Sipsi

Sipsi made of bamboo

Sipsi , also zıpçi, zıpçı, zıpçık, cukcuk, is a woodwind instrument with a single reed and cylindrical tube that is played in Turkish folk music in the south-west Turkish Mediterranean region .

Design and style of play

The sipsi typically has six (five to eight) relatively large finger holes including a hole for the left thumb. The play tube consists of a hollow plant stem about 18 centimeters long and one centimeter in diameter. With its idioglotten reed (cut from the blowpipe) it represents one of the simplest construction methods for a reed instrument capable of melody. According to a description from 1966, two parallel connected, 20 centimeter long, narrow play pipes with single reeds are called çifte sipsi in the province of Burdur . The two same melody tubes each have five finger holes and one thumb hole.

The sound is relatively powerful for an instrument with a cylindrical tube. The sipsi , like other wind instruments that require moderate blowing pressure, is often played with circular breathing . The pitch can be influenced by varying the blowing pressure. Similar reed instruments have been known since antiquity and are older than the oriental midschwiz , which consists of two playing tubes tied together.

distribution

The small town of Tefenni in the province of Burdur is the center of sipsi players. Here the sipsi replaces the otherwise played shepherd's flute kaval . An ensemble to Tefenni may consist of a lute Saz , a drum tumbler darbuka , a Spisi and a zilli masa said fork pools exist.

Sipsi is also an ancient Turkmen name for a double reed instrument . Central Asian relatives with a single reed are the Uzbek sibiziq and the Turkmen dilli tüýdük . The West Georgian pilili is slightly larger. The Hungarian sip stands for a flute or a reed instrument. Sip, sipsi and similar (Russian sipov , Polish szyposz or Serbo-Croatian sipovka ) is related to Latin sibilare and the Indo-European tribe suei-, sui ("hiss", "whistle"), which also includes Italian sibilo and Spanish silbotia (large one-handed flute ) .

literature

• Laurence Picken : Folk Musical Instruments of Turkey. Oxford University Press, London 1975, pp. 350, 520

Web links

• Sipsi. sackpfeyffer-zu-linden.de (with sound sample)
• Jack Campin: The Turkish Sipsi. (Illustration of a sipsi with five finger holes and one thumb hole, wrapped with colored stripes for decoration)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Turquie / Turkey. Anatolian Village Music. Archives internationales de musique populaire, Musée d'ethnographie Geneve. AIMP XXXV, CD from 1994 with recordings by Kurt Reinhard , Ursula Reinhard and Wolf Dietrich, 1963–1992, track 6
2. ↑ Hermann Moeck : Origin and tradition of the core-gap flute of European folklore and the origin of the music-historical core-gap flute types. (Dissertation) Georg-August-Universität zu Göttingen, 1951. Reprint: Moeck, Celle 1996, p. 91