Tandura

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tandura , tandūrā, also cautara, chautara, chau-tara, is a four or five-string, plucked long-necked lute that is played in folk music in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan . The tandura usually accompanies religious chants ( bhajans ) with a rhythmic sequence of drones . It is a possible forerunner of the tanpura played in Indian classical music and is functionally related to the tanburo in the neighboring Pakistani province of Sindh .

Origin and Etymology

South Indian equivalent of a tandura . Drawing around 1900

The name tandura is derived from the Arabic tunbūr and Persian tanbūr , which means long-necked sounds. Related to this are the Indian long-necked lute tanpura, the tambura played in the Balkans , the Afghan dambura and the damburag of the Baluch . The spread of the term tanbūr to the west in the Balkans took place through the Ottoman language , to Afghanistan and further north to Central Asia through Persian. In both languages ​​there is a mixture of the names for lute instruments and drums. Like the tabor played in the European Middle Ages, the Ottoman cylinder drum davul is traced back to the Arabic tabl for "drum". Possibly the origin of the word is in India: In Sanskrit a very old hourglass drum is called damaru . The little hourglass drum and its Sanskrit name are older than the names of musical instruments that came from Persian to India and that only appear in Central Indian languages. The later Indian drum name damru goes back to damaru . As a justification for the double meaning, an expansion of the meaning of the older Sanskrit word for drum to string instruments in Arabic or Persian is proposed, from which the corresponding names for Indian string instruments could then be derived. Michael Knüppel (2003) explains the change in name from drums to stringed instruments with the existence of Indian instruments that can hardly be clearly assigned, such as the group of plucked drums ektara , whose tone is created by the interaction of a membrane and a string.

Long-necked lutes are widespread in Central Asia. An early Indian long-necked lute with a typical, pear-shaped body is depicted on a stone relief from Gandhara , dating from the 2nd / 3rd centuries. Century is dated. The relief shows dancers and a musical group that includes a long-necked lute and a bow harp, both of which are referred to as vina in ancient Indian literature . An older word for tanpura is tumbura (vina) . A folk etymology attributes their invention to the mythical musician and singer Tumburu. This is a horse-headed figure and one of the heavenly Gandharvas .

Cautara is made up of cau (Persian, Hindi chār ), "four", and tār , "string", "thread", and means "four-stringed instrument".

Design and style of play

The wooden body of the tandura is circular, deep-bellied and closed on top with a flat wooden ceiling. A relatively wide neck with a fingerboard, but without frets, is attached to the body. The total length of the instrument is 108 to 115 centimeters. The four, more rarely five metal strings run from the underside over a wide bridge placed in the middle of the top to the protruding, wooden pegs, of which two or three are arranged in the front and one on the sides, as in the tanpura . The strings are tuned in intervals of five .

The musician strokes the open strings with the fingernail of the right index finger at the lower end of the neck and thus produces a drone tone and a melodic base or he plucks the strings individually. In contrast to the tanpura , in which the four strings are always torn without shortening, one after the other and without stress , the tandura has an equally rhythmic function. In the tandura, a string can be shortened with the left hand higher up the neck.

The tandura is mainly used as a soloist or in various formations to accompany religious songs ( bhajans ). It is common all over Rajasthan. In a usual small group of wandering street musicians and beggars, the leader and singer accompanies each other on the tandura , a musician provides the rhythm with the barrel drum dholki (or dholak ), which is played by a third musician and singer with the cymbals manjira or tal or with the wooden rattle kartal is accentuated. A single singer can pluck the strings of the tandura with his right hand and operate the rattles with his left hand.

In its function as a drone instrument, the tandura corresponds to the tanpura used in classical Indian music , which is up to 150 centimeters in length and is larger and more elaborately processed. A similar long-necked lute that provides a drone tone in the religious folk music of Maharashtra is the tambūrī . Followers of the holy Tukaram , who lived in the 17th century, accompany their songs with it. In the religious practice of the Sufis in the Pakistani province of Sindh , the long-necked lute tanbūro is used in a comparable way.

Street musician in the Hyderabad area with a three-stringed tamburi and the gummati clay pot drum

In the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh , Telangana and Karnataka , two different variants are known as tamburi (in Karnataka also chikka vina ), which are used by begging street singers for the rhythmic accompaniment of hymns of praise to heroes or gods. The dominant rhythmic function is inherent in all popular forerunners of the refined classical tanpura , which is only used for a gentle drone sound.

Other stringed instruments for accompaniment of songs in regional folk music of Rajasthan are the one or two-stringed, plucked spit lute ektara and the spit violin ravanahattha . String instruments with which songs are accompanied in Rajasthan are also the surinda and the sarangi, which are also played in classical music .

There are a number of small ethnic groups in Rajasthan who maintain their own musical repertoire with their typical instruments. Most tandura players belong to the lower castes or the Dalits , who, because of their disdain as "untouchables", are at the bottom of society. They worship the warrior prince Baba Ramdev, who - what historians believe is likely - in the 14th and 15th centuries. He lived in Pokhran (in the Jaisalmer district ) in the 14th century and is believed to have magical powers in folk legends. The worship as a Hindu folk deity is based on a tradition that Ramdev sees as an advocate of the lower classes and the outcasts. In the religious songs sung in his honor, the good relationship between the high-ranking Rajputs and the "unclean" servants at the royal court is described, which in turn caused displeasure among other Rajputs at the time. Tradition tells of a quarrel among members of Ramdev's family. A prince refused to contact him with the words: "He takes part in jamas (...) In our houses the naubat [large, cultivated palace orchestra] is played, in his place of residence you can hear the sound of the tandura ." Ramdev joins us placed on the same level as a kamad, a casteless, wandering ascetic and beggar who recites religious songs and plays the tandura . This also describes the status of the tandura .

Terahtali is a religious dance in Rajasthan that is only performed by women as a seated dance . The women beat terah (“thirteen”) tal (“cymbals”) which they have attached to one leg in a row, otherwise they use their arms and hands to pantomime activities that they do in everyday domestic life. They are accompanied by a tandura playing singer and a drummer. The dance is performed exclusively by the Kamad caste group in homage to Baba Ramdev.

literature

  • Geneviève Dournon: Tandūrā. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 4, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, pp. 708f

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See J.-C. Chabrier: Ṭunbūr. In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Volume 10, Brill, Leiden 2000, p. 625
  2. ↑ Michael Knüppel: Once again on the possible origin of osm. tambur (a) ~ dambur (a) ~ damur (a) etc. In: Marek Stachowski (Ed.): Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia. Vol. 14. (PDF; 1.6 MB) Krakau 2003, pp. 221–223
  3. ↑ Walter Kaufmann : Old India. Music history in pictures, Vol. 2. Music of antiquity, delivery 8. VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1981, pp. 140f
  4. ^ Sibyl Marcuse : Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary . Doubleday, New York 1964, pp. 510, 549
  5. ↑ Bimal Roy: Sangiti Sabta Kosa (Dictionary of Musical Terms). Sharada Publishing House, Delhi 2004, p. 148
  6. ^ Allyn Miner: Musical Instruments: Northern Area. In: Alison Arnold (Ed.): Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Vol. 5: South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent. Routledge, London 1999, p. 343
  7. ↑ Tamboori. 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. 1057
  8. ↑ Rajshree Dhali: Popular religion in Rajasthan: a study of four deities and Their worship in the nineteenth and twentieth century. (Dissertation) Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 2004, pp. 60f, 68 ( online , chap. 3)
  9. ↑ Religious rituals of the untouchables, which have been misunderstood as dubious tantric practices
  10. ↑ Dominique-Sila Khan: Is God an Untouchable? A Case of Caste Conflict in Rajasthan . In: Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1998, pp. 21–28, here p. 22
  11. ↑ Rajasthani Folk Dance - Teratali by Kamad Chandri & Party. Youtube video