Ghaychak

Ghaichak, ghichak or ghaychak, Persian غيچک (pronounced " gitschak ") is a term for regional differences in Indo-Iranian string instruments that hold between two and ten strings and mainly in the countries of Central Asia and occur especially in Afghanistan.

The name ghichak is also common in neighboring countries Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It consists of the word or ghi gay and out of the suffixes k and cha, which are used in Farsi or Dari as diminutive. In the region of Afghan Turkestan ( central northern provinces ) are ghichak against the widespread dambura in the minority.

Distinction

Under ghaichak is depending on the region a string lute with easy understood corpus, such as the northern Afghan spiked fiddles, which are provided with a metal box as a resonator. These are two-stringed fiddle used by Tajiks in the northern Afghan mountains. This includes string sounds from the rebab type with a body made of wood as the Persian Kamancheh, is mentioned in the Afghan Herat gheichak. From Tajiks in the cities and in three - and four-stringed Uzbekistan ghichak be played. This type of string sounds with a resonant body is represented in Persian miniatures, never the Sarinda type, named after the Iran- North India spread Sarinda. The Sarinda corresponds to the mapped ghichak and has a double resonance body. For this type of instrument the Afghan Rubab and the plucked string instrument is one Kazakh Koby.

Ghichak in Northern Afghanistan

The central production site for ghichak, consisting of a wooden stick with a metal can as a resonator, is Khulm (formerly Tashqurghan ) in the province of Balkh. The instrument consists of a 70 to 75 cm long, brightly painted rod made of mulberry wood, at the upper end turned wooden ornaments and two laterally opposite wooden pegs are attached as an eddy. There are green, yellow, black and red striped pattern. At the lower end of the rod a section tapers slightly and remains unpainted. The metal canister is now pierced on the wide side and pushed to the limit on the bar. In the rod, a long nail is knocked into a prepared hole at the lower end, around which a metal wire is wound, both ends of which are guided upwards to the vertebrae. On the tin now a wooden footbridge just have to become jammed under the strings. The length of the rod is standardized, the size of the sound ranges from small round tin cans up to rectangular cans of oil. The bow ( kaman, Persian کمان derived with the diminutive form cha: Fidel kamancha ) is usually made by the player: Horse hair is attached to the ends of a wooden stick by this is wrapped with ribbon. The bow is drawn by finger action during the game.

The north-eastern province of Badakhshan is the center of the sheet metal canister Ghichaks from where the instrument in the 1930s began to spread in the north. The Pashtun musician Baba Naim from this province has developed for itself a new model with a wooden body that is covered with fur and has a fixed bridge. In addition, proceed at his instrument eight sympathetic strings to the side of the neck attached vertebrae. Thus Baba Naim occurred in Kabul in the 1970s.

Play

Northern Afghan ghichak or Kamancheh be played cross-legged on the ground with the instrument held vertically and the sting is placed on one foot. Playing on a chair it is situated on a thigh. Most of the time both strings are deleted at the same time, by rotation of the instrument in the longitudinal axis, a string are preferred. Due to the large distance of the string from the neck can be gripped with the fingers of the left hand in practice only in the first position, so that the range is limited to less than one octave. The two strings are tuned in fourths distance.

The traditional music of the teahouses ( Samowad in the north, otherwise Chaikhana ) in Afghan Turkestan and parts of Badakhshan and Tajikistan, which was performed at the weekly market days, consisted of the five main instruments dambura ( two-stringed plucked lute), ghichak, zerbaghali ( einfellige hand drum, usually made ​​of clay ), a pair Handzimbeln (Persian: zang, hindi: valley, Uzbek: tüsak ) and a bell chain at the right hand of the Dambura player ( zang -i Kaftar ).

Ghichak from Sarinda type without sting be drawn up while sitting cross-legged on the left thigh. Sarangi, dilruba and esraj could be of the Sarinda type of ghichak evolved string instruments in northern India.