Narh

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Narh , also naṙ, narr, nadd, naddu, is a long blown flute that is played mainly in the desert-like areas of the provinces of Balochistan and Sindh in Pakistan as well as in the Indian state of Rajasthan as a soloist or to accompany folk songs and ballads. With the simpler construction of the narh compared to the oriental longitudinal flute nāy and the Indian transverse flute bansuri , a regional and probably older type of flute was retained.

Origin and Distribution

Longitudinal flutes with different sizes and sound production from plant reeds or tubular bones - including beak flutes and flutes open at the ends - are among the musical instruments that have been played and distributed by nomadic pastoral cultures since ancient times. It was only necessary to recognize the principle that a sound is created when an air stream is blown over an edge at a certain angle and the air stream broken in this way is then stabilized and amplified in a resonance tube. High-pitched flutes or pipes that imitate bird calls are still used today by shepherds and hunters as signaling instruments . Flutes with multiple finger holes have been around in Europe since around 30,000 BC. Known from the Aurignacia .

The close connection between shepherds and the easily transportable and always within reach flute is already recorded in the ancient Greek myth of the shepherd god Pan . It is one of the cultural assets that spread westward with the migration of the Turkic peoples from northeast Asia. The geographer Ibn Churdādbih († around 912) from Iran names in his semi-mythical report the origin of the various musical instruments, for the invention of which he mainly blames biblical figures. He sees the origin of the flute ( ṣaffāra ) among the Kurds. Later, the Persians learned to make various wind instruments ( nāy , "reed") from reed , including the surnāy (a cone oboe) played on festive occasions and the dūnāy (a wind instrument with two musical tubes). Thus Persians invented the harp chang and essential elements of music theory. Only the Arabs, according to Ibn Churdādbih, have not contributed anything new to the music. The grammarian Abū Ṭālib al-Mufaḍḍal ibn Salama († around 904) also provides information on Arabic music in his work Kitāb al-malāhī . He also considers some musical instruments to be the invention of biblical figures, but he assigns the woodwind instruments (generally mizmār , today for reed instruments) to the Israelites - shaped after King David's throat - and the flute, which was called qasāba in early Islamic times , he also believed to be Kurdish. Medieval Iranian music theorists describe a flute called bischa ( bīša ) with seven, less often nine finger holes made of dried reed, which was preferably obtained from Nishapur or Baghdad ( bischa-i muschta was a mouth organ ). A manuscript from the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century of the Hamsa of Nezāmi (around 1141–1209) shows a typical small entertainment ensemble of that time on a miniature . The three musicians play long-necked lute ( rubāb ), flute ( nāy ) and frame drum ( dāira ). Flute, frame drum and clapping of hands accompanied dancing dervishes based on a Persian miniature from the end of the 15th century .

The longitudinally blown reed flute nāy , which occurs in variants in Turkish , Arabic and Persian music , is the main type of flute in the Islamic Orient and southern Central Asia from the Maghreb to Mongolia . Similar reed flutes without a mouthpiece are called kaval in the Balkans and Turkey , blul in Armenia , bilûr among the Kurds , a version of salamuri ( ueno salamuri ) in eastern Georgia , sybyzgy ( sibizga ) in Kazakhstan , choor in Kyrgyzstan and correspondingly in Mongolia tsuur . In addition, shorter beaked flutes occur in Central Asia and Afghanistan, which belong to the word context of the tulak and are played in Tajik music , among other things . Most of these flutes are also blown by shepherds as a soloist or in an ensemble to accompany the dance. The leading melodic instruments of the music gwati performed in possession ceremonies in Balochistan are the fiddle sorud ( suroz, surando, related to the sarinda ), the long-necked lute dambūrag (corresponds to the northern Afghan dambura ) and the double flute dōnelī ( donali, dunali ). In Sindh, the double-beaked alghoza is occasionally used to treat obsession.

Double length flute satara together with a barrel drum of the dholki type , played by musicians of the Langa, an ethnic group in Rajasthan.

In Pakistan the distribution area of ​​the nāy ends , which is replaced here by the north Indian classical bamboo flute bansuri and by folk music variants ( bansi ). According to the ancient Indian instrument classification, flutes in the Indian cultural area belong to the sushira vadya , the "hollow musical instruments". In some Vedic texts the flute is called nadi ( nada ) in Sanskrit , in the great epics Ramayana and Mahabharata it is called venu , as it is still today in southern India. Flutes often have a magical-religious meaning in South Asia and their use is subject to certain taboos. The shepherd's flute is a male instrument that is played by men and used in some places for courtship. As a beautiful young cowherd, God Krishna blew the flute to edify the shepherd girls ( Gopis ), which refers to the erotic meaning of the flute. Much rarer than the bansuri- type transverse flutes are the regional longitudinal flutes, such as the alghoza (also satara ) in Punjab and Rajasthan , which, like the dōnelī in Balochistan, consists of two music tubes. The samui ( sumui ) in the northeast Indian state of Tripura is a bamboo flute with seven or eight finger holes. The peli in Rajasthan is a short lengthwise flute of the shepherds made from a 30 centimeter long bamboo tube. Alghoza, narh and the other flutes of folk music do not allow the refined playing style of the bansuri with the smooth transitions between the notes that are characteristic of classical music ( Urdu , Hindi meend ), which is why the bansuri has also become the standard flute in Pakistan. Compared to the nāy, which occurs further to the west, and the bansuri , which spreads from the east , the narh remained in a small area that includes remote regions in the Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan as well as in the neighboring Indian Rajasthan. The word narh is often derived from the Persian nāy , just as obvious is a derivation from the Sanskrit word nada , which also means "pipe".

Design

The narh differs from the longitudinal flute nāy and the transverse flute bansuri in that it is played obliquely sideways downwards. Narh , like nel in Balochistan and nāy, is the general word for “plant cane ”. The specific type of grass is known under the names sacho narh or kangore . The cane grass of the desert-like coastal region of Makran is considered to be the most suitable . Like a typical tüidük , the tube of the narh is divided into seven sections by six knots . For comparison, a Persian nāy has five knots and a Turkish ney eight knots. The long form of the narh measures 60 to 100 centimeters. The kani , a shorter variant in the same region, is 30 to 46 centimeters long. Four equidistant finger holes are located near the lower end, the two middle finger holes between the fourth and fifth nodes. The Persian nāy has five finger holes, and the Turkish ney has six finger holes, each with an additional thumb hole. The smaller number of finger holes indicates that the narh is a simpler flute than the nāy and the bansuri and thus possibly originated in an older (prehistoric) period. A special feature is the painting of the entire pipe with geometric patterns (stripes, diamonds) in red. Some flutes are wrapped with ribbons made from animal intestines.

Style of play

Raghunath Prasanna (around 1920–1999) plays the sumui bamboo flute from the north-east Indian state of Tripura, which is comparable in size and playing position with the narh .

The flute is held between the thumb and the other fingers at an angle between 10 and 30 degrees from the vertical, sideways and downwards. Because of the length of the play tube, the musician grasps the finger holes with almost outstretched arms. He covers two finger holes with the index finger and middle finger of both hands. In contrast to the simple form, the playing style is complicated and requires forked fingerings , and the blowing pressure also has an influence on the tone formation: The flute overblows into the fifth , octave and duodecime . In addition, the pitch can be changed in the semitone range by partially covering the lower end. The pitch range is approximately one decimal on a heptatonic scale.

The musician often sings a drone with a variable pitch in the flute parallel to the melody being played . Such a drone connects the narh musically with the double flute alghoza (one of which produces a drone ), as well as the fiddles surando and kamaycha. The latter fiddle with a circular body is played by male members of the Manganiar caste in Rajasthan. A drone sung in a predominantly constant pitch (low continuous tone) is also part of the playing style of the tüidük and other Central Asian and Mongolian flutes.

The flute is mainly used in three musical styles: Phuk are instrumental pieces and songs that are played on the long narh with a drone sung and which are based on short poems that deal metaphorically with the lover's invocation to his beloved. Gur are pieces on the short kani that are also used to express a feeling of love. Mainly in the north of Sindh, the narh also accompanies long ballads which, under the name bait ( bayt ), make up the main component of Sindhi folk poetry. The bait are derived from the Arabic form of poetry qasīda and were created during the Arab rule over the Sindh from 711 to 1050. The bait are occasionally sung by the flautist himself. Another narrative form , partly accompanied by the narh , is the dastan .

In the phuk style, flute melody, sung drone and rhythm combine to form a complex musical structure that only an experienced musician can depict. The phuk consists of an introductory part called uthan or saddu ("call") and corresponds to the alap of a raga , followed by the main part. Among the regionally different ways of playing, the Balochistan style is the most widespread, while in Sindh the narh has taken a back seat to nāy and alghoza . In general, the formation of melodies has declined compared to the rhythmic function of the flute.

In the 19th century, in addition to the four finger holes, a system of seven finger positions was developed for the pitches required for the corresponding styles or playing styles. These are in particular:

  1. Rup (also sur ). A common finger position where the top three finger holes are closed and the fourth remains open.
  2. Katth . Four closed finger holes are common in the Stil gur , which dispenses with the sung drone.
  3. If the lower two finger holes remain open, it is called morhalo ( murhalo ). This finger position belongs to the lahra ( lahro ) music style .
  4. In the kharaz position , the three lower finger holes are closed and the upper one remains open. It is used with a gur in high pitch.
  5. Conversely, with the phuk the lower three finger holes are open and the upper one is closed. This belongs to the style of the same name with a deep drone singing.
  6. The position nutt sounds lower than morhalo and belongs to that tone sequence. The top two holes are closed and the bottom two remain open.
  7. The finger position of phukun-jokatth corresponds to the position phuk , in which case the drone singing on the highest note of the corresponding melody is added.

Discography

  • Flûtes du Rajasthan. Le Chant du Monde . (Collection du Center national de la recherche scientifique et du Musée de l'homme) CD produced by Geneviève Dournon and Komal Kothari at Harmonia Mundi, 1989

literature

  • Nazim Khizar: Narh - The Desert Flute of Pakistan.
  • Well . In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments . Vol. 3. Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, p. 571

Web links

  • Flûte narh avec bourdon vocal . Sherha Mahamad plays a narh and sings a drone to it. Recording of Geneviève Dournon in the Jaisalmer district, 1993. Center de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie (CREM)
  • Rana Ram Bheel. Youtube video (Rana Ram Bhil, a student of Karna Ram Bhil, the most famous narh player)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bo Lawergren: The Origin of Musical Instruments and Sounds. In: Anthropos , Vol. 83, H. 1./3, 1988, pp. 31-45, here p. 39
  2. ^ Kurt Reinhard : The music care of Turkish nomads. In: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie , Vol. 100, H. 1/2, 1975, pp. 115–124, here p. 116
  3. ^ Henry George Farmer : Islam. ( Heinrich Besseler , Max Schneider (Hrsg.): Music history in pictures. Volume III. Music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Delivery 2) VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1966, p. 24
  4. ↑ James Robson, Henry George Farmer: The Kitāb al-malāhī of Abū Ṭālib Al-Mufaḍḍal ibn Salama. In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland , No. 2, April 1938, pp. 231-249, here p. 240
  5. ^ Roger Blench: The distribution of the free-reed mouth-organ . Draft presented at the 14th Euraseaa Meeting Dublin, September 2012, p. 8
  6. ^ Henry George Farmer: Islam , 1966, pp. 98, 118
  7. ↑ George S. Golos: Kirghiz Instruments and Instrumental Music . In: Ethnomusicology , Vol. 5, No. 1, January 1961, pp. 42-48, here p. 43
  8. ^ MT Massoudieh: Baluchistan iv. Music of Baluchistan . In: Encyclopædia Iranica .
  9. ^ Richard Wolf: Music in Seasonal and Life-Cycle Rituals. ( Memento from June 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) pp. 272–287, here p. 286
  10. ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments. National Book Trust, New Delhi 1977, pp. 5, 54, 61
  11. ↑ VP Vathsala: Tripura's musical ensemble . Deccan Herald, June 22, 2014
  12. ↑ Nazir A. Jairazbhoy: Review "Flûtes du Rajasthan. Recordings, photographs, and text by Genevieive Dournon-Taurelle (Collection Musee de l'Homme). One 12 "33 1/3 rpm disc. 1977. Le Chant du Monde LDX 74645.“ In: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 24, No. 2, May 1980, pp. 330-333, here p. 332
  13. ↑ See Victor Belaiev, SW Pring: The Longitudinal Open Flutes of Central Asia. In: The Musical Quarterly , Vol. 19, No. January 1, 1933, pp. 84-100
  14. ^ Nazim Khizar, Narh - The Desert Flute of Pakistan , p. 1
  15. ^ Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margaret A. Mills: South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka . Routledge, New York 2003, p. 37
  16. ↑ Naṙ . In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments , p. 571
  17. ^ Nazim Khizar: Narh - The Desert Flute of Pakistan .