Kamancheh

Kamancheh, also kamāntscheh, kemāncheh, kamancha, Persian کمانچه ( from Kaman " bow" and the diminutive cha, ie " Bögchen " ) is an Iranian string instrument.

Distinction

The Kemāncheh is also called ghaichak, which under this name two types are understood by stringed lutes: For one, the spike fiddles with a simple, round sound box and a long, thin neck ( long-necked vessel spit sounds ) like the Kamancheh, the old Turkish stringed instruments rebab and kabak - Kemane; secondly, the Sarinda type of stringed instruments. The latter have a short, partially wide neck with a double or two- halves of the corpus. This category includes in addition to the string lute Sarinda also plucked the Afghan National Instrument Rubab. Further developments of the Sarinda in northern India resulted in the sarangi, dilruba and esraj to an only slightly waisted body and is approximately equal to a wide neck. The Kamancheh is language- related, but not similar in construction kemençe with the Turkish stringed lute. Between the Mediterranean and northern India to be understood with different spellings of the word tribe Kaman various coated long -necked lutes or short -necked lutes.

Design and style of play

The development of Kamancheh can be deduced about Turkish stringed instruments such as the rebab of the Byzantine lyra. The body is relatively small, round and made ​​of hard wood ( walnut or mulberry wood). The circular opening in the ceiling is covered with fish skin, which provides for the fine, warm tone. Four steel strings run over a flat bridge and a narrow fingerboard to the pairwise opposite vertebrae. The fourth string was probably only the beginning of the 20th century added after acquaintance with the European violin. The strings are tuned in fourths or fifths. Previously the instrument as all sting violins was played sitting on the floor and held vertically in front of the body. Today, the musician sitting on a chair and puts the sting out of the left knee on the corner of the chair. The range corresponds to that of a violin. The horse hair of the bow are tensioned during the game with your fingers.

A Kamancheh belongs to virtually every orchestra in the Iranian music. Classical compositions whose melodies ( radif ) unfold within a Dastgah ( a modal melody, which is similar to the Indian raga or the Azerbaijani mugham ) are except with the Kamancheh TAR and other main instruments of the plucked lute, the zither santur, the longitudinal flute nay and percussion instruments listed. The Afghan music of the great cities was until the early 20th century, heavily influenced by the Iranian classical music, which is why some of the Iranian musical instruments were also to be found there, including the Kemāncheh. In the north, however, the Central Asian, two-stringed dambura was predominant.

From the Persian miniature painting and its largest representative Behzad (1460-1535), numerous Hofmusikszenen in which a spike fiddle is shown, survived. The Kamancheh was known from the 19th century until the early 20th century in the Eastern -influenced music of the Georgian capital Tbilisi. There she played Epensänger ( aschugi ) alternative to the saz and the Georgian plucked lute tschonguri together with the frame drum daira.

Known Kemāncheh musicians are Ali - Asghar Bahari (1905-1995); Iranian Kurd Ardeshir Kamkar (born 1962 ), member of the group Kamkars; Kayhan Kalhor (* 1963), also a Kurd; Saeed Farajpouri (* 1961), student of Hossein Alizadeh and a member of the orchestra and Rahmatollah Badi'i ( b. 1936 ), who became known as a violinist and concertmaster. The Iranian composer Hossein Alizadeh ( born 1951 in Tehran ) 2006 brought in New York's Carnegie Hall, the composition New Work for String Quartet and Kemancheh premiered.