Fujara
Fujara , also fujera, fujarka and fujaruoka , is a long, vertically held beaked flute that is traditionally played by shepherds in Slovakia . In the literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, the terms fluera and frujera are used alongside fujara . They are derived from the verb fœkat, fujat ("to blow") and are related to other names for flutes in Southeastern Europe, including the Romanian fluier .
Design
The fujara consists of a long play tube and a blowing pipe. They vary in size, but most commonly they are between four and five feet long. The blow pipe is tied to the flute pipe with a leather strap or a brass band. In the lower part of the flute tube there are three front finger holes. It is mostly tuned to G.
There is a fujara-dvojka ("double fujara ") with two parallel playing tubes corresponding to the double flute dvojačka and a "triple fujara " with three playing tubes.
origin
In the 14th century, the Wallachians came from what is now Romania via the Carpathian Mountains to what is now Slovakia. They were shepherds who knew how to tend the sheep and goats up to a height of over 1,000 meters. These shepherds took flutes with them from their homeland, but they were no larger than 130–140 cm. Only in the area of the High Tatras , which forms the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, did the Wallachians build fujaras of 170 cm.
The fujara is one of the characteristic Slovak folk instruments. It comes from the Zvolen area and the Poľana hilltop . The wide valley stretches between Zvolen and Podkriváň and extends into the southern Slovak regions of Novohrad , Hont and Gemer . Since the center is formed by the city of Detva , the fujara is often also called detvianska fujara ("Fujara from Detva"). Here you will find the most famous manufacturers and the best players. Fujara has also been built in other parts of Slovakia for several years . There are also individual Fujara farmers in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland.
Musicians who play fujara are Max Brumberg, Jan Marmenout, Bernhard Mikuskovics , Winfried Skrobek, Marco Trochelmann and Gérard Widmer.
Style of play
The flute produces a natural scale . The pitch of the sound changes depending on the blowing strength. A typical variety is the so-called rozfuk . This is created by a short, rhythmic blowing technique. Another typical variety is mumlanie (freely translated "whisper"): here the fujara is only blown very gently.
The koncovka , an overtone flute, is related to the fujara . This is 80 to 100 cm long and is blown in at the top of the head of the instrument and has no holes. The tone is also changed by the blowing force and varied by the hand at the lower end. The fujara is one of the 35 known types of magnetic resonance flute in Slovakia. Single- reed instruments traditionally played by shepherds, such as the drček, are less common .
The fujara instrument and traditional music were added to the UNESCO list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005.
literature
- Oskár Elschek: The folk musical instruments of Czechoslovakia. Part 2: Slovakia. ( Ernst Emsheimer , Erich Stockmann (eds.): Handbook of European Folk Music Instruments, Series 1, Volume 2) Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1983, pp. 152–164
- Fujara. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Vol. 2, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 360
- Bernard Garaj: The Fujara - A Symbol of Slovak Folk Music and New ways of its Usage. In: Studia Instrumentorum Musicae Popularis XVII. ICTM Study Group on Folk Musical Instruments. Proceedings from the 16th International Meeting, 2006, pp. 86-94
- Pro Musica, Bratislava (ed.): Fujara. Musical Instrument and its Music. Candidature for Its Proclamation as Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity .
