were used. round shape. After removing the pulp through two holes drilled in the body and drying the fruit, small pebbles or plant seeds were poured inside, the quantity of which varies in any pair of maracas, which provides each instrument with a unique individual sound. At the last stage, a handle was attached to the resulting spherical rattle, after which the instrument was ready

Now let's get acquainted with a very famous Spanish percussion instrument - castanets.

Castanets are a percussion musical instrument that consists of two concave shell plates, connected in the upper parts with a cord. Castanets are most widespread in Spain, Southern Italy and Latin America.

Similar simple musical instruments, suitable for rhythmic accompaniment of dance and singing, were used in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece.

The name castanets in Russian is borrowed from Spanish, where they are called castañuelas (“chestnuts”) due to their resemblance to chestnut fruits. In Andalusia they are more often called palillos ("sticks").

Plates were traditionally made from hardwood, although Lately For this, metal or fiberglass is increasingly used. In a symphony orchestra, for the convenience of performers, castanets are most often used, mounted on a special stand (the so-called “castanet machine”).

Castanets, used by Spanish dancers, were traditionally made in two sizes. Large castanets were held with the left hand and beat out the main movement of the dance. Small castanets were in right hand and beat off various musical drawings which accompanied the performance of dances and songs. Accompanied by songs, castanets acted only as acting out - during a break in the voice part.

In world culture, castanets are most strongly associated with the image of Spanish music, especially with the music of Spanish gypsies. Therefore, this instrument is often used in classical music to create a “Spanish flavor”; for example, in such works as J. Bizet’s opera “Carmen”, in Glinka’s Spanish overtures “ Aragonese jota" and "Night in Madrid", in "Capriccio Espagnol by Rimsky-Korsakov, in Spanish dances from Tchaikovsky's ballets.

Although percussion instruments are not given the main role in music, percussion instruments often give music a unique flavor.

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1. Gusli

The gusli is a stringed musical instrument, the most common in Russia. It is the most ancient Russian stringed musical instrument.

There are wing-shaped and helmet-shaped harps. The first, in later samples, have a triangular shape and from 5 to 14 strings, tuned according to the steps of the diatonic scale, helmet-shaped - 10-30 strings of the same tuning.

Musicians who play the gusli are called guslars.

History of the gusli

Gusli is a musical instrument, a type of which is the harp. Also similar to the harp are the ancient Greek cithara (there is a hypothesis that it is the ancestor of the harp), the Armenian canon and the Iranian santur.

The first reliable mentions of the use of Russian gusli are found in Byzantine sources of the 5th century. The heroes of the epic played the gusli: Sadko, Dobrynya Nikitich, Boyan. In the great monument ancient Russian literature, “The Tale of Igor’s Host” (XI - XII centuries), the image of the guslar-storyteller is poetically sung:

“Boyan, brethren, is not 10 falcons for a flock of swans in the forest, but his own things and fingers for living strings; They themselves are the prince, glory to the roar.”

2. Pipe

Svirel is a Russian double-barreled wind instrument; a type of double-barreled longitudinal flute. One of the trunks is usually 300-350 mm long, the second - 450-470 mm. At the upper end of the barrel there is a whistle device, at the lower part there are 3 side holes for changing the pitch of sounds.

In everyday language, pipes are often called wind instruments such as single-barreled or double-barreled flutes.

It is made from wood with a soft core, elderberry, willow, and bird cherry.

It is assumed that the pipe migrated to Russia from Ancient Greece. In ancient times, a pipe was a musical wind instrument consisting of seven reed tubes of different lengths connected to each other. According to ancient Greek mythology, Hermes invented it to amuse himself while tending cows. This musical instrument is still very much loved by the shepherds of Greece.

3. Balalaika

Some attribute the word "balalaika" Tatar origin. The Tatars have the word “bala” meaning “child”. It may have served as the source of the origin of the words “babble”, “babbled”, etc. containing the concept of unreasonable, childish chatter.

There are very few mentions of the balalaika even in the 17th - 18th centuries. In some cases, there are indeed hints that in Russia there was an instrument of the same type as the balalaika, but most likely the domra, the ancestor of the balalaika, is mentioned there.

Under Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, domrachey players were attached to the palace amusement chamber. Under Alexei Mikhailovich, instruments were persecuted. By this time, i.e. The renaming of the domra into the balalaika probably dates back to the 2nd half of the 17th century.

The name “balalaika” first appears in written monuments the time of Peter the Great. In 1715, during the celebration of a comic wedding organized by order of the tsar, balalaikas were mentioned among the instruments that appeared in the hands of the mummers at the ceremony. Moreover, these instruments were given into the hands of a group dressed as Kalmyks.

During the 18th century. The balalaika spread widely among the Great Russian people, becoming so popular that it was recognized as ancient instrument, and even assigned her Slavic origin.

Russian origin can only be attributed to the triangular outline of the body or body of the balalaika, which replaced the round shape of the domra. The shape of the 18th century balalaika was different from the modern one. The neck of the balalaika was very long, about 4 times longer than the body. The body of the instrument was narrower. In addition, balalaikas found in ancient popular prints are equipped with only 2 strings. The third string was a rare exception. The strings of the balalaika are metal, which gives the sound a specific shade - a sonorous timbre.

In the middle of the 20th century. a new hypothesis was put forward that the balalaika existed long before it was mentioned in written sources, i.e. existed next to the domra. Some researchers believe that the domra was a professional instrument of buffoons and, with their disappearance, lost widespread musical practice.

The balalaika is a purely folk instrument and, therefore, more resilient.

At first, the balalaika spread mainly in the northern and eastern provinces of Russia, usually accompanying folk dance songs. But already in the middle of the 19th century, the balalaika was very popular in many places in Russia. It was played not only by village boys, but also by serious court musicians such as Ivan Khandoshkin, I.F. Yablochkin, N.V. Lavrov. However, by the middle XIX century Next to it, there was a harmonica almost everywhere, which gradually replaced the balalaika.

4. Bayan

Bayan is one of the most perfect chromatic harmonics currently existing. The name “accordion” first appeared in posters and advertisements starting in 1891. Until this time, such an instrument was called a harmonica.

The harmonica comes from an Asian instrument called the shen. Shen was known in Russia a very long time ago, in the 10th-13th centuries during the period of Tatar-Mongol rule. Some researchers claim that the shen traveled from Asia to Russia, and then to Europe, where it was improved and became a widespread, truly popular musical instrument throughout Europe - the harmonica.

In Russia, a definite impetus for the spread of the instrument was the acquisition by Ivan Sizov of a hand-held harmonica at the Nizhny Novgorod fair in 1830, after which he decided to open a harmonica workshop. By the forties of the 19th century, the first factory of Timofey Vorontsov appeared in Tula, which produced 10,000 harmonics per year. This contributed to the widest distribution of the instrument, and by the middle of the 19th century. The harmonica becomes a symbol of a new folk musical instrument. She is an obligatory participant in all folk festivals and festivities.

If a harmonica was made in Europe musical masters, then in Russia, on the contrary, the harmonica created masters from folk craftsmen. That is why in Russia, like in no other country, there is such a wealth of purely national harmonica designs, differing not only in form, but also in the variety of scales. The repertoire, for example, of the Saratov harmonica cannot be performed on Livenki, the Livenka repertoire on Bologoyevka, etc. The name of the harmonica was determined by the place where it was made.

Tula handicraftsmen were the first in Rus' to make accordions. Their first TULA harmonicas had only one row of buttons on the right and left hands (single row). On the same basis, models of very small concert harmonicas - TURTLES - began to develop. They were very loud and vocal and made an impression on the audience, although it was a more eccentric number than music.

The SARATOV harmonicas, which appeared after the Tula ones, were structurally no different from the first ones, but the Saratov masters were able to find an unusual sound timbre by adding bells to the design. These accordions have gained great popularity among the people.

Vyatka artisans expanded the sound range of harmonicas (they added buttons to the left and right hands). The version of the instrument they invented was called the Vyatka accordion.

All listed tools had a peculiarity - the same button for releasing and closing the bellows made different sounds. These harmonicas had one thing common name— TALYANKA. Talyankas could be with Russian or German system. When playing such harmonicas, it was necessary, first of all, to master the technique of playing bellows in order to correctly produce the melody.

The problem was solved by LIVENSK artisans. On the accordions of Liven masters, the sound did not change when changing the bellows. The accordions did not have straps that went over the shoulder. On the right and left sides, short belts wrapped around the hands. The Liven accordion had incredibly long fur. You could literally wrap such an accordion around yourself, because... when the fur was fully stretched, its length reached two meters.

The next stage in the development of harmony was double row accordions, the design of which came to Russia from Europe. A two-row accordion could also be called a “two-row” accordion, because Each row of buttons in the right hand was assigned a certain scale. Such accordions are called RUSSIAN WREATHS.

Currently, all the accordions listed above are very rare.

The Bayan owes its appearance to the talented Russian master - designer Pyotr Sterligov. Sterligov's chromatic harmonics (later button accordions) improved so quickly from 1905 to 1915 that even today factory instruments are made based on their latest samples.

This instrument was made popular by an outstanding musician - harmonica player Yakov Fedorovich Orlansky-Titarenko. The master and virtuoso named the instrument in honor of the legendary Russian musician, storyteller and singer Boyan - “accordion”. This was in 1907. Since then, the button accordion has existed in Rus' - the instrument is now so popular that there is no need to talk about what it looks like.

Perhaps, the only tool that does not pretend to prematurely disappear and be “written off on the shelf” within the framework of this article. But it would also be wrong not to talk about it. Let's move on...

5. Xylophone

Xylophone (from the Greek xylon - tree, wood and phone - sound) is a percussion instrument with a certain pitch of sound, the design of which consists of a set of wooden blocks (plates) of different sizes.

Xylophones come in two-row and four-row types.

A four-row xylophone is played with two curved spoon-shaped sticks with thickening at the ends, which the musician holds in front of him at an angle parallel to the plane of the instrument. at a distance of 5-7 cm from records. On a two-row xylophone, playing with three and four sticks is used. The basic principle of playing the xylophone is to accurately alternate the strokes of both hands.

The xylophone has ancient origins - the simplest instruments of this type were and are found to this day among various peoples of Russia, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. In Europe, the first mentions of the xylophone date back to beginning of the XVI century.

Russian folk instruments also include: horn, tambourine, jew's harp, domra, zhaleika, kalyuka, kugikly, spoons, ocarina, pipe, rattle and many others.

I would like to believe that the Great Country will be able to revive folk traditions, folk festivals, festivals, national costumes, songs, dances... to the sounds of real native Russian musical instruments.

And I’ll end the article on an optimistic note - watch the video to the end - good mood to everyone!

The soul of Russia is in my hands,
a piece of Russian antiquity,
When they asked to sell the accordion,
I answered: “She has no price.”

The music of the people is priceless,
that lives in the songs of the Motherland,
Her melody is nature,
how that balm pours on the heart.

Not enough gold and money
to buy my accordion,
And the one whose ears she hurts,
can't live without her.

Play the accordion without a break,
and wiping my sweaty brow,
I'll give you to the boy
Or I’ll put it on a friend’s coffin!

A Russian folk musical instrument is an object with the help of which musicians produce any sounds, including non-musical, unorganized sounds.

Existing ordinary musical instruments are divided into several groups: plucked strings, bowed strings, brass winds, reed winds, woodwinds, percussion. Keyboard instruments can be classified as a separate group, although the methods of sound production in them are often different.

The physical basis of a musical instrument that produces musical sounds(except for digital electrical devices), this is a resonator. This could be a string, a column of air in a certain volume, an oscillatory circuit, or another object capable of storing supplied energy in the form of vibrations. The resonant frequency of the resonator determines the fundamental tone (first overtone) of the sound produced. The instrument can produce as many sounds simultaneously as there are resonators installed in it. The sound begins at the moment energy is introduced into the resonator. The resonant frequencies of some instruments' resonators can often be changed smoothly or discretely as the instrument is played.

In musical instruments that produce non-musical sounds, such as drums, the presence of a resonator is not essential.

Russian musical instruments

Balalaika

Balalaika is a Russian folk three-string plucked musical instrument with a triangular, slightly curved wooden body. This is one of the tools that has become musical symbol of the Russian people.

The very name of the instrument is typically folk, with the sound of syllable combinations conveying the nature of playing it. The root of the words “balalaika”, or, as it was also called, “balabaika”, has long attracted the attention of researchers due to its kinship with such Russian words as balakat, balabonit, balabolit, balagurit, which means to talk about something insignificant, chatter, razzle-dazzle, idle talk , scribble. All these concepts, complementing each other, convey the essence of the balalaika - a light, funny, “strumming”, not very serious instrument.

The body is glued together from separate (6-7) segments, the head of the long neck is slightly bent back. The strings are metal (In the 18th century, two of them were gut strings; modern balalaikas have nylon or carbon). On the neck of a modern balalaika there are 16-31 metal frets (up to late XIX centuries - 5-7 imposed frets).

In the modern orchestra of Russian folk instruments, five varieties of balalaikas are used: prima, second, viola, bass and double bass. Of these, only the prima (600-700 mm) is a solo, virtuoso instrument, and the rest are assigned purely orchestral functions: the second and viola implement chord accompaniment, and the bass and double bass (up to 1.7 meters long) perform the bass function.

The sound is clear but soft. The most common techniques for producing sound: rattling, pizzicato, double pizzicato, single pizzicato, vibrato, tremolo, rolls, guitar techniques.

It is believed that the balalaika has become widespread since the end of the 17th century. Possibly comes from Asian dombra. Improved thanks to V. Andreev together with masters Paserbsky and Nalimov. A family of modernized balalaikas has been created: piccolo, prima, second, viola, bass, double bass. The balalaika is used as a solo concert, ensemble and orchestral instrument.

Kugikly

Kugikly (kuvikly) or tsevnitsa is a wind musical instrument, a Russian type of multi-barrel flute. Kugikly are a set of hollow tubes (3-5 tubes) of various lengths (from 100 to 160 mm) and diameter. The pipes are made from stems of kugi (marsh reeds), reeds, bamboo, branches of trees and shrubs with a core. The tubes of the instrument are not fastened together, which allows them to be changed depending on the required tuning. The upper open ends are located at the same level, the lower one is closed by the barrel assembly. Modern kugikly can be metal, made of plastic or hard rubber.

Bringing the upper ends of the tubes to the mouth and moving them (or the head) from side to side, they blow on the edges of the slices, usually producing short, jerky sounds.

The sound of the kugikly is quiet, gentle, whistling. It goes well with other folk instruments - pipe, horn, penny, flute, folk violin. The kugikl players are played mainly by women; the kugikl ensemble consists of 3-4 performers, one or two play and at the same time make sounds similar to the sound of pipes with their voices, the rest play along with the same melodies in a syncopated rhythm.

Rubel

Percussion and noise instruments are among the most ancient musical instruments. Our ancestors made them from the material they had at hand - wood, leather, bone, clay, and later metal. They were credited with magical powers.

Percussion instruments that do not have a scale have great expressive capabilities and folk music are widely used.

Rubel (rib, pralnik) is a household item that in the old days Russian women used to iron clothes after washing. Hand-wrung linen was wound onto a roller or rolling pin and rolled out with a ruble, so much so that even poorly washed linen became snow-white, as if all the “juice” had been squeezed out of it. Hence the proverb: “Not by washing, but by rolling.”

The rubel was a plate made of hardwood with a handle at one end. On one side of the plate, transverse rounded scars were cut, the second remained smooth, and sometimes was decorated with intricate carvings. In different regions of our country, rubles could differ either in their shape or in their unique decoration. Thus, in the Vladimir province, rubles decorated with geometric carvings were distinguished by their extraordinary length; on the Mezen River, rubles were made wide, slightly expanding towards the end, and in the Yaroslavl province, in addition to geometric carvings, the ruble was sometimes decorated with a three-dimensional sculpture, which, protruding above the carved surface, served as a at the same time and a very convenient second handle. Sometimes the handle of the ruble was made hollow and peas or other small objects were placed inside so that they would rattle when rolled out.

For rubles, hardwood is used: oak, rowan, beech, maple, birch. You can use waste wood boards in your work, processing them manually or on a machine. The ends of the rubles are smoothly filed, sharp corners on the edges are rounded with a file. A handle is also cut from the same blank. An additional operation is cutting rollers on the lower surface of the rubles. In the next stage of work, the resulting sharp edges are smoothed, giving them a round shape. The resonator slot in the housing is drilled and machined from one of the side ends, but not all the way through.

Literature:

1. Bezhkovich A.S. and others. Economy and life of Russian peasants. - M.: Soviet Russia, 1959.

2. Bychkov V. N. Musical instruments. - M.: AST-PRESS, 2000.