Drček

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Drček (from Slovak drkať, “rattle”, “babble”) is a rare single reed instrument with a heteroglottic reed , a cylindrical wooden pipe and an attached bell that is played in folk music in Slovakia .

Origin and Distribution

From the ancient Mediterranean region (represented by the Greek aulos ) to the Middle Ages, European reed instruments mostly belonged to the type of double wind instruments with two parallel connected or with two separately blown playing tubes at an acute angle and had a double reed. A find from an Avar grave in Hungary (near the village of Jánoshida in the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok district) dates from the 7th or 8th century) of two crane bones with five and three finger holes, which were connected to a double reed instrument. Images of European double flutes have been passed down since the 9th century. Even though numerous images of single-reed instruments played individually have been preserved in Europe since the late Middle Ages, little is known about the use of these instruments. By the name Chalumeau , Marin Mersenne ( Harmonie universelle , Paris 1636) and Pierre Trichet ( Traité des instruments de musique, Bordeaux, around 1640) understood on the one hand a simple wind instrument made from a wheat stalk with an incised (idioglotten) reed, on the other hand used separately chanter of a bagpipe . In the 17th century, the chalumeau was a single-reed instrument with a cylindrical, wooden chime and seven finger holes on the top. At the beginning of the 18th century, the clarinet was developed from the chalumeau .

The first evidence of the existence of the orchestral clarinet in the region is the directory of a musical instrument collection in Olomouc (in the east of the Czech Republic) from 1751. In addition to classical music, the clarinet is occasionally played in traditional folk music, for example in Bohemia in a trio with a bagpipe ( dudy ) and violin . This trio with an Eb clarinet was formed in Bohemia in the 1830s for a polyphonic playing style. In the neighboring western part of Slovakia, instead of the modern clarinet, the drček and the related reed instrument fanfarka (with an idioglotten reed and eight finger holes) are used in some places .

The simplest reed instruments made from blades of grass are called trubka z trávy (“trumpet made of grass”) in Slovakia , while those made from grain stalks are called trúba z obilia (“trumpet made of grain”) or simply píšťala (actually “flute”). Often made by children or shepherds to pass the time when the season is appropriate, they are of limited life. In Slovak folk music 103 aerophones are known, of which twelve types belong to the reed instruments in addition to the majority of flutes (including the long beaked flute fujara , the fingerhole-free koncovka and the double flute dvojačka ).

The drček , introduced in the last decades of the 19th century, represented an attempt to improve the quality of traditional single- reed instruments to a solid wind instrument that can serve as a substitute for the industrially manufactured clarinet. However, the drček found its way into professional orchestras only temporarily. In wind ensembles that became popular in western Slovakia from the middle of the 19th century, following the example of the Austrian military bands , the inexpensive drček without a flap was very much appreciated by village musicians who could not afford an expensive, professionally made clarinet. In the 1960s, the drček was rarely seen and in the mid-1970s it was almost completely gone. Some instrument makers are now producing drček again , even if clarinets are predominantly used in folk music ensembles instead of the drček and other traditional single- reed instruments that were played mainly in northern and western Slovakia.

Design and style of play

The play tube of a traditionally made drček consists of an elder branch , which is drilled out and the bark removed. The bore is widened and smoothed conically with a glowing iron wire. The separate mouthpiece ( duvač, "wind instrument") and the bell ( truba, "trumpet") are made from firmer hazelnut wood . Two specimens from the Žilina region in northern Slovakia described in the 1970s with six finger holes on the top are 33.2 and 37.5 centimeters long. Their outer diameter is between 16 and 26 millimeters, with it being slightly larger in the middle than at the ends. The inner diameter increases from 11 to 16 millimeters. The conical bell is 6 centimeters long and has an outer diameter of 2.5 centimeters at the connection point and 5.2 to 5.4 centimeters at the lower end. The mouthpiece tube of the two specimens is closed at the end with a cork stopper and has a 1.0 × 2.5 cm opening on the flattened top, over which the reed ( pierco , " little feather ") is tied with wire. A protective cover ( pokrývka, “lid”) can be placed over the entire mouthpiece . With the 33.2 centimeter long instrument, the distance of the finger holes from the tip of the reed is 10.2 - 12.6 - 14.8 - 17.2 - 19.9 and 22.2 centimeters. The finger holes are arranged almost equidistantly. There are other traditional drček with four and five finger holes. Today, handicraft businesses also manufacture instruments with seven or eight finger holes, a music tube made of different types of wood, a bell made of cow horn and a metal protective cap over the mouthpiece. The standard mouthpiece of a Bb clarinet is installed here.

The range of this version is c 'to d' '. The 33.2 centimeter long museum specimen produces a range from b to d ''. Usually the root note is g or b. A traditional instrument sounds squeaky and shrill, whereas today's handcrafted drček with a soft reed and a corresponding playing style can sound as soft as an Armenian duduk . It is not possible to overblow on a drček , but there are occasionally musically unusable skip notes into the overtone series . Mostly the drček was played by cowherd men and boys in the pasture.

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. 201f
  • Drček. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Vol. 2, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 83

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anthony Baines: Woodwind Instruments and their History. (3rd edition 1967) Faber & Faber, London 1977, p. 199
  2. ^ Sibyl Marcuse : A Survey of Musical Instruments. Harper & Row Inc., New York 1975, p. 660
  3. ^ Sibyl Marcuse, 1975, p. 719
  4. ^ Albert Rice: The Baroque Clarinet in Public Concerts, 1726–1762. In: Early Music, Vol. 16, No. 3, August 1988, pp. 388-395, here p. 393
  5. ^ Jaroslav Markl: Czech Bagpipe Music. In: Journal of the International Folk Music Council, Vol. 15, 1963, pp. 72-74, here p. 73
  6. ↑ Eric Hoeprich: The Clarinet. ( The Yale Musical Instrument Series ) Yale University Press, New Haven 2008, p. 313
  7. ^ Oskár Elschek: Slovakia. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present , subject part 8, Kassel / Stuttgart 1998, Sp. 1528
  8. ↑ Oskár Elschek, 1983, p. 202
  9. ↑ Drcek . www.bagpipes.sk
  10. ↑ Oskár Elschek, 1983, p. 202
  11. ↑ gajdy.bagpipes.sk (image from professionally manufactured drček )