Rawap

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Uighur name
Arabic-Persian (Kona Yeziⱪ) : راۋاپ
Latin (Yengi Yeziⱪ) : rawap
official notation ( PRCh ): rawap
other spellings: ravap
Chinese name
Abbreviation : 热 瓦普
Transcription in Pinyin : rèwǎpǔ
Rawap player in a musical instrument shop in Kashgar
Body covered with snakeskin and stylized horns ( Uighur möngüz )

Rawap , also rewapu , is a fretless, plucked long-necked lute that is played in the folk music of the Uyghurs in the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang , as well as by Tajiks and Uzbeks .

The history of the instrument goes back to the 14th century in southern Xinjiang. The circular, bowl-shaped sound box is covered with the dried skin of a snake, a donkey or a sheep instead of a solid ceiling . Three to a maximum of nine strings run over a flat bridge set up in the lower part of the membrane skin and over the long fingerboard to the pegbox, which is bent backwards in a 180-degree curve, with lateral pegs .

Only the outer strings are struck with a pick , while the others serve as sympathetic strings . Characteristic are extensions in the form of cow horns above the wooden body. The neck is decorated with marquetry .

The rawap of the Uyghurs has name suffixes according to the respective region, for example Kashgar-rawap after the city of Kashgar . The design, size and style of play differ from region to region. The Kashgarian instrument is 90 centimeters long and has five metal strings that are tuned to quarters and fifths apart . Two of them are double choirs . Its pitch is an octave above that of the two-stringed fretless dutar of the Uighurs. In addition to five melody strings, the rawap of the Dolan population group in the province of Turpan has twelve double sympathetic strings.

The Tajiks call the instrument rebub and it is made from the wood of the apricot tree. The model played in Tajik music is about 70 centimeters long. In the 1930s, the Uzbeks adopted a slightly modified long-necked lute ( rubob ). The different forms are related to the rubāb , whose main distribution is in Afghanistan.

In the 1960s the chaplima rawap was introduced, which does not have sympathetic strings, but a double steel string for melody formation (tuned to D), another double steel string (tuned to A) and a single D-string made of gut or silk. Chords are plucked on the latter two strings. There was also a bass version of the chaplima rawap with three individual strings that are tuned an octave lower.

The rawap is used to accompany songs; it is rarely heard in larger ensembles.

literature

  • Yongxiang Li: The music of China's ethnic minorities. (Ethnic Cultures of China) China Intercontinental Press, Zurich 2006, pp. 18–20, ISBN 978-7-5085-1007-1 , ( at google books )
  • Chuen-Fung Wong: Reinventing the Central Asian Rawap in Modern China: Musical Stereotypes, Minority Modernity, and Uyghur Instrumental Music. In: Asian Music, Vol. 43, No. 1, Winter – Spring 2012, pp. 34–63

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jean During: Central Asia. In: Ludwig Finscher (Ed.): Music in Past and Present (MGG), Sachteil 9, 1998, Sp. 2362
  2. ↑ Chuen-Fung Wong, 2012, p. 43