Kyizi
Kyizi , also kyi-zi, kyì-zí , ( Burmese : ကြေး စည်, [ tɕì zí ], "bronze gong"), is a surcharge idiophone in the form of an approximately triangular plate made of brass or bronze , which is used in Myanmar by devout Buddhist visitors Temple and is beaten by monks. The bright sound produced with a wooden mallet accompanies religious ceremonies, marks a part of the day in the monastery or the end of a prayer that a single believer has said in front of an altar. The much larger, clapless bells hung in Burmese monasteries are used in a similar ritual manner.
Design
The kyizi is a striking plate that is suspended swinging freely in its upper center and struck in the lower area. It is held on a loop of string that is pulled through a hole. The shape is roughly an isosceles triangle standing on one side with two upturned lower corners, a slightly bulged lower edge and sides that lead to a rounded tip with a bell-shaped outline. The symmetrical little points on both sides are supposed to represent the roof of a pagoda ; the entire shape symbolizes the mythical mountain Meru , the world mountain of Indian cosmogony . The smallest kyizi are eight centimeters wide and are held in the hand on a string or hang in a wooden frame. The striking plates are manufactured in all intermediate sizes up to 45 centimeters wide. The largest specimens hang outside on a corner of the temple. The thickness of the plate increases from the center to the lower curved corners. A medium-sized kyizi, for example, which can still be held in the hand with a weight of 3.8 kilograms, is 31 centimeters wide and 22 centimeters high, the thickness is approximately 1.3 centimeters in the middle and 2 centimeters at the corners.
The panels are cast using the sand molding process. Simple kyizi for everyday use are smooth on both sides except for minor manufacturing-related irregularities. Valuable plates often have a fine engraving on one side showing an elephant decorated for processions. A special example from the art market, which is dated before 1920, is decorated with two nagas , which wind up on both sides and embody protective powers.
If the striking plate is struck near one of the lower corners, it rotates in a circle. This creates a long-lasting, floating sound that experiences a periodic fluctuation in pitch with each rotation. The kyizi is one of the few sound generators that produces a phase modulation of the sound through its own rotary movement .
Impact plates of this shape only occur in Myanmar. Bronze striking plates with a similar outline have been described from central Vietnam, with a distinctly different shape from China. Heinrich Simbriger places them as metal replicas in an evolutionary context with the much older sound stones .
Other metal percussion idiophones used in ceremonies or in the music of Myanmar are humpback gongs ( maung and khong ) and kettle drum gongs ( hpà si or pa-zi , " frog drum ", highly esteemed by the Karen and associated with ancestors). Small nineteenth-century clapper bells struck in the temple look like bedside lamps together with the hook on which they hang. Handbells struck on the outside ( si ) and rattling ( wa ) are the minimum required accompaniment for classical singing.
In the literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Burmese word kyizi can also be found on bells (two small hollow bronze spheres three centimeters in diameter that beat against each other on a string), on the so-called "frog drum" of the Karen, several copies of which came to Europe in the 1880s (in the English transcription kyee zee ) and incorrectly used by Curt Sachs on circular striking plates ("birm. kyè tsi , annam . cai čieṅ [spr. tschjeng]"). The bronze drums called kyi-zi or pa-zi were cult objects, status symbols and means of payment among the Karen until at least the 1970s.
Dissemination and use
The production of bronze casts in the region of today's Myanmar goes back to prehistoric times. Cast Buddha statues and images of Hindu gods made of gold, silver and bronze have been known from various epochs of Burmese art since the beginning of our era. No later than the heyday of Bagan (11th – 13th centuries) there were bells that are still made in Myanmar at a masterly level using the lost wax process. The most famous Burmese bell is the Mingun bell , which was made between 1808 and 1810. The shape of the Burmese bells is reminiscent of the main part of the Buddhist stupa ( Sanskrit anda ), which in Burmese is called kaung laung , "bell". The kyizi is also known as the “Burmese bell” - wrongly because of its shape, but appropriate because of its comparable symbolism. The large bells hang on the site of a Burmese monastery ( kyaung ) on a solid support that corresponds to the weight of the bell, close to the ground. They are struck from the outside with a strong wooden stick at the lower edge.
The big bell and the kyizi are used in the same religious acts, although the small kyizi can also be worn during ceremonies. The sound of bells always heralds good deeds and belongs to every Burmese pagoda. After believers donate money in a box in front of an altar, they beat the kyizi . In some cases a monk mumbles blessings after the donation and takes over the beating. Snail horn , kyizi and gong ( maung ) are auspicious instruments that sometimes introduce the Buddhist monk chant with a chorus and choir. Monks can also use the kyizi to signal the waking up before dawn, prayer and meal times, and the time of evening bed rest.
Buddhist monks in Japanese Zen monasteries use the corresponding bronze plate umpan , which hangs on the door to the kitchen or the dining room, to call for meals or to announce the end of a zazen meditation. The name umpan ("cloud plate") refers to the cloud-like motifs that decorate the plate as bas-reliefs and symbolize the detachment from the arrests (Sanskrit upadana ) of the earthly world. In order to send signals over a greater distance on the monastery grounds, wooden boards ( han ) hung in several places are beaten at the same time.
A comparable liturgical function has bronze slabs that are struck in some Orthodox monasteries and known in Romania as toacă .
literature
- Gavin Douglas: Kyì-zí . In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Vol. 3. Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, pp. 237f
Web links
- Kyi-zi . Grinnel College Musical Instruments Collection
- Large Temple Brass Gong (Kyi-zi) Burma. 18th – 19th century. Michael Backman Ltd.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Burmese Bronze Kyizi Gong on Stand . Silk Road Gallery
- ^ Heinrich Simbriger : Sound stones, stone games and their replicas in metal. In: Anthropos, Vol. 32, H. 3./4, May – August 1937, pp. 552–570, here pp. 555, 569
- ↑ 19th Century, Miniature Burmese Bronze Temple Bell . ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) AntiqueTica.com
- ^ Gavin Douglas: Burmese Music and the World Market . In: Anthropology Today , Vol. 21, No. 6, December 2005, pp. 5-9, here p. 7
- ^ Journal of the Scientific Laboratories of Denison University. Vol. 20, Denison University, Ohio 1924, p. 31
- ^ Richard M. Cooler, The Karen Bronze Drums of Burma: Types, Iconography, Manufacture and Use. (Studies in South Asian Culture. Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava, Vol. 16) Brill, Leiden 1997, p. 14; see. Five pigs? That'll do a drum, please! Museum of the National Bank of Belgium
- ^ Curt Sachs : The musical instruments of India and Indonesia: at the same time an introduction to the knowledge of instruments. G. Reimer, Berlin 1915, p. 30
- ^ AJ Bernet Kempers: The Kettledrums of Southeast Asia. A Bronze Age World and its Aftermath. In: Gert-Jan Bartstra, Willem Arnold Casparie (Ed.): Modern Quarternary Research in Southeast Asia, Vol. 10. AABalkema, Rotterdam 1988, p. 36, ISBN 978-9061915416
- ↑ Nina Oshegowa, Sergei Oshegowa: Art in Burma. 2000 years of architecture, painting and sculpture under the sign of Buddhism and animism. EA Seemann, Leipzig 1988, pp. 224, 285
- ^ Gavin Douglas: Review of the CD Music of Myanmar: Buddhist Chant in the Pāli Tradition. 2008. Recordings by Gretel Schwörer-Kohl (Celestial Harmonies 14219–2). In: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 55, No. 1, Winter 2011, p. 161
- ^ Helen Josephine Baroni: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Zen Buddhism. Rosen Publishing Group, New York 2002, p. 364