Ethnic Russian Music

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Ethnic Russian Music

Ethnic Russian music includes many varieties of Folk , Popular and Classical traditions. Ethnic Russians are especially associated with classical styles of Ballet and Opera , of which composers like Mikhail Glinka , Sergei Prokofiev , Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , Igor Stravinsky and the members of The Mighty Handful are among the most well-known. Late in the 19th Century , elements of Russian folk music (such as the Balalaika ) began to be used in Orchestra s, beginning with a Russian folk instrument orchestra led by Vasily Andreyev .

In the 20th Century , operatic singers like Fyodor Shalyapin were popular in the first few decades. During the Soviet era, music in the USSR was tightly restricted. Singing ethnomusicologists like Vyacheslav Shchurov gained some renown, as did Bard s like Vladimir Vysotsky and Rock bands like Pojuschie Gitary .

Among the most popular singers of Russian folk music in the modern era are Nadezhda Kadysheva , Zhanna Bichevskaya and the rock-oriented Boris Grebenshchikov , leader of Aquarium (who went through a folk-music phase in the early 1990s).

TRADITIONAL INSTRUMENTS

String

Balalaika - three-stringed, triangular sound-board, played with the fingers. Comes in many different sizes. Two of the strings are tuned alike in prima, secunda and alto balalaikas.

Domra - small three-or-four-stringed Lute with a rounded soundboard, plucked or strummed with a Plectum .

Donsloy Ryley - a Russian Hurdy-gurdy with an oval body and an attached triangular keybox.

Gudok - a three-stringed, pear-shaped Russian bowed instrument which is usually held vertically.

Gusli - one of the oldest known Russian musical instruments, described by the Greeks as early as the 6th century CE. Many different versions of this plucked string instrument exist.

Kolyosnaya Lira - Russian Hurdy-gurdy with a Violin body.

Wind

Bayan - a Chromatic Button Accordion

Garmon' - a kind of Diatonic Russian Button Accordion , featuring a unique Unisonoric design.

Kalyuki - a hollow pipe with no additional air holes, used for whistling sounds.

Kugikli / Kuvikly - simple Panpipes

Rozhok - a Russian folk Trumpet (a reed instrument made from birch bark or a cow horn)

Svirel - Russian flute

Vladimir Shepherd's Horn - made in Russia's Vladimir Oblast by shepherds who composed melodious calls on it. This horn has a range of two octaves and a very distinctive, idiosyncratic sound.

Volynka - traditional Slavic Bagpipe .

Zhaleyka - Russian folk Clarinet / Hornpipe .

Percussion

Buben

Bubentsy

Kokshnik

Korobochka

Lozhki - decorated wooden spoons.

Rubel

Treshchotki - set of wooden boards on a string that are clapped together as a group.

Vertushka

Zvonchalka

FURTHER READING

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EXTERNAL LINKS

Barynya - mp3s of Russian folk songs and detailed descriptions and photographs of most Russian folk instruments. You can also buy Russian instruments here.

Russian folk songs

List of Russian/Central Asian folk music CDs

Golosá: Russian Folk Choir of the University of Chicago

Official Website of the Osipov State Russian Folk Orchestra (in Russian) - one of Russia's leading folk orchestras with about 80 members. Some mp3 clips can be downloaded.