Kombu (trumpet)
Kombu ( Malayalam and Kannara ), also kompu, kompa , Marathi tutari, Nepali narsinga , Sanskrit shringa (sṛṅga), turya , refers to a group of long natural metal trumpets played in popular and religious Indian music from the southern edge of the Himalayas to Sri Lanka . The basic meaning of the regional-language instrument names is "animal horn". In the past the trumpets were used as military and signaling instruments as well as in processions and in ritual temple music, today they are mostly used in the latter religious function. The south Indian version kombu and the central Indian tutari are curved in a large semicircle, the rarer north Indian shringa is S-shaped.
Origin and Distribution
The earliest trumpet instruments were probably those made from the horns of cattle, water buffalo or rams such as the shofar used in Jewish temples . Today's Indian metal trumpets are named in the different North and South Indian languages with the word for "horn", an indication that animal horns were the forerunners of all later metal trumpets: Sanskrit shringa, Pali singam, Prakrit singa , Bengali simha , Hindi sing , Gujarati singum , Kannada shringi , Marathi tutari, turahi and Malayalam / Tamil kombu . Blown animal horns are still found in some Indian tribal groups today. The Bhils in western central India call them singe , the Marias of Madhya Pradesh kohuk , musicians of the northeast Indian Naga tribe Angami blow a half-meter-long buffalo horn reli-ki , to which a bamboo tube is attached as a mouthpiece, in addition to the wooden tube trumpet ketsü . For once , the central Indian Santals do not know the buffalo horn sakna blown lengthways , but through a hole at the side .
In India, wind instruments are classified as sushira vadya ( sushira , "hollow", vadya , "musical instrument"), with them the sound is generated by the vibrations of the air in a tube. When the music theorist Bharata summarized the previous knowledge of musical instruments, theater forms and the theory of ritual music Gandharva in his work Natyashastra at the turn of the century , only the bamboo flute vamsha was of greater importance for the large theater orchestra. The same musical rules for tone systems and intervals applied to the flutes as to the group of stringed instruments ( vina ).
The other two tubular instruments were the snail horn shankha and the trumpet tundakini (possibly other name turya ). Both were rarely used in theater music in the Vedic period; they had a sacred character and were used in religious rituals, including Buddhist and Jain ceremonies, and in military music. Indian trumpets and horns have retained this role to this day. In Tibetan Buddhist ritual music , various types of metal trumpets and a snail horn are referred to by the generic term dung .
A Gandhara relief from the 2nd / 3rd centuries Century shows the young Siddharta in his palace surrounded by dancers and musicians with trumpets and drums who try with cheerful performances to prevent the young prince from withdrawing into solitude as an ascetic. In his verse epic Buddhacarita, Ashvaghosha (around 80 - around 150) lists the instruments turya (wind instrument), mridanga (clay drum), vina (harp), mukunda ( kettle drum ) and muraja ( barrel drum ) played in this scene . In general, the naming of the instrument rarely reveals the material and shape of an instrument, at most its intended use. The word turya in the Jatakas stands for trumpets and for musical instruments as a whole. The instrument govishanika (or goshringa ) in the Mahabharata was probably a cow horn, in Bhagavatapurana is Krishna srnga (Shringa) priya , "horns favorite" called one morning he plays as a young cowherd even the horn. In addition to its basic meaning, the Sanskrit word srnga can also mean "mountain" or the decorative turrets on the recesses ( karna ) of the Indian temple tower ( shikhara or vimana ) ( karna srnga ).
When kings or other dignitaries entered the city, it was customary to greet them with instrumental music and chants. In the fourth book of the Mahabharata , King Virata has his victorious returning son received with trumpets and snail horns. A badly damaged wall painting in Cave 10 of Ajanta (from the 2nd century BC) probably shows a religious procession of women playing drums and trumpets and clapping their hands.
The stupa of Sanchi (west pillar of the north gate, top relief) from the 1st century BC remained in very good condition . BC received a group of musicians and dancers. On the left side of the lower of the two rows two musicians playing trumpets can be seen, their instruments protruding almost vertically upwards and instead of a funnel ending in an animal head that is bent downwards. For this playing stance, they tilted their heads far back. The musicians next to it play another wind instrument with two music tubes (similar to the Greek aulos ), a double-cone and hourglass drum and a hand cymbal . The only ancient Indian representation of this particular type of trumpet is an example of the practice of using trumpets in pairs at the time. A comparison can be made with the Carnyx , a similar-looking wind instrument used by the Celts in Northern Europe from the same period. There is no evidence of a historical relationship between the two instruments. Since the Rigveda mentions metals ( ayas, presumably copper and iron) from which swords, arrowheads and everyday implements were made, it can be assumed that the trumpets depicted in Sanchi were made of metal.
It is not known whether the straight trumpets depicted in Sanchi, with their design, were the forerunners of the later curved metal trumpets in India; in any case, the musical areas of application remained the same. As instruments of the military and representative orchestras of the rulers, they are connected to the Arabic long trumpet būq , which is related in name and form in Georgia as buki , and the Indian karna (in Central Asia karnai ), which together with the kettle drum naqqāra, which is usually played in pairs belonged to the insignia of power at the courts of the Indian Mughal emperors . Akbar's court chronicler Abu 'l-Fazl listed the instruments of the palace orchestra ( nauba ) around 1590 , which included two trumpets ( nafīr ), six long trumpets ( karna ) and two horns ( shringa ). The name nafir is derived from the Near Eastern single-tone trumpets that have spread in Islamic North Africa and from which the kakaki , which is used in a similar function, originates on the southern edge of the Sahara . In north Indian folk music, naferi refers to a double reed instrument . The Telugu folk tale Katamaraju katha , written down in the 15th century by the poet Srinatha (1365–1441), also contains a sentence in a battle description about the musical instruments with which the soldiers marched. They kept playing naferi , the trumpet buraga and the horn commu .
Long trumpets that are played at social and religious ceremonies in India are the tirucinnam and ekkalam in Tamil Nadu , the karna (t) in northwestern India and the rare bhankora in the Garhwal region on the southern edge of the Himalayas. Like these, the dungchen in Tibet and the ponga in Nepal are used in religious cults.
Design and style of play
There may be a connection between the Mughal orchestra and the similar instruments of the Damai, a lower, Nepali- speaking caste in the Kathmandu valley . In the Damai drum orchestra with the damaha kettle drum , the characteristic wind instrument is the narsinga , a trumpet made of several parts that is put together to form a semicircle, which not only corresponds to the name of the Indian curved trumpet. The narsimga is always played in a semicircular form, but could theoretically be changed to an S-shape by rotating the connecting points and would then correspond to the North Indian shringa . The narsinga ( narsimga ) is made by the lower caste of the Tamrakar, who have specialized in the processing of copper sheet in Patan .
In addition to the semicircular curved trumpets, there are also one- or two-part trumpets in Nepal, as elsewhere in South Asia, which are played in a similar function. One example is the approximately one meter long kahan (also kaha ) in the Kathmandu valley made of 0.7 millimeter thick copper sheet, it has a minimum diameter of 1 to 1.5 centimeters and only widens to a funnel opening of just under 5 centimeters. The instrument is held close to the upper end with the right hand and, when blowing, is additionally hit with a bamboo stick with the left hand. A special blowing technique creates a vibrating sound. The kahan is played in various social and religious processions, in the Mahakali pyakhan mask theater of the Newari it can be heard during the battle scenes. A similar slender trumpet that is played at another festival is called ponga (also payantah ). The straight trumpets ponga and kahan in the drum orchestra, like the kombu and other curved trumpets, do not normally count among the melodic instruments; they either produce rhythmic single tones or a continuous tone in large orchestras at festive events.
The semicircular curved Indian metal trumpets include the tutari (or turahi ) in Maharashtra , whose four to five tones can be heard at the temple, occasionally in the Tamasha folk dance theater and during other ceremonies. Tutari is also called a straight trumpet in Maharashtra. Name and form are probably from the medieval tundakini derived, the onomatopoeic also because of the intermittent sounds brought forth turuturi or tittiri said. The straight instruments also include the chukka, kahala and, in Maharashtra, the bhongal . S-shaped bent in Uttar Pradesh turi , in Rajasthan Bankya and , Bargu in Karnataka seats , in Madhya Pradesh ransingha and widespread in the North, inter alia, in Himachal Pradesh the copper Narsingha ( Narasingha ). In the south of Maharashtra, the low- profile Ghasi and Dom play the semicircular narsimga ( narsiga ) made of brass for temple rituals, weddings and to accompany the sword dance paiki . The ensembles also consist of the bowling oboe shehnai and the drums dhak, dholki , bher and nagara .
S-shaped trumpets are commonly called shringa ( srnga ) in the north . A special variant is the nagphani from Gujarat , which is curved in multiple snakes and rightly named after the mythological Naga . A forked tongue protrudes from the open mouth ( phani ) as a bell . The tube length of an instrument from the end of the 19th century is 157 centimeters
In the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand in the foothills of the Himalayas, the old Ch (h) oliya warrior dance with swords and shields , which is in the tradition of the Rajputs , is performed at large weddings . To accompany the acrobatic Rajput dancers, low-caste ethnic groups (dholies) play the barrel drum dhol and the small kettle drum damau , while the groups of the bairagis, yogis or gosains play the trumpet turi curved in a semicircle and the large, S-shaped trumpet ransing in a wild Play rhythm. Several bagpipes mashak ensure the constant sequence of some melody tones .
Turi , Sanskrit turya and tur hi in Bihar are perhaps linguistically related to tori , as a short, cross-blown bronze trumpet is called, which young people from Muria, an Adivasi group in the central Indian district of Bastar, use ritually in the Ghotul (youth dormitory). The trumpet is 34 centimeters long and carefully crafted.
The most famous form of the kombu in South India is semicircular and consists of three thin pipe sections made of brass or copper, which are pushed into one another at the thickened joints. The end widens slightly to a bell, and a wide mouthpiece is attached to the other end. The combu can be dismantled and is held in shape by a cord stretched between the ends. Smaller trumpets are called timiri kombu and larger bari kombu . The kombu are played at least in pairs and are tuned to the root note and the fifth ( Sa and Pa ).
Such bow trumpets are used together with drums at weddings and religious processions. Best known their use is in Kerala at the ceremonial drum orchestra Panchavadyam ( "five musical instruments"), in the next several kombu the Sanduhrtrommeln as the only wind instruments idakka and Timila and the greater doubt celled barrel drum madhalam , all three made of wood, and the small bronze few pool elathalam play together . As a rule, large panchavadyam orchestras have one or two idakka players, slightly more madhalam players, and twice as many trumpets and cymbals than madhalams . At temple festivals in Kerala such as the Mutiyettu ritual theater , a performance begins in the morning and lasts into the night with an interruption in the afternoon and evening. The orchestras Panchari melam and Pandi melam , which also perform during temple festivals in Kerala, play kombu with kuzhal (a double-reed instrument , shorter than the nadaswaram ), cylinder drums ( chenda ) and elathalam . The two wind instruments do not play melodies in the temple orchestras, which have at least 20, better 30 and at large temple festivals a maximum of 200 musicians, but rather emphasize and lengthen the beats of the chenda s, which is why they are often counted among the tala vadya (called percussion instruments in Kerala) .
In the temple music style kombu pattu ("trumpet song") several kombu , which produce three tones, play with cymbals giving beat . It is a rarity for South Indian ritual music that melody instruments take center stage. The Tamil name tiruchinnam stands for two straight brass trumpets, about 85 centimeters long, which have been played by one player in the temple at the same time since ancient times.
Semi-professional musicians of the Kota, an Adivasi group in the southwest Indian Nilgiri Mountains , play the cone oboe mukhavina , a similar drone instrument without finger holes and two kombu , on festive occasions . A higher sounding trumpet is positioned on the right, a lower one on the left at the edge of the orchestra. There are also several large cylinder drums beaten with sticks, dappu .
Others
In Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka , Tamils hold an annual festival at some temples in honor of the mythical saint Kannagi , which is called kompu murittal ("breaking the horn") or kompu vilayiattu ("playing the horn"). In this form of expulsion ceremony, the Kannagi spirit is to be appeased. No metal trumpets are used here, but appropriately curved wooden sticks that serve two teams as props for a play drama.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the Prabhat Film Company used a tutari for the logo of their films, played by a silhouette-like young woman, with the melody not coming from a trumpet.
literature
- Carol M. Babiracki, Mireille Helffer, Gert-Matthias Wegner, Simonne Bailey: Narsĩgā. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 3. Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 572
- Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments. National Book Trust, New Delhi 1977, ( online section Wind Instruments , pp. 53–70 )
- Walter Kaufmann : Old India. Music history in pictures. Volume II. Ancient Music. Delivery 8. Ed. Werner Bachmann. VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1981
- David B. Reck: Musical Instruments: Southern Area. In: Alison Arnold (Ed.): The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Vol. 5. South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent. Garland, New York / London 2000, p. 361
Web links
- kerala indian percussion instrument combu. Youtube video ( Kombu solo demonstration)
- Pancharimelam during Peruvanum pooram, Thrissur. Youtube Video ( Kombu s play in unison at the Panchari melam in Thrissur )
Individual evidence
- ↑ François Balthazar Solvyns: A Flemish artist in Bengal, 1791-1803. ( Memento of February 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: IIAS Newsletter, No. 28, 2002, p. 15
- ^ Curt Sachs : The musical instruments of India and Indonesia. At the same time an introduction to instrument science. Georg Reimer, Berlin 1915, p. 170 (Reprint 1983, ISBN 3-487-07352-8 )
- ↑ Deva, pp. 55, 57
- ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: An Introduction to Indian Music. Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting , Government of India, New Delhi 1981, p. 60
- ^ Emmie te Nijenhuis: The music in the ancient Indian theater after the Nātyaśāstra. In: Kaufmann, p. 191
- ^ Kaufmann, p. 148
- ↑ Kaufmann, pp. 34, 64, 152, 172
- ^ Felix Hoerburger: Studies on Music in Nepal. (Regensburg contributions to musical folklore and ethnology, Volume 2) Gustav Bosse, Regensburg 1975, p. 41f
- ↑ Richard Emmert et al. a .: Descriptions of Musical Instruments. In the S. u. a. (Ed.): Dance and Music in South Asian Drama. Chhau, Mahākāli pyākhan and Yakshagāna. Report of Asian Traditional Performing Arts 1981. Academia Music Ltd., Tokyo 1983, pp. 281f
- ↑ Carol M. Babiracki, Mireille Helffer, Gert-Matthias Wegner, Simonne Bailey, 2014, p. 572
- ↑ Nagphani. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (illustration)
- ↑ Deva, p. 57f
- ↑ Choliya Dance, Folk Dances of Kumaon, Uttarakhand. Indian Net Zone
- ↑ Folk Dances of Uttarakhand. aboutUttarakhand.com (Under the heading Choliya Dance - Folk Dances of Kumaon a video)
- ^ Geneviève Dournon: Tori. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 5. Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 37
- ^ Reck, p. 361
- ↑ Suganthy Krishnamachari: symphony Leading to unrehearsed . The Hindu, October 8, 2010
- ^ Rolf Killius: Ritual Music and Hindu Rituals of Kerala. BR Rhythms, Delhi 2006, p. 60
- ^ Alain Daniélou : South Asia. Indian music and its traditions. Music history in pictures . Volume I: Ethnic Music . Delivery 1. Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1978, p. 124
- ^ Drama and Theater Arts among the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Active Theater Movement, March 29, 2012
- ↑ Prabhat Film Company (1932-1949)
- ^ Meera Kosambi: Gender, Culture, and Performance: Marathi Theater and Cinema before Independence. Routledge, 2017, ISBN 9781351565905 , p. 332. Limited preview in Google Book Search