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Ancient Russian Musical InstrumentsIn Russia were always heard such simple shepherd’s musical instruments: rozhok, zhaleyka (a peasant wind-instrument like pipe made of young trunk of willow), reed pipe; sounds of these instruments accompanied a peasant from birth to the end of his days. In the early 1600s different musical instruments were widely used among people. It can be proved in the fact that Moscow musical masters inhabited then a lane in Zamoskvorechye area, somewhere in Pyatnitskaya Street. Amidst the ruling classes these instruments were hardly ever used.
The reason is the hostile attitude of the church towards all folk musical instruments and especially to stringed instruments, taken as “vessels of devil”, “devilish games”. There still preserved instructions of church against folk musicians in which they are considered to be equal in their “harmfulness” to brigands and sorcerers.
Christian culture came from Byzantium to Rus did not accept instrumental music and used almost exclusively vocal singing (the only musical instrument used in the Christian church ceremony was a bell). The main bearers of the popular instrumentalism were skomorokhs in their social and folk-ritual repertoire. It led to the result that the Orthodox Church supported by the state began to completely deny instrumental art.
Persecution of folk musical instruments from the church and secular authorities in the middle of 1600s was characterized by mass destruction of these samples of folk art. So, for example, as Adam Olearia said about 1649 all “droning vessels” were taken from houses in Moscow, put on five carts, brought beyond the Moskva river and burned there”.
Proclamation of “wickedness” of instrumental music, the centuries-old struggle against “devilish droning vessels”, persecution and extermination of skomorokhs – first professional musicians, all that determined bad time in the development of national instrumentalism.
Note: I only listed those musical instruments that weren’t influenced by foreign prototypes.
Bells
Zvonets or handbell. It is of small size, cast, and bronze. There are some samples from the end of 1000s, the first half of 1100s and the last quarter of 1300s. It could be used as in signal function as in musical one.
Sharok, bubenchik or jingle bell. Several varieties, cast or embossed in nonferrous metal were found in the levels from 900s to 1400s. Some of them were used as pendants to clothes; others could be included in the set of musical baubles.
A sounding pendant-amulet. Typologically different samples of pendants usually cast bronze were found in the levels of 1000s-1400s. They were very likely toys with the limited essence.
Treshchotka
Treshchotka or rattle. It looks like a little book and consists of a set of small wooden planks (of 5-7 pieces), one of which is equipped with a handle. A strap, fixing them freely, passes through a couple of holes cut in each of the planks. When shaking, they strike against one another and make the rattling. These are the renovated rattles; a remarkable sample of them in the form of two spruce planks was in the level of the first half of 1100s. There are two options for their reconstruction: with the one-sided relatively the place of a plank-holder position of planks-paddles and with double-sided one.
Brunchalka
Brunchalka or gudalka. It is a small tube bone of animals or birds with one (or two) drilled holes. The thin strap (or thread) was put through it. Being revolved to and from by the periodic tension of a strap, it made threatening rumble. In ancient times this instrument was probably used by priests of folk cults to frighten off evil spirits. Some of brunchalkas were found in the levels of 1000-1400s. In 1991 they found 40th gudalka. It is unique: one of its ends is decorated with the carved muzzle of a little beast what makes it possible to assume its sacral role.
Svistulka
Svistulka or pennywhistle. Ceramic with two holes for whistling, of horse-shaped or drop-shaped. There are more than 20 copies. It was popular in 1300-1400s and later, although some fragments let us assume that svistulkas were used in 1200s, 1100s and even in 1000s. In 1849 I.P. Sakharov said that in Viatka’s province a pennywhistle was used during the “round whistling and dancing”- remembrance of ancestors feast. Now svistulkas are toys. The spine of the construction of the whistling device is the same as that of wooden sopel (type of a reed pipe).
Buben
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Buben or tambourine is a percussion musical instrument in the form of rather narrow round wooden rib with the leather membrane stretched on the one side. Sometimes inside the rib line there are suspended bells, and in the slits of the walls are inserted clanking metal plates. Bubens had a wide distribution in Ukraine and Belarus, often used in dance music.
Eastern Slavs knew a buben since ancient times. It was especially widely used at war and among skomorokhs. In earlier times a buben was called any percussion instrument with the leather stretched on it. Perhaps when in the Russians chronicles we meet the name “buben”, we should understand it as an instrument that later on was called “a drum”.
A description of a buben along with trumpets as military-musical instruments goes back to 960s; it is mentioned in the anabasis of Grand Duke Svyatoslav Igorevich. The number of bubens in an army indicated its strength. A buben served as a sign of a commander, those who were with bubens were directly beside a leader under its control.
A military buben was a copper with the stretched leather membrane. In ancient times they hit the membrane with a beetle – a kind of a whip with a wicker ball on the top. Both infantry and cavalry used military bubens.
It is assumed that the Russian military bubens were of an enormous size, so it was necessary to use 4 horses to transport them. A sound, rather rattle, was made by eight men-beaters. Using prearranged signals of bubens in the Russian army they communicated so, gave orders. In battle percussion instruments united with trumpets and created a rattle that could frighten the enemy.
In later centuries skomorokhs and guides of bears used bubens often. Skomorokhs’ buben looks like a modern instrument. It is a quite narrow wooden rib of round shape with the stretched leathern membrane on one side and with bells and jingle bells suspended from inside. Players hit the membrane with their fingers or with their hands. At that time they played along with balalaika-players and harmonists and sometimes they accompanied the valiant singing.
Sopel
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Sopel. Type of a pipe-reed. There were found three instruments. And it was possible to reconstruct two - of 1400s and 1000s; the first with three playing holes, the second with four. They were made of small trunks; the first of an ash, the second – of a willow. In the probable constructive relationship with them was the pipe shown on the leaf of the silver hoop from Staroryazan treasure of 1100-1200s. Restoring of the external forms of sopels led to the discovery of their scale. During the combined covering of their playing holes on the sopels of 1000s and 1400s a musician might make the appropriate sounds.
Rozhok
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Rozhok. A type of horn. A rozhok by its sounding may be compared with the voice of nature. Especially Vladimir rozhok became famous. Vladimir rozhok is the most Russian instrument of all folk instruments, unique in the world. One can sing a melody, blowing the rozhok, with the same mastership as if using a human voice.
The mentioning about ensemble aying the rozhok refers to 1600s that allow establishing the tradition of the rozhok play to much earlier time. It is possible that the name rozhok was fixed for the instrument later and that in the earliest written sources it is hidden under the name “pipe”.
A rozhok is a conical straight tube with the five playing holes on the top of it and one - below. At the low end is a small bell at the top the pasted in mouthpiece. The total length of a rozhok ranges from 320 to 830 mm. A mouthpiece is cut in the form of a small cap and the lower end of the tube is in the form of a conic bell.
A rozhok is usually made of birch, maple and juniper. Musicians say that rozhoks of juniper have the best sounding. In the past they were made in the same manner as shepherd's rozhoks, that is of two halves fastened with birch bark; today they are turned.
The sound of a rozhok is strong, but mellow. It is rather difficult to make an instrument sound. The range of a rozhok is little more than octave. There are 2 types of rozhoks: for solo and for group playing.
An ensemble variety of an instrument is called among people vizgunok (squeaker) and bas (bass). They are always tuned up in close harmony and have a maximum and minimum possible size. For solo playing it is usually used a medium-sized instrument. So called polubasok (half-bass) belongs to this type.
Rozhok’s folk-tunes are divided into four stylistic varieties: signal, song, dancing and dance. Repertoire of folk-tunes is really wide. There are are several types of shepherd’s signals and even more of others. The main repertoire is song folk-tunes.
A rozhok has different names – “shepherd’s”, “Russian”, “song”. The name “Vladimir” was acquired relatively recently; at the end of 1800s in the success that had the performance of the chorus of rozhok-players under the baton of Nikolai Vasilyevich Kondratyev from Vladimir region.
Gudok
Gudok or hooter is a stringed bow musical instrument. Its pear-shaped contours include a head with three pins, short neck and a slotted cavity or vessel which was covered with a ledge. In the middle of the ledge were two semicircular cuts near which was fixed a moving bridge (support). Through its upper edge from the tailpiece there were stretched three strings made of guts. The bridge, transmitting string vibration to the case of a gudok, affected mechanically the resonant process that psaltery does not have. To elicit sounds from a gudok one had to use a bent bow (“pogudalets”), a strand of its horse-hair was rubbed with the conifer tar.
It is assumed that the mentioned in some sources the names “smyk” in 1000-1500s and “gudok” in 1600s and later on pertained to the same constructive bow musical instrument existed in Rus. In the oral folk poetic tradition was almost not mentioned smyk, and conversely gudok was popular. Etymologically the closest instrument to a gudok is the Bulgarian bow instrument-gdulka. In the images of 1600-1800s a gudok looks like the Novgorod’s archaeological specimens of bow instruments. That is why the latter ones were called in science – gudoks.
In its real mythological grandeur the image of gudok appears in the famous bylina “Vavilo and Skomorokhs”. Through the magic of the Holy skomorokhs Kuzma and Demyan reins are turned into “silk strings” and a whip - into “pogudaltse” that “Vavilo be playing a gudochek”. At the same time the horse mentioned in the bylina, along which neck the reins - strings stretch from its head is that trunk of the sacral gudok.
In Novgorod there were collected archaeological data about 17 gudoks. Most of them were made of pine, spruce-dominated, wood. Maple was used to make two ones. The gudok from the level of the first half of 1300s is preserved better than other. Its body hollowed out the spruce joined the ledge with the glue. The cuts knifed along the edge of the boat prove that. In the middle of the ledge are cut two segment-shaped resonators, in the upper part of it is a pattern, sign of six holes, one more hole is a little lower than resonators, evidently, it marks the place for the bridge. The strings, three pins and the whole string-holder with the bridge were lost.
With constant constructive purpose of the string-holder, its form, material and the way of fixation were different. In the above described gudok was used a through-hole, in which they fixed the leather or vein loop; the strings were tied to it. In another event strings could be attached to a metal nail, as in the gudok made by an unskilled adolescent. In the third case a loop wrapped the lug, formed either by the ledge as in the reconstructed gudok of 1100s, or by the body, as it was in the gudok of 1000s – the most ancient of Novgorod’s ones.
A head of a gudok could be carved. Sometimes in a head exclusive of three holes for pins was drilled the fourth hole to thread a lace for suspending.
About stages of making of a gudok we are able to get a rather clear idea examining two blanks from the levels of 1300s-1400s. In one of them, scorched in the fire the vessel remained not to be hollowed up.
