Gintang
Gintang ( Assamese ), regionally also jintang, dhutong, jeng toka, badung dunga, dhup talow, is an idiochorde bamboo zither beaten with sticks in the northeast Indian state of Assam , which is used as a percussion instrument to accompany songs and dances.
Design and style of play
The gintang consists of a half-meter-long, thick section of bamboo ( internode ) that was cut off just behind the knot . A 19th-century gintang , first in the collection of Francis W. Galpin and now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston , is 55.3 inches long and 6.3 inches in diameter. The knots close the tube at both ends. A bamboo tube zither called a dhup talow has a diameter of 4 centimeters and is open at one end. The two strings are idiochord (made of the same material as the string carrier), they are cut out as thin longitudinal strips from the upper layer of the bamboo tube and remain connected to the tube at the ends. Under the strings, the bamboo tube is tapered to a flat surface. Small pieces of wood or bamboo pushed under at both ends bring the strings parallel to the string carrier. The tension of the strings can be varied by moving the sticks. A rectangular sound hole has been cut out under the strings just outside the center. Another flat piece of wood is clamped above this opening between the strings or pushed under them next to them. This enables four different pitches to be produced when striking the strings with a thin stick.
The name jeng toka ("string toka ") is used in Assam to distinguish it from the fork-shaped bamboo rattle called toka .
The seated player fixes the gintang at the lower end between his knees and lays it in front of him at an angle to the side of the neck against a shoulder and strikes the strings with both hands with a bamboo strip each. The strings produce light tones with little reverberation. They can be depressed with one hand for cushioning and hit with the stick in the other hand. Bamboo tubes open on one side are pressed more or less strongly against the upper body with the open end in order to change the sound. In a similar way, a musical bow player opens and closes the resonator for sound modulation with his upper body.
Origin and Distribution
The extreme northeast of India has a special position musically, because there are many traditions here that are otherwise typical of Southeast Asia . Nevertheless, idiochorde bamboo tubular zithers are known not only in the region and in Southeast Asia, but also in central India. The Hill Reddis in the central Indian state of Andhra Pradesh , belonging to the Scheduled Tribes, play the bamboo zither ronza gontam, which occurs as bhuyabaja among the Gond and under other names also in Oriya . Wilfrid Grigson (1938) calls the Gond names pak-dol or veddur-dol ( "bamboo drum", to distinguish it from the wooden doubt then tube drum birya- dol ) for a thick bamboo tube with three idiochorden strings. The strings of the bamboo internode lying flat on the ground are struck with sticks.
One of the bamboo tube zithers in northeast India is the chigring of the Garo in the state of Meghalaya , which, like the gintang, has a sound hole in the middle. Two other tubular bamboo zithers that are struck with sticks are the tutum dar with the Mizo in the state of Mizoram and singphong or sing diengphong with the Khasi in the Indian state of Meghalaya. The tubular zither of the Arakanese belonging to the Mog in Tripura rests like a slit drum across the floor in front of the player and is fixed to a block of wood with two straps.
On the Malay Islands , idiochorde bamboo tubular zithers were and are still partly widespread. The celempung on the island of Java (not to be confused with the box zither of the same name ) and the sasando on the Indonesian island of Roti should be emphasized ; the Toba Batak in Sumatra , for example, use the tanggetong and Borneo the tongkungon . The 60 centimeter long and 10 centimeter thick tongkungon in the state of Sabah in northeast Borneo is called satong or satung in Sarawak . It has four to eight idiochorde strings.
Presumably through cultural imports from Southeast Asia , the valiha is played in Madagascar in areas where bamboo grows . While the musician strikes the celempung lying on the floor in front of him with mallets, the other bamboo zithers outside India are plucked with fingernails.
Mouth bows and musical bows reinforced with a resonator are the simplest and oldest stringed instruments , of which the development of harps and lyres with free strings can be imagined. The simplest form of zithers, in which one or more strings run parallel across the string carrier, are bar zithers. You need a separate resonator to amplify the sound. A refined example of a stick zither is the rudra vina played in North Indian classical music . With tubular zithers, the string carrier also serves to amplify the sound. Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva (1978) sees them as the original form of at least the Indian zithers. Stick zithers, which are seldom found in Indian music today, first appeared in India in the 5th century on wall paintings in the Buddhist caves of Ajanta . Of these earliest, illustrated stick zithers, whose primitive stage of development corresponds to the gintang and other tubular zithers, the single-stringed tuila was only preserved in a retreat in Odisha .
From the simple tubular bamboo zither, the idiochord bamboo raft zithers specific to northeast India developed, which are atypical for India. Otherwise raft zithers occur in Africa. Several thin bamboo tubes are fixed next to each other at both ends by cross bars. More cross bars are pushed under the cut out bamboo strings. In addition to the dendung in Assam, the Garo in Meghalaya know the dymphong and the Khasi the raft zither dinkhrang . Like the tubular zithers, the raft zithers are struck percussively with sticks. Even if they do not actually serve as melody instruments, the strings are tuned to specific pitches.
Bamboo zithers are also used as a model for other stringed instruments struck with sticks. This includes the South Indian long-necked lute gettuvadyam with two double strings made of steel. The musician strikes the strings with a bamboo stick and shortens them with another stick in the other hand. The gettuvadyam is used as a rhythmic accompaniment, for drone tones or for short tone sequences. The South Indian long-necked lute gottuvadyam is similar in shape, but much more mature .
An alternative English name for bamboo tube zither is string drum , which refers to the shape and style of playing a slotted drum . Outside the region, string instruments struck with sticks are the Hungarian ütőgardon , a box- neck lute , which is also called "Schlagcello" in German, and the txuntxun of the Basques south of the Pyrenees . The txuntxun is a board zither which the seated musician holds vertically in front of the upper body and strikes with a stick in his right hand while he plays a single-tone flute with his left hand . The similar tambourin de Béarn is also used north of the Pyrenees in Occitania . Such "string drums" in the style of drones have been handed down from illustrations in the European Middle Ages since the 14th century and are a forerunner of the chopping boards .
literature
- Dilip Ranjan Barthakur: The Music and Musical Instruments of North Eastern India. Mittal Publications, New Delhi 2003
- Roger Blench: Musical instruments of Northeast India. Classification, distribution, history and vernacular names. Cambridge, December 2011
- Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments of India: Their History and Development . KLM Private Limited, Calcutta 1978, p. 59f
- Alastair Dick: Gintang. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 2, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 431
Individual evidence
- ^ Zither (gintang) and mallet. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (illustration)
- ↑ Alastair Dick, 2014, p. 431
- ↑ Dilip Ranjan Barthakur, 2003, p 134
- ^ Toka (The Bamboo Slapstick) & Dhutong. ( Memento of March 28, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) anvesha.co.in/toka_en
- ↑ Geneviève Dournon: Bhuyabaja . In: Grove Music Online , January 13, 2015
- ↑ Wilfrid Vernon Grigson: Maria Gonds Of Bastar. Oxford University Press, London 1938, p. 182
- ↑ Roger Blench, 2011, p. 26f
- ↑ Tanggetong. Ethnological Museum, National Museums in Berlin (illustration)
- ↑ See Tube zither. In: Sibyl Marcuse : Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary. A complete, authoritative encyclopedia of instruments throughout the world. Country Life Limited, London 1966, p. 547f, with over 90 name references mostly to Southeast Asian tubular bamboo zithers
- ↑ Patricia Matusky: Tongkungon. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Volume 5. Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 32
- ↑ Louise Wrazen: The Early History of the Vina and am in South and South East Asia. In: Asian Music, Volume 18, No. 1, Fall - Winter 1986, pp. 35–55, here p. 38
- ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva, 1978, pp. 128f
- ↑ Monika Zin : The ancient Indian vīṇās. In: Ellen Hickmann, Ricardo Eichmann (Hrsg.): Studies on music archeology IV. Music archaeological source groups: soil documents, oral tradition, record. Lectures of the 3rd symposium of the International Study Group Music Archeology in the Michaelstein Monastery, 9. – 16. June 2002, pp. 321-362, here p. 333
- ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments. National Book Trust, New Delhi 1977, p. 88
- ↑ Roger Blench, 2011, p. 26f
- ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva, 1978, pp. 149f
- ↑ donimustecum.es/Flauta ( Memento from June 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (image and audio sample)
- ^ Sibyl Marcuse: A Survey of Musical Instruments. Harper & Row, New York 1975, p. 200