Ghatam
The ghatam ( Sanskrit घट , IAST ghāṭa, tamil கடம் , ghaḍam, kannada ಘಟ, ghaṭa , telugu ఘటం, ghaṭaṁ), also kudam , is a clay pot made of red clay, which is used in South Indian music as a percussion instrument. Mostly the ghatam is struck on the lap or on a standing ring ( vattam ) with the fingers, whereby different pitches and sound variations can be achieved when hitting different parts of the body.
Design and style of play
The thick-walled clay pot has a semicircular bottom and tapers at the top to an opening with a short neck that ends in a bead. When the straight surface below the neck is struck with the ball of the hand , a warm bass sound is created, which is called gumki . With the fingertips, bright tones are produced in the middle of the pot. When playing, the pot rests with the opening at a slight angle to the upper body of the player sitting on the floor. If he brings the opening close to the bare upper abdomen, he can vary the sound by opening and closing the sound hole. The edge is never hit from above. The neck is called kaguthu , the thick body uddambu .
The ghatam is played in the classical music of South India , often together with other percussion instruments such as the double-cone drum mridangam and the frame drum kanjira . Typical is the interaction called sawal-jawab ("question and answer"), in which the percussion instruments play improvised rhythmic phrases and develop them further.
Bangalore K. Venkataraman is one of the most famous Ghatam players . In the western sphere, the ghatam was brought closer to a larger audience by Vikku Vinayakram in the Shakti formation founded by jazz guitarist John McLaughlin . Another ghatam player in jazz is Ramesh Shotham .
Origin and Distribution
Clay pot percussion instruments are called bhanda vadyam ("vessel musical instrument") in ancient Sanskrit texts such as Natyashastra , a work for music and dance that was created around the turn of the century . At the east gate of the great stupa of Sanchi from the 1st century BC. A long relief can be seen on the outside of the lower architrave, which is one of the most important images of ancient Indian musical culture. On the left side it shows a train of 17 musicians playing trumpets, snail horns , flutes, hourglass-shaped and cylindrical drums. At the head of the procession are four musicians holding clay pots in the shape of today's ghatams . Since it was a sacrifice procession, the clay pots in this case should not have served as musical instruments, but as containers for liquid offerings.
According to the Indian classification of musical instruments, the ghatam belongs to the ghana vadya , the idiophones that cannot be tuned. The most primal ghana vadya is the human body, whose movements - such as clapping hands - produce rhythmic patterns according to principles that have been strictly established since ancient times.
Similar clay pots are used in folk music in large parts of India. The North Indian counterpart to ghatam is called matka (or matki ) in Hindi . In Goa the clay pot ghumat has two openings, one of which is covered with an animal skin. It is always played samel together with the tubular drum . Related to the ghumat is the mizhavu from Kerala , the body of which is made of copper. The narrow opening of the vase-shaped instrument is also covered with skin. Other Indian percussion instruments with a clay or metal pot as a resonator are: gagri ( gagra ) and pabuji ki mate in Rajasthan (played by believers of the epic hero Pabuji), gummati in Andhra Pradesh , kudamuzha in Tamil Nadu and noot in Kashmir and Sindh . In contrast to the ghatam , the singer accompanying the noot hits the opening and the sides.
The same clay pot also serves as a resonator for the villadi vadyam bow, which is played in Kerala and Tamil Nadu in their own folk song tradition . A special type of clay drum that is excited by a string is called pulluvan kudam . This instrument is one of the Ektara called plucking drums and in Kerala by the community of Pulluvan together with the string fiddle pulluvan vina used in ritual music.
In West Africa, clay pots are also used as rhythm instruments. In Togo , the traditional singer accompanies each other on an atukpen , the Nigerian udu offers a variety of sound variations through an additional sound hole at the side. In the Arab Gulf countries , pearl divers accompany their workers' songs with standing water pots made of clay (Arabic jaḥla, Pl. Jaḥlāt ), kettle drums ( ṭabl ) and small cylinder drums ( mirwas ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Walter Kaufmann : Old India. Music history in pictures. Volume II. Ancient Music. Delivery 8. Ed. Werner Bachmann. VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1981, p. 66
- ^ Pot-drum. In: Late Pandit Nikhil Ghosh (Ed.): The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Music of India. Saṅgīt Mahābhāratī. Vol. 3 (P – Z) Oxford University Press, New Delhi 2011, p. 820
- ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments. National Book Trust, New Delhi 1977, pp. 15, 25