Hichiriki

Hichiriki

Hichiriki ( Japanese 篳 篥 ) is a Japanese wind instrument with a double reed , which is mainly used for elegant courtly Gagaku music. According to the tradition dating back to the Heian period (794–1185), it is the main melodic instrument alongside the bamboo flute ryūteki and is accompanied by the chords of the mouth organ shō . The hichiriki is sometimes referred to as a “double reed flute” because of its external shape, although it is not a flute in terms of the way it produces sound.

Due to the double reed construction, the cylindrical short oboe is very difficult to play. The tones are similar to the oboe or the clarinet and are mainly influenced by the approach of the instrument. The hichiriki is also one of the "sacred" instruments and is often played at Shinto weddings in Japan. Today it is used in almost all forms of traditional music in Japan.

The hichiriki developed from the Chinese guan or bili . It belongs to the Asian short oboes and is related to the piri in Korea, the duduk in Armenia, the balaban in Azerbaijan and the mey in Turkey. All these instruments differ in their softer sound and missing bell of the widespread in Asia oboe type of surnai and the Chinese suona . The name hichiriki is derived from the ancient Chinese oboe pi-li by phonetic shifting , which can be seen on a relief for the first time in 551 AD.

literature

• William P. Malm: Japanese music and musical instruments. Tuttle, Rutland VT et al. 1990, ISBN 0-8048-1648-4 .