- Gudok
Infobox Instrument
name=Gudok
names= Hudok
names=HS#:321.32-71
classification=
*Bowed string instrument
range=
related=
*Gadulka
*Rebab
*Kamancheh
*Kemenche
*Kobyz
*Hudok
*Cretan lira A "gudok" (also "hudok"; Russian and Ukrainian: гудок) is an ancient Eastern Slavic string
musical instrument , which was played with a bow. A "gudok" usually had three strings, with two of them tuned inunison , and the third tuned a fifth higher. All three strings were in the same plane at the bridge, so that a bow could make them all sound simultaneously (unlike aviolin , where only 2 strings can be played at once). Sometimes the gudok also had severalsympathetic strings (up to eight) under the soundboard. These made the gudok's sound warm and rich. The nearest relative to the gudok is theBulgaria ngadulka .The player held the gudok on his lap, like a
cello orviola da gamba . It was also possible to play the gudok while standing and even while dancing, which made it popular amongskomorokh s. Initially in the 12th century (and probably before), the gudok was played usingharmonics only, without pressing strings onto the instrument's neck. Later in the 14th century some modifications of the gudok had a real neck for pressing strings. This modification was not very useful, however, since the shape of this instrument was rather specific. A real fingerboard was an obvious borrowing from thefiddle .The gudok ceased to exist as a folk instrument for several centuries. Nobody except Russian folk bands played them. Moreover, all present instruments are replicas, based on several parts of gudoks found in the
Novgorod excavations.There have been several attempts to revive the gudok in music.
Borodin 's operaPrince Igor contains a "Gudok Player's Song", which is an artistic reconstruction of how the gudok may have sounded. In practice, the instrument is used with modernviolin s andviola s.ee also
*
Gadulka
*Gusle
*Rebab
*Kamancheh
*Kemenche
*The lyra of Crete
*Kobyz External links
* [http://soros.novgorod.ru/projects/Toolkit/music/2.mp3 Sound sample]
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