5.1. Inventory of Instruments. The following inventory of Cheremis folk instruments is not intended to be exhaustive, and no analytic discussion of instruments has been attempted. The information is arranged by source, and is presented only to furnish background data and to help complete the picture of Cheremis music in this study.
Manninen lists the following instruments: the gusli, the bagpipe, and the shawm. The latter is a reed instrument with finger holes. It sometimes consists of two tubes, which are blown simultaneously to produce polyphonic music. The shawm is evidently used as a love charm and is played mostly by young women. The gusli, used in religious ceremonies, is a type of zither, found also among the Votyak, Chuvash, and Tatars.
Jewskij knows the following instruments to be used by the Cheremis: a six-stringed fiddle; the bagpipe, with one or two tubes used for playing melodic parts; a wooden flute, held horizontally, approximating the European recorder; the gusli; a mandolin-like balalaika — the tombra; the accordion, with one row of melody keys; a cow’s horn, without finger holes, used for calling various animals (high notes for calling geese, low notes for cows, etc.); the jew’s harp; drums with two heads, usually large, beaten with two sticks; container rattles, filled with pebbles, used by children; the bullroarer — a flat piece of bone or wood, suspended from a string and rotated rapidly, producing a whirring noise, used by children.
Figure 28
Figure 29
The Cheremis instruments listed and depicted below are found in the National Museum of Finland.
Figures 28 and 29 show the bagpipe (šübǝr) from Morki, province of Kazan. The names and descriptions of parts are as follows: a bladder or a bag, šübǝr oη; a horn, made of bone, with which the bladder is blown, šübǝr oη lu; reeds, attached to a single piece of wood, šübǝr čaršübǝralăk; a horn used as a mouthpiece, covering the pipes, šübǝr kutom. The bagpipe is used for playing dance music at weddings and other festivities, and is tuned with a coin.
Figure 30
Fig. 30 is a wedding drum (tümǝr) from Yaransk, province of Vyatka. The drum is of the kettledrum type, single-headed, with a hole in the frame. The names of the parts are: the hole in the frame, tümǝr rož; the covering, made of dogskin on both sides, tümǝr kutan; a bank of wire, attached on the side of the covering, tümǝr šūdǝ; strings tightening the coverings, tümǝr čǝmǝmǝ kerem; a string, with brass pipes and beads, used as rattles when the drum is played, nimi tümǝr toj; a strap, used to hang the drum around the neck of the player, tümǝr kel; drumsticks, always two in number, tümǝr paškar.
Figure 31
Fig. 31 is a globular whistle-flute or ocarina (šüškǝš) from Yaransk, province of Vyatka. It has five holes — one in the tail, one at each shoulder, one under the tail, and one in the breast. It is played by boys, and even older men, from August 6 to November 8 (old Russian calendar). If it is played at any other time, the player is likely to be killed by thunder. The bird-shaped whistle-flutes were made by boys.
Figure 32
Fig. 32 from top to bottom shows: a crooked wooden horn, with two pipes with fingerholes inside the bent section, used at ceremonies of the kugu sorta ‘big candle’ sect, bought by T. Jevsejev from a member of the sect named Jakmanov; a birchbark horn (puč) from Turek, district of Urzhum, province of Vyatka; and two large wooden horns (türet puč or sürem puč), covered with birchbark, from Urzhum, province of Vyatka. The Cheremis of Tsarevokokshaisk and Urzhum blow the latter during the sürem (‘driving out’) festival while driving the šaitan (‘devil’) away. In Urzhum the youth blow them in the evenings. (Cf. Sebeok and Ingemann, part 3 and passim.)
Fig. 33 is a whistle-flute (šüšpek ‘nightingale’) made from a hollowed linden twig. It is played on summer evenings. Like the türet puč (Fig. 32), it has to be moistened with water before use.
Figure 33
Hämäläinen discusses and illustrates with photographs the wooden horn (türet puč) and the plugged flute (šijaltǝš).
The Bol’šaja Sovetskaja Ènciklopēdija notes that among the Cheremis a two-stringed fiddle preceded the more recent three-stringed one. The latter is represented by several examples in Smirnov.
Četkarev names and describes a group of instruments. The summarizing portion of his discussion (Četkarev, p. 24) is presented in English translation, below:
“In studying the evolution of the Cheremis folk song and the present state of Cheremis musical creativity, one must not neglect the development of musical instruments. The musical instruments of the Cheremis were adapted to the tune of the folk song. On the other hand, one may note that the primitiveness of Cheremis musical instruments served to hinder the development of song composition. The Cheremis had many musical instruments, but they were not capable of rendering any complicated work of music. There were plucked instruments: the šübǝr, the šijaltǝš, and the tötröt puč; and percussion instruments: the tümǝr. Labial instruments were widespread among the Mountain Cheremis — the comb and the spool, with their openings covered with thin birchbark. In addition, the Cheremis all used to have whistles called olǝm šübǝr made of straw which served as seasonal instruments at harvest time. Among these instruments, the most common today are the psaltery [küsle] and šübǝr with drum [tümǝr].”
Smirnov describes the 3-stringed fiddle as being tuned in various ways. In the examples printed by him, d-g-d and e-b-e are used. According to Smirnov, the accordion has buttons for a diatonic scale on the right side and a few bass tones on the left.
Nikiforov (whose study appeared when this monograph was ready to go to press) describes in detail all of the instruments mentioned here. In addition, he describes two very simple instruments: a rattle, used largely by children, and the musical bow.
The musical bow, simplest of string instruments, resembles a hunting bow and is 60 centimeters in length. For the string — once made of waxed hemp and later of gut — metal is now generally used. Usually a toy, the musical bow also serves in the performance of dance tunes. The wooden portion is placed in the players mouth, which acts as a resonator. The string is plucked with the right hand and shortened, for variety in pitch, with the left.
The following glossary is intended to integrate the various lists and descriptions of instruments given here:
karmon’, garmon’; karmol’o, muz’ekan, muzekan accordion
ikr’iadan-garmon’ one row accordion
mari garmon’ Cheremis accordion
tošto marla garmon’ ancient Cheremis accordion
kobež, komež; stripka, strepka, skrepka violin
ija komež, ijagomež devil violin, two-stringed violin
kon-kon musical bow
küsle, kǝsla, kärš gusli
lǝštaš tree leaf [of the bird cherry tree]
olǝm šübǝr straw whistle
pǝng-pong plucked instrument
šijaltǝš a type of flute of lingwort, a plugged-flute
šübǝr, šübür bagpipe
šüšpek, šüšpǝk “nightingale,” a clay whistle or a whistle made of a hollowed twig
tombra a kind of balalaika
tötröt puč, treč puč, türet puč birchbark horn also known as sürem puč driving-out horn also known as šiže puč autumn horn
tümǝr, tümbǝr, tümbür drum
5.2. Instrumental Music. The only instrumental music available to the writer is found in Četkarev, pp. 259-302, which contain transcriptions of 31 pieces, including music for accordion, bagpipes, horn, drum, plugged flute, and the bird cherry-tree leaf; in Nikiforov, who gives examples of the music of each instrument; and in Smirnov, who includes 14, for fiddle and accordion. One piece in Četkarev is performed by chorus (monophonic), accordion, and drum, another by chorus and drum only.
There is a considerable amount of diversity in the styles of these instrumental pieces. While some of this variety is evidently caused by the varying structures of the instruments, and the degree to which the possibilities for expression are limited, another factor may well be the considerable amount of outside influence which is likely to have accompanied the instruments when they were brought to the Cheremis. For although some of the instruments have been in use among the Cheremis for centuries, it is obvious that others, expecially the accordion, were imported from the outside, ultimately from the West. The importation of a musical style along with an instrument is a common phenomenon in musical culture.
A number of the instrumental pieces are exceedingly simple, perhaps owing to the physical limitations of the instruments. Others, in the style of the older Cheremis songs, may possibly be song melodies taken into the instrumental repertory. Others again are in styles evidently imported, being similar to the folk music of Central and Eastern Europe. Finally, there are some pieces in a fairly complex style which is unrelated to that of the songs and is not directly the result of the structural possibilities of the instrument. These pieces are evidently based on the tendency to improvise, to “play around” on the instrument, without any great degree of structural coherence, and are possibly improvised during performance. It is not always possible to distinguish these four kinds of instrumental music, and some pieces participate in several of the styles. Nevertheless, these are four tendencies which can perhaps form the basis of Cheremis instrumental music.
The instrument best represented in the Četkarev collection is the accordion, in various forms and degrees of complexity. Most of the accordion pieces are in a style which mixes Western European elements with others which are indigenous to Cheremis songs. The accompaniment, for example, is evidently derived entirely from Western music, embodying a tonic-dominant chord progression. The melodies, however, are usually pentatonic with minor thirds and major seconds, for instance Fig. 34. The rhythms tend to be dance-like, vigorous, and simple (Četkarev, p. 259), with the exception of some pieces which make use of complex ornamentation and many unessential tones. The rhythms of the ornamented pieces are characterized by a loose metric structure and a frequent change of meter (5/4 and 6/4, Četkarev, p. 273; 7/8, 5/8, and 4/8, Četkarev, p. 274).
Figure 34
The form of the accordion pieces is most commonly repetitive. A short bit is repeated a number of times, sometimes with slight or even significant changes. One accordion piece (Četkarev, p. 277) is of interest because of its terrace-like contour and its use of transposition, similar to the style of Cheremis songs.
The bagpipe is the other Cheremis instrument capable of producing polyphonic music (Fig. 35). But whereas the accordion is used for polyphony of a Western, urban type, the bagpipe music seems to be in the tradition of Eastern European folk music. In the polyphony, seconds and fifths are common intervals between the voices (Četkarev, p. 280). The melodies tend to consist of short, restricted motifs, and scales of two, three, or four tones (Četkarev, pp. 280, 288, and 291). The rhythm is complex, and meter is often not evident, a style not uncommon in the bagpipe music of Eastern Europe.
The violin, obviously a recent importation among the Cheremis, is represented by two pieces. One is polyphonic (Fig. 36), for the player bowed the open G-string while playing the melody on the others, thus producing a drone. This technique is found in folk fiddleplaying elsewhere in Europe and in the United States. (See Samuel Preston Bayard, Hill Country Tunes, Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, Vol. 39, 1941, pp. xxiv-xxvi.) Fig. 36 is also of interest because it contains an interval not ordinarily used by the Cheremis (nor in most other European folk styles), a 3/4-tone halfway between a minor and major second. The structure of the piece consists of repeating and varying a short musical utterance. The other violin piece (Četkarev, p. 295) conforms to the style of the older songs, being arc-shaped in melodic contour and pentatonic. According to the examples in Nikiforov, much of the music of the string instruments, including the musical bow, is in the principal song style.
Figure 35
Figure 36
Monophonic instrumental music is produced by several wind instruments. The flute is best represented in the collection. The tunes played on the flute tend to conform in style to the songs, with some exceptions. Most of them use the anhemitonic pentatonic scales so characteristic of Cheremis songs, and other song-like elements are also found. Fig. 37, following, has the terrace—contour with transposition; Četkarev, p. 294, has the AABB form; and p. 298 (bottom) has both of these elements. However, some of the tunes are in the rhapsodic, rhythmically complex style, with changes of meter, although in tonal content they are similar to the rest. These are found in Četkarev, on pp. 297, 298 (top), and 299.
Figure 37
The leaf of the bird cherry tree is evidently used as a resonator for humming. The melodies performed on it are those of songs simply taken over, and the example at hand are in the style of Cheremis songs.
The wooden horn is represented by one piece, Fig. 38. Three tones are used, with the scale d-c-a, and these are the basis of a tune in improvised style, without rigid meter or rhythmic structure, and without formal coherence.
Figure 38
Drumming (Fig. 39) is found as an accompaniment to some pieces, and to singing. The drum rhythms are evidently related to those of Eastern Europe. They are simple, making use of short figures repeated without change throughout the piece.
Figure 39
The structure of most of the pieces for three-string fiddle and those for accordion in Smirnov is peculiar and differs from that of the analogous examples in Četkarev. It is similar, on the other hand, to that of the progressive-iterative (? B B B) song form. Associated with dances, the pieces under consideration use pentatonic scales without half-tones and usually consist of an ABA arrangement, each of whose sections in turn consists of the two- or four-fold repetition of a phrase. Fig. 40 has the form A A A A Ba B(2) Ba B(2) A A; Smirnov, No. 89, is 4A 4B 4A; and Smirnov, No. 88, is 4A 4B 2A. The middle section (B) is usually higher than A, and sometimes the two sections are thematically related. Fig. 40, for example, has identical beginnings for A(1) and Ba, and A(2) is identical with A(l) except for a metric dislocation. Smirnov’s instrumental pieces are in duple meter, with two exceptions (one 3/4 and one 5/4 piece). Characteristic also is the juxtaposition of triplets and duplets in several of the items, but otherwise a simple arrangement of rhythmic values, similar to that of the principal style, prevails.
Figure 40
Some of the fiddle pieces are polyphonic, an open string drone accompanying the melody above or below. According to Smirnov, the dances which these pieces accompany tend to follow the musical structure, the steps in part A having the rhythm , and in part B,
.