Pambai
Pambai ( Tamil ) or pamba ( Telugu ) is a double drum , which consists of two tube drums connected to each other, strung on both sides and is mainly played in devotional Indian folk music in the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh .
Design
The pambai belongs to the cylinder drums called dhole in all of India and played in folk music, the body of which has the same diameter over its entire length. Each of the two drums is about 30 centimeters long with a diameter of 15 centimeters, their body is made of wood or metal, usually brass. The membraneAn animal skin (goat skin) is pulled wet over a wooden ring and glued so that it completely surrounds the ring. As it dries, it tightens. The membrane rings protrude two to three centimeters over the body. A thick cord is pulled through holes in the skin evenly distributed on the rings to brace the two eardrums in a V-shape. The cord can be opened and tightened at the connection point.
This wide tension ring corresponds to the construction of the cylinder drums beaten with sticks chenda in Kerala and chande in Karnataka as well as the hourglass drums widely used in India such as the idakka in Kerala, the urumi in Tamil Nadu, the smaller South Indian udukai and the damaru played with the hands . The pitch remains constant when playing and is the same on both sides; it is not changed by pressing the tension cords together as in idakka .
The pambai is usually played while standing in a horizontal position. The musician wears two laterally connected drums at waist height on a ribbon around his neck. The drum lying against the body is usually somewhat larger and produces a deeper tone, the second, smaller drum protrudes outwards. Two wooden drums ( veeru vanam ) or one wooden and one brass drum ( vengala pambai , from vengalam , "brass") are combined. The player hits them on both sides with curved sticks (often from a branch of the betel nut palm ) or with a stick on one side and a hand on the other.
distribution
Usually, the pambai is used in the countryside in rituals to worship local gods at their shrines. In southern Andhra Pradesh, the pambalas , members of a group with their own social status, have specialized in playing the pambai .
Panguni Uthiram is a Hindu annual festival in Tamil Nadu, which is celebrated in Murugan temples on several days at the time of the full moon in the month of Panguni according to the Tamil calendar (corresponds to March-April) . A temple in which this son of Shiva is particularly venerated is in the temple city of Palani . Part of the religious ritual is that statues of gods in the side shrines are led around in a procession with temple wagons ( rathas ). The extensive supporting program includes shadow plays ( pomalattam ), street theater ( terukkuttu ), in which dancers act with a water pot ( karakam ) on their heads, folk tales ( villu pattu ) and the instrumental ensemble nayyandi melam .
Usually, practically every larger South Indian village has such an ensemble, which performs outdoors at festive events and whose leader plays the double reed instrument nadaswaram or the smaller wind instrument mukhavina . In addition to the pambai , the rhythmic accompaniment consists of the barrel drum tavil and cymbals ( thalam ). The musicians dance while they play. Karakattam are generally known as various dances with clay pots filled with water and other acrobatic exercises, which are performed in honor of the plague goddess Mariamman , especially in the Thanjavur district in Tamil Nadu , accompanied by nayyandi melam musicians.
literature
- Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments. National Book Trust, New Delhi 1977, p. 35
- Keyword: Pambai. In: Late Pandit Nikhil Ghosh (Ed.): The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Music of India. Saṅgīt Mahābhāratī. Vol. 3 (P – Z) Oxford University Press, New Delhi 2011, p. 788
Web links
- Udukkai, Pambai, Silambu. Youtube video (Two pambai and one udukai at a worship ceremony . A man on the right side strikes two anklets , Tamil silambu , together)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: Musical Instruments of India. Their History and Development. KLM Private Limited, Calcutta 1978, p. 85
- ↑ Deva 1977, p. 35
- ↑ festivals - Panguni Uthiram. palanitemples.com
- ↑ Bigamudre Chaitanya Deva: An Introduction to Indian Music. Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, New Delhi 1981, p. 62
- ↑ Karakattam. ( Memento of October 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) folkloremuseum.org