Ancient Russian instrument beep. I know almost everything about singing! Hoot in the history of Belarusian music

Horn (musical instrument) · Related articles · Notes · Literature · Official site ·

Horn(bulg. gudulka) - an ancient Russian bowed instrument, the most common in the 17th-19th centuries, among buffoons. It has a hollowed-out wooden body, usually oval or pear-shaped, and, in addition, a flat deck with resonator holes. The neck of the horn has a short fretless neck that holds 3-4 strings.

Judging by epics and historical songs, he accompanied crowded folk celebrations; At the same time, the upper “soloist” string emitted a continuous bass buzz, as, for example, when playing the lyre ... The churchmen branded the horn with the “Devil’s vessel”, the buffoons-singers called it the “voiced bastard”. They performed dance tunes on it, amusing the people.

The horn can be played either vertically or horizontally (similar to a guitar). Moreover, the top string is built higher than the other 2-3 (unlike the guitar), with a fifth or fourth difference. While playing, the top string serves as a soloist, while the rest are played constantly.

The names of the varieties of the whistle have been preserved: whistle, whistle, buzzed, buzzer. Related instruments existed in the West - fidula (Latin), fidel (German).

Of all the sources about ancient Russian musical instruments, the most important are the data from the archaeological excavations of Novgorod (V. I. Povetkin).

For a very long time, Russian science did not have a clear idea of ​​what they looked like, what they were made of, and even more so how ancient Russian musical instruments sounded. Figurative sources could not clarify this issue, since it is not clear whether the instruments are local or, for example, Byzantine. It seemed that these questions would remain unanswered, but archeology came to the rescue. In 1951, at the Nerevsky excavation site in Veliky Novgorod, the first finds of fragments of musical instruments were recovered from the cultural layer. Novgorod land well preserved for us not only metal, ceramics and bone, but, most importantly, wood!

The outstanding archaeologist Boris Aleksandrovich Kolchin was the first to classify, describe and attempt to reconstruct these tools. In 1972-1973, under the guidance of B. A. Kolchin, craftsmen V. G. Pogodin and N. L. Krivonos first attempted to restore the appearance of the finds. The result of the restoration was ambiguous. Archaeological specimens have been augmented with modern wood using irreversible adhesives. That is, stuck forever. Modern inserts are tinted to look like old wood, so it's hard to tell where the find ends and where the addition ends. The resulting appearance of the instruments and their functionality are questionable. They are not confirmed by subsequent archaeological finds. However, images of these instruments are still widely circulated in the press, and the instruments themselves are exhibited in the museums of Veliky Novgorod and Moscow.

Another way of reconstruction was proposed by Vladimir Ivanovich Povetkin. He decided to make musical instruments entirely from modern wood, based on the found fragments, taking into account the data of history, archeology and ethnography. At the same time, for clarity, only the part corresponding to the find was tinted. The augmented fragments were not stained. This made it possible not to damage the archaeological specimens themselves, preserving them for future researchers, and also to make several reconstruction options at once. But most importantly, it made it possible to hear the sound of ancient musical instruments! Note that it was B.A. Kolchin was the first to recognize the correctness of V.I. Povetkin.

I will describe my experience of reconstructing musical instruments. I have always been interested in music. At first he mastered the “three chords” with the guitar, then he played the drums in a metal band. There was a need to understand the notes. At hand was only a flute and a self-instruction manual ... for the button accordion. I somehow figured out the notes, and after that I mastered the balalaika. I have always been drawn to folklore. I became interested in what our ancestors played. It turned out that there was such a musical instrument - a harp! A long-bearded old man with a multi-stringed instrument on his knees immediately comes to mind. The elder composes epics, accompanying them with overflows of ringing strings, and around him the soldiers with the prince sit and listen. Just like in the picture of Vasnetsov. But then the recordings of the Rusichi ensemble fell into my hands, which completely broke the prevailing idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe harp. It turned out that their harp is not the same, and they sound completely different (later I learned that there are several types of harp, but about them another time). The Rusichi had another interesting bowed instrument. Like a violin, only a different shape, and they hold it differently. And most importantly, the sound is very creaky, even a little nasty. It turned out to be a "buzz". I liked the tool, and I decided to make myself such a thing! So I began to make ancient Russian musical instruments!

So, beep, an old Russian bowed instrument.

A huge contribution to the study of the folk tradition of playing the whistle was made by N. I. Privalov, the creator and leader of the Great Russian Orchestra of Folk Instruments. In 1904, he published a historical and ethnographic essay on stringed musical instruments, where he described the whistle. Using the information available at that time, N. I. Privalov assumed that bowed instruments appeared in Rus' no earlier than the 16th century.

The beep is not found in ancient Russian written sources. But in the Nikon's list of the Tale of Bygone Years under 1068, a smyk is mentioned. It is believed to be an archaic name for the horn. For the first time, the description of the whistle was given by J. Shtelin in 1769 in the work “News about Music in Russia”:
“A whistle used among the mob, especially sailors. It has the shape of a violin, but is made of rough, unfinished wood. Its body is clumsy and larger than a violin, and three strings are stretched on it, along which they move with a short bow. Ordinary lovers of this nasally instrument play it either sitting, resting it on their knees, or standing, resting it on the body, but in general not like a violin pressed to the chest or chin. Common melodies are played on it, and rarely more than one string is plucked with the fingers, while the other two are drawn with the bow in vain and are always strong, so that they sound creaky and importunate, like on a lyre. For their own ears, this sounds quite pleasant, and this instrument is widely used in dances, with singing and independently ”(J. Shtelin).

The earliest pictorial source that gives us an idea of ​​playing the whistle is the 15th-century fresco "anti buffoon".

On the fresco, the musical instrument is located vertically, and the musician extracts the sound with the help of a bow.

In Europe, there was also an instrument similar to the horn. It was called "fidel" or "fidula".

Also, the Bulgarians have preserved the instrument “gadulka” or “gudulka”, very similar to the beep.

After analyzing written and visual sources, as well as ethnographic data, B. A. Kolchin identified some of the finds from the Nerevsky excavation site for 1954, 1955 and 1960 as the remains of bowed stringed musical instruments, which were given the name “beep”.

Due to the excellent state of preservation, the most interesting finds are the body of the horn from the end of the 12th century and the almost completely preserved horn from the middle of the 14th century.

“The total length of the body is 41 cm. The length of the resonator trough itself is 28 cm, the neck is 3 cm and the head is 10 cm. The maximum width of the trough reaches 11.5 cm, the greatest depth is 5.5 cm. The thickness of the walls of the instrument was 0.5 cm on average. The head had three holes for pegs with a diameter of 0.7 cm each. The distance between the centers of the holes, i.e. the distance between the strings, was 1.8 cm. The volume of the resonator trough was 550 cubic meters. see. The tool is made from a single spruce log. The resonator trough is hollowed out ”(B. A. Kolchin).

We will need:

Tools: an ax, a knife, a semicircular chisel and a flat scraper.

Material: spruce block.

We split the spruce log of the required length in half. This can be done simply with an ax or using a scraper.

From one of the resulting halves we break off a plate-board. This is our future resonating soundboard of the instrument.

We cut the plank with an ax to a thickness of about 10 mm, level it with a scraper on a rough one. This thickness is enough so that the wood does not crack during drying. There is also a small margin for leveling the future deck, if the tree leads during shrinkage. In this state, leave to dry.

We round the second half with the same scraper.

With an ax we carve out the future body of the beep.

Next comes the knife. With a knife, we align the body, giving it the desired shape. This is also a rough cut. The case should be brought to a smooth state after it dries.

Next, with a semicircular chisel, we select the inner cavity of the resonator trough. Let it dry like this.

All tools must be very well sharpened. It is much easier to cut yourself with a blunt instrument than with a sharp one. It's amazing, but true. After all, when working with a blunt tool, you have to make more efforts, which means that it is much more difficult to control it. The chance that the tool will come off and cut the hand is increased. It is checked up on own experience.

One of the most interesting musical instruments of ancient Novgorod, but in addition to this, I cannot keep silent about another most interesting instrument that is directly related to our large production of Askold's Grave. It contains the character Toropka (who sings the most, by the way), and the main character Vseslav does not have a single aria at all), which is indicated in the libretto as a “horn”. Do you even know who this is? And now you will find out.

Gusli is certainly a popular ancient Russian musical instrument, but far from the only one. Among the Novgorod antiquities, the so-called beep is no less common - a three-stringed bowed instrument. Its history is interesting not only for people who are trying to figure out what the ancient Russian musical ensemble looked like, but also for musicologists who want to understand what served as the origins of modern violin art. It is well known that bowed strings occupy a special place in a modern orchestra. The ancestors of these instruments appeared at the end of the first millennium of our era. Scientists believe that the world's first bowed instruments, which gave a continuous sliding sound with all the richness of semitones, were born in Central Asia. In the 11th century, bowed instruments came to Europe and instantly spread throughout the continent. At that time they were already known in Spain, Italy, France, England. Of course, after the appearance of these instruments, the most serious changes took place in music. The music of the Middle Ages, limited to individual tones and sounds, thanks to bowed instruments managed to become more melodious and melodic. By the end of the Renaissance, a homophonic (melodic) style was established in music. In the 11th century, bowed instruments successfully reached Rus'.

All horns found in Novgorod were three-stringed bowed instruments. At first, scientists could not decide what kind of instruments they belonged to: plucked or bowed. To do this, they decided to compare archaeological finds with a large number of iconographic monuments, including images of musical instruments on medieval miniatures of Western Europe.

Analogues of the Novgorod finds were found on numerous images found by N.I. Privalov - a great specialist in Russian folk instruments. In these images, the musician holds the horn by the neck with one hand, resting it on his leg, and the bow with the other. Closer analogies can also be seen in the miniatures and frescoes of Western Europe. Such three-stringed fidels were found on a miniature of an English psalter dating from the second quarter of the 12th century by specialists in Cambridge, as well as on a miniature of the Strasbourg calendar of 1154 and even on a miniature from the Bible in the National Library of Paris. In Dahl's dictionary, the meaning of the word "beep" is interpreted as a kind of violin without recesses on the sides with a flat bottom and a cover, in three strings. Unlike the same gusli, the beep is not mentioned in ancient Russian writings until the middle of the 17th century. Instead of it, in various chronicles of the 16th century, the “smik” instrument is mentioned. Most likely, this is how the beep was called earlier.
By the way, the beep, in fact, was not particularly encouraged by the church. For example, in the lists of the Pilot's Book - a code of laws, the Orthodox Church - it is said that it is impossible to "buzz with a beamer". I note that these church documents were based on Byzantine originals, translated into Church Slavonic. This did not prevent the gud from being actively used in secular life. In Novgorod, this instrument was discovered on the territory of the estate, which belonged to the boyar family of Mishinichi. At the time when the whistle was in use, the posadnik (head of the city appointed by the prince) Ontsifor Lukich and his children Yuri, Maxim and Afanasy could live there (later Yuri Ontsiforovich also became a famous posadnik - you can read about him separately).

Thanks to the discovery of several blanks of horns from the 14th-15th centuries, scientists have also established what the strings for these instruments were made of. It is assumed that intestines were used for this. They were attached on one side to a bone tailpiece with three holes. The string holder itself was attached to the bottom of the case with a wooden pin. On the other hand, the strings were inserted into the slots of the pegs and tightened. Bows for horns came in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, judging by Western European images. They could be strongly curved, semicircular, resembling a bow, flat, sharply curved at one end, etc. There are countless options and they all existed at the same time. There was no standard. Usually the length of the bow ranged from 30 to 70 cm. Horsehair was pulled over it, as well as on modern bows, however, if in Ancient Rus' 3-10 hairs were enough, today you need 100.

The name "beep" has been found in written sources since the beginning of the 17th century. In the sources of the XI-XVII centuries, the musical instrument was called " close» .

During archaeological excavations on the territory of Novgorod, fragments of instruments of the 11th-14th centuries were found, which are considered the oldest versions of beeps. The earliest intact specimen found dates back to the middle of the 14th century.

The whistle was distributed as an instrument of buffoons and served to entertain the common people. Dances and songs were performed on it, accompanied by singing. In the 17th century, the horns were kept in the Amusement Chamber.

At the end of the 19th century, the whistle went out of use completely. Not a single instance of the instrument has been preserved (with the exception of those found during excavations). In the 1900s, the composer N.P. Fomin, on the basis of old drawings and descriptions, attempted to reconstruct the whistle. He created a family of instruments (like a string quartet) - beep, beep, buzzed And buzz. However, it was not possible to revive the ensemble playing on the whistle.

In the 1970s, N. L. Krivonos reconstructed the instruments based on archaeological finds (see photos).

Description

The horn has a wooden hollowed out or glued body, usually oval or pear-shaped, as well as a flat soundboard with resonator holes. The neck of the horn has a short fretless neck holding 3 strings (sometimes 4). The head is straight or slightly bent back. Tool length - 300-800 mm.

Hoot in the history of Belarusian music