Ektara

Ektara ( persian, hindi ek Tar, " a string ", Bengali একতারা, panjabi ਇਕ ਤਾਰਾ ) refers to a group of plucking drums in popular North Indian music. With this combination of Membranophone stringed instrument and the bottom of the body of the stretched skin cover is set indirectly by plucking a string into vibration. Two basic types are distinguished:

• In the gopi yantra, gopi chand also, lao Tokari, the string between the center of a membrane and a projecting beyond the body strings carrier is clamped.
• When anandalahari, also gubguba, gubgubi, gopijantro, premtal, the loose end of the string is held in the hand and pulled rhythmically taut. Both are plucked with a finger or a plectrum.

As also mentioned ektara According instruments played by the singer with the plucking drums the rhythm or a drone accompaniment to own the most religious songs. The ektara is particularly known for the music of the Bauls, a religious community of migrant singers in Bengal.

Origin and environment

The oldest Indian stringed instruments, referred to in the Vedas collectively, the vina, were one-stringed musical bows, bow harps developed from their flexible strings carriers from a pre-bent solid material. Fixed strings carriers allow you to apply multiple strings. From about the 2nd century BC to the 7th century AD, multi-stringed bow harps are occupied by stone reliefs of Indian places of worship. After this time the bow harps disappeared from India, its shape remained only in the Burmese saung gauk and rare bin- baja in the Umbebung of Mandla (central India ) are obtained. Since the 6th century one-stringed zither rod with a straight wooden or bamboo stick as strings carriers are known, from which evolved the present vina family of mehrsaitigen According instruments.

Plucking drum is basically a music sheet where the fixed between the two ends of a rod string is held by the elasticity of the rod in tension. When plucking drum, the string of the elastic membrane stretched to a distant fixed end. The body, on the opening of the membrane is stretched, replaced as sound amplifiers the most musical bow usually fortified calabash.

Developmentally, plucking drum is the very old form of a one-stringed harp, which precedes the mehrsaitigen early harps and for example today's saung gauk. Although the saung gauk produces a much finer sound than the ektara, while their strings at the bottom are so attached to a wooden stick in the center under a membrane in a similar manner as in the plucking drum. It is not known whether there was such a rod strings in harps from Gandhara, were probably all Asian harps in the Christian era the strings attached in the same way on a membrane. Even in the ancient Egyptian harps attracted attached to a rod string to an animal skin, only at the European Harp, this membrane was replaced by a solid wooden ceiling. In Uganda, the ennanga a simple construction of such, now extremely rare bow harp with membrane dar.

Plucks drums are found only in India. They correspond in function to the large group of Indian stringed instruments that are not used for generating a melody, but also provide an accompanying rhythm or drone. In classical Indian music the long-necked lute tanpura is played this mostly in the folk music serve a variety on or zweisaitiger Plucked this purpose.

For this area include the buang, a one-stringed rod used exclusively rhythmic zither ( musical bow ) with bent ends, in the middle of a resonant body is attached, consisting of a coated paper bamboo basket. Dancers thus produce rasping noises in group dances. With several adivasi communities in central India, the similar but smaller kuranrajan a magical function in religious ceremonies filled with a carved bird's head ( peacocks heads at the Saora of Orissa ). Another rhythm instrument consisting of a musical bow and a Idiophone, the South Indian villadi is vadyam.

The rhythmic used stringed instruments that do not produce clearly identifiable pitch, includes the tuntune (or do - tina ) from Central India and Maharashtra. The music wire is stretched at her from the edge of an approximately 25 -centimeter-long wooden or metal cylinder, which is covered at the bottom with a membrane made ​​of goat skin, up to a wooden peg at the end of a side-mounted, 70 -inch-long bamboo rod. The tuntune is from the outer form plucks the drums next. It is plucked with a small Holzplektrum and accompanies the Marathi Lavani song genres and powada, devotional songs and folk theater marathische tamasha.

A link between the plucking drums and membrane -covered clay pots as the ghumat in Goa, the southern Indian tantipanai dar. In her runs from the center of the diaphragm, a metal wire into the inside of the pot and leave it to one side, where some rattle bodies are lined up and the wire at a ends outwardly projecting moving vocal timber. The initiated piece of wood is the vibration through the wire for reinforcement to the membrane on.

Design and style of play

The string tension and thus the pitch can be changed during the game, by the string stretched in the case of anandalahari directly by hand or with the gopi chandra the elasticity of the string carrier is utilized to deform it by hand at plucking drums. All plucks drums have a cylindrical or bulbous body, which is covered at the top and closed at the bottom with a skin. The body is made of wood, gourd, metal or clay. In the middle of the membrane, a wire or gut is passed through a hole therein and a button ( two to three inches in diameter ) or a piece of bamboo on the outside secured.

The ektaras be (collectively bhajans ) generally played by singers of religious songs. The Bauls pull as a touring musician on the villages, singing the praises of their guru and so bring their Vaishnavite and Sufi form of bhakti cult to express. Besides gopi yantra and anandalahari they play the two-to four-stringed long-necked lute dotara, the Banshi (bamboo flute with six finger holes ), the Duggi small kettle drum, Bronzezimbeln ( manjiras ), bamboo or wooden clappers ( kartals ) and ghungru ( metal bells on the ankles, the while stomping create a rhythm ).

Gopi yantra

The gopi yantra " milkmaid instrument" is named after the Gopis, shepherdesses of Indian mythology and playmates of Krishna. The approximately cylindrical wooden body is at the bottom a little wider than the top. Below the body is completely covered with skin on the top only at the edge, so that the center remains a circular opening. Both membranes are clamped together by means of a Z-shaped lacing. With simpler instruments, only a membrane is glued at the bottom. A centered split longitudinally into two parts bamboo tube is bent apart and laterally tightly wrapped or nailed to the body. The sound is fine and more versatile than the do tune. The pipe end remains slightly more than ten centimeters above the whole of a node, the string is fastened to a wooden tuning peg. A typical plucking drum measures 88 inches overall with 24 centimeters of the body with a diameter of 19 centimeters.

The instrument is typical of the Bauls of Bengal and Orissa. The player holds the body side under the left arm, while compressing by hand the same page the bamboo rods to vary the pitch. With the index finger of the right hand or a plectrum he plucks the string. This consists of a galvanized iron wire of 0.3 mm diameter. A single entertaining mendicant musician can keep the gopi yantra with your right hand and use as well ( the bayan drum pair of tabla ), simultaneously with the left hand a small kettle drum, hanging on a belt of his left shoulder.

Lao- Tokari

The lao - Tokari is essentially identical in construction to the gopi yantra with the difference that at her the corpus is not made ​​of wood, but from a calabash ( Assamese lao - khola, " pumpkin - dried " ), which is covered with a glued goatskin. The split bamboo stick is about 80 inches long and has a diameter of four centimeters. The top of the gourd remains completely open.

Except in the songs of the Bauls is the lao - Tokari in the Assamese folk music Debhicarar Git, Dogor together with the frame drum when Boiragi Git, the Assamese Sufi style of music and in the Bengali folk music Bhatiali used.

Anandalahari

The anandalahari of Bengal is also under the onomatopoeic name gubgubi known. Sanskrit ananda means " perfect happiness " Kalahari " intoxication, overwhelming experience ." Similar instruments carry the regional name ( hindi ) premtal and tumbi in Uttar Pradesh and bhapang in Rajasthan, all three with a Kalebassenresonator, further khamak or khomok ( bengali ), Chonka or chonak ( Marathi ) in Maharashtra and jamidika or jamaku ( telugu ) with a resonator made ​​of metal in Andhra Pradesh. More plucks drums on the type of anandalahari are the bagilu with a wooden frame and a metal string in Gujarat and also the dhudhki in Orissa ( they accompanied the songs dhudhki gita ).

Pulluvan Kudam is a clay pot ( Ghatam ) with a string, to the community of Pulluvan (also Pulluvar ) being used in Kerala for dance accompaniment, especially when snake dance which takes place in September-October Ayilyam celebrations in Naga Temple of Mannarsala. Of clay pot having an opening at the bottom and is completely covered with a skin. The radiation emanating from the bottom center line ends at a wooden stick, which the musicians sitting trapped under the leg or fixed with the toes to tighten the string. Is plucked with a plectrum in his right hand.

While gopi yantra and lao - Tokari produce a drone that anandalahari and comparable plucks drums are mainly used for the rhythm. The corpus consists of anandalahari with simpler instruments from a calabash, otherwise from a bulbous wooden cylinder. The floor is glued usual with a skin like the gourds; the center thereof passes about a 60 cm long strip of leather or a string as a string through the vessel and on the other side also. The string is secured to the membrane not by a button, but by a longer rod. Earlier instruments were open at the top, today resonators made ​​of wood are also covered up to the hole in the middle with a membrane, both membranes fixed by leather rings and these are tensioned by a V-shaped lacing. In some instruments, each V passes through an iron ring which can be moved in order to tension the membrane. The free end of the leather strip is a small brass pot whose opening direction corpus shows, or attached to a block of wood, both of which act as a handle. The player holds the anandalahari horizontally pressed with the left elbow against your body. With his right hand he pulls the rhythm taut string, while at the same time in the left hand plucks the strings with a plectrum made of wood, bone, or the like. The result ranges from a wavering in pitch, dull drumbeat to a high whining noise in heavily dressed and at the same time plucked string. The anandalahari may be even more archaic than plucking drums with a firmly clamped string of the construction, but it has finer expression.

In gopī yantra away from the string of the membrane at an angle of 90 degrees, wherein a clearance anandalahari 90-70 ° is given. The vibrations of the string and the membrane thus simultaneously extend to each other in both types about a right angle. The membrane vibration is superimposed on the string vibration, resulting in a reinforced structure of harmonics to the fundamental frequency of the string. , The membrane acts as a frequency doubler, and leads to non-linear acoustic phenomena which are not expected from a stringed instrument, the stringed are clamped between two fixed points.