Ru
EnA. Kharlov
Individual way of playing the Mari traditional aerophone
The article discusses the practical aspect of mastering the traditional archaic Mari aerophone shÿvyr as a constructive version of the ancient bagpipe. The relevance of the article lies in the extremely small number of publications focused on ways of performing specific folk melodies and the lack of academic papers and teaching aids aimed at the practical development of performance on the one of the most complex traditional instruments – the Mari shÿvyr.
Today the instrument has gone out of active use, but information about its manufacture and use in the framework of everyday and ritual music-making in the north of the Nizhny Novgorod region in the first half of the 20th century has been preserved. The article presents facts based on the results of the author’s expeditionary research, confirming that in the first half of the 20th century the instrument was spread on the territory of the Tonshaevsky district in the Nizhny Novgorod region in places of compact residence of the Mari and the cessation of its active usage at the present time.
The purpose of the article is to share the practical experience of performance on such an instrument, since today the author is the only musician in the Nizhny Novgorod region who has the skills to play the shÿvyr. The author proposes the principle of changing the performance strategy, which involves not copying authentic tunes, but creating original melodies. At the same time, the basic modes are preserved and a simpler and more universal way of fingering is proposed based on our own practical experience in studying this type of bagpipe. The novelty of the article lies in the description of an alternative method of sound production, aimed at the practical development of the performance skills in order to introduce the bagpipes into everyday life as part of everyday music-making and stage performance activity of modern folklore bands of the local Nizhny Novgorod tradition.
Key words
folklore, traditional instrumental culture, bagpipe, shÿvyr, aerophone, bourdon.
For citation
Kharlov A. Individual way of playing the Mari traditional aerophone // South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2023. No. 3. Pp. 77-84.
