Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by sean an piobaire »

Thank You Ortrune !
I understand your answers very well, and I'm glad to know that there is activity in
the Sorb Bagpiping Community towards reviving the Mechawka for the Wedding Train and Table,
(Hochzeit Zug= literally a "High Time Train"). This is Very Good News, as a History Enthusiast,
I am very much in favor of any Bagpipe Revival that can recapture the sounds of the Olden Times,
by studying and making reproductions of the Old Instruments that were played in those Times.
In an ongoing "Living Tradition", such as the case with your Sorb Bagpipes, I think the revival of the
Mechawka, extends and augments this Living Tradition by giving even more opportunity for Pipers
to play in many more different situations, especially with such a quiet set of Pipes at a Dinner Table.
I know that the word "Stimme" refers to the Fact that the "Rohrblatt" Reed is not playing the
correct Pitch, in and of itself, in order to Play all the notes of the Chanter (Pfeife) Scale.
Nor is the Reed playing at the proper Pressure, so Not to Worry !!! Your Pipe Makers will work it out !!!
Stimme is part of the German word for Voice (Stimmer) but here in English, I believe it means Pitch.
The word Rohrblatt is interesting when taken apart:
Rohr=a Hollow Tube or Stem. It's interesting that the English word "ROAR" (a loud sound) is Brullen [with umlauts]
in German and not ROHR which is pronounced the same as "Roar". A good example of a false Cognate !!!
A Blatt=Leaf (or Sheet), and various kinds of Leaves are folded in half and Blown to make a buzzing sound
in many parts of the world. Could this refer to the "Tongue" of the Reed (Michael ? Kelten-Pastor?).
Now.....On to my comment on Nemeth Miklos' obsevations.........
I think the "Mittel-alter-Post-Punk-Heavy-Metal-Doom-and-Gloom Music" of Groups like Corvus Corax etc.
are OUR Young People establishing their own Gemeinschaft to cope with the exhausted, and messed up
Gesellschaften (as in GmbH) of the Global Economy, which we all know, is in such trouble now.
Please note that I'm trying to use the terms Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft in the looser sense of
Ferdinand Tonnies, and not the "ideal" opposition of Max Weber.
I do worry about the overtones and whiffs of Neo-Nazi Social Protest, inside much of this "Movement"....
so get out there and talk to these Young People.... play your Pipes to them and get them interested in the
"real" Folk Music. I am struck by how much of this Mittelalter Heavy Metal Music IS informed by real Medieval Music,
and also the Breton Grande Biniou and Bombarde Music. I think some of it "Plays like (William) Shakespeare"
in comparison to the Heavy Metal Bands, here in the USA, which are informed so much, by our
Good Old Blues Music.
OK Enough Said.....it's LATE in the Night, or EARLY in the Morning.....Sleepless in Carmel Valley.....
Sean Folsom
Ortrune
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by Ortrune »

Im not sure if you know it, but the plant reed is in german Schilf or Schilfrohr. It looks like a tube. And reeds are made of reeds, so its a thin sheet of Schilfrohr.
In our english lesson it was called "false friend".
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by MichaelLoos »

Now here's today's little lesson of German (and English bagpipe terminology for Ortrune):
the noun "Stimme" means voice. The verb "stimmen" means being right (es stimmt > this is correct). It also refers to an instrument being in tune as well as on pitch.
Sean, you are perfectly right about the "Rohr". This word can also be used synonymously for "cane". In the north of Germany the word "Reet" (pronounced like "rate") is common for cane.
Ortrune, in piping English the plant as well as the material (Schilf) is always referred to as "cane" whereas "reed" is always the tone generator (das Rohrblatt).
"Rohrblatt" in fact means every type of reed although double reed players call their reeds in short "Rohr" while single reed players prefer the word "Blatt".
In German, there is a verb "röhren" which means pretty much the same as "roar" but in most cases refers to the belling of the male stag.
I can't remember having heard of the "false friend" in my English lessons, but the last lesson I had 30 years ago so maybe my memory is misleading me. Until now, I thought the "false friend" had to do with substantial flatulence....
Edited to add: sorry for being off-topic!
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by sean an piobaire »

I fell asleep for awhile, with the computer on, I got up to shut it off ,touched the pad and noticed
your posts, Ortrune, and Michael. Well...Ich stimmt ( I voice it) meaning "I agree" and that was the way
I heard it around Heilbron am Neckar, just up the river from Stuttgart, in Good Old Swabia.
Now for my funny part, which I think I have posted before, and now somewhere deep in the C&F archives.....
It's important to be able to say in all the Bagpiper's languages,
"My Reed doesn't work !" in English, then, en Francais "L'Anche, il ne marche pas !".
Perhaps in German it could be "Meine Rohrblatt ist Kaput ?"
In Espanol: "Mi paletta estan finita".....and so on....come on my C&F masters of many languages....
hummmmmmm ? Turning off the Computer NOW !!!
Sean
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by Yuri »

" Nem megy a sipom..." (in Hungarian)
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by Celtpastor »

Back on thread (I know, that's boring, sorry... ;-) ).
I'm afraid, the Meachawka as we imagine it is not really appropriate for tablemusic - unless the table is a pubtable! :D Dur to the somewhat harsher sound of the singlereed and the relatively high pitch, even though the chanter has a cylindrical bore, the sound is pretty shrill (though lovely... :) ), the impression of noise may be comparable to - maybe Borderpipes..?
On the other hand - historical chanters found in Germany worked fine with as well single- as doublereeds (like the Huemmelchen). Considering as well, that at least my Mulitanky gives a good scale with open as well as closed fingering, it might be imaginable, that, even though usually Slavic pipes have exclusively single-chanterreeds, the Sorbic Mechawka MIGHT, through German (Huemmelchen)-influence, MIGHT have had a double-chanterreed, thus giving the mellow tone of modern German Dudeys (perfect for tablemusic). We simply don't know, since there are no pictures, let alone instruments of the Mechawka surviving... :cry:
@Ortrune: "Sackpfeifen in Schwaben", 15.-18.Oktober (mein Geburtstag :love: ) in Balingen, die kuriosesten trad. Pipes aus aller Welt - und tolles Essen und Schwarzbier! :thumbsup:
Dilige et, quod vis, fac!
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by MichaelLoos »

Celtpastor wrote:MIGHT have had a double-chanterreed, thus giving the mellow tone of modern German Dudeys (perfect for tablemusic).
Given the chanter bore of 5.5 - 6 mm, the tone even with a double reed will most probably be NOT mellow....
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by Celtpastor »

So...rather Pub-Tables..? :lol:
Or maybe we're thinking into a completely wrong direction! :-?
Since there's no description at all, the only thing we know about the Mechawka, is:
a) The Sorbs played it
b) at whatever kind of tables
c) around the 1790ies, and it's
d) smaller than a Mechawa, but somehow similar (thus the name).
Now - what, if it really WAS a small Mechawa, maybe with a narrower bore as well - not unlike some of the smaller, mellower Bohemian-type pipes Juro offers as well? :really:
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by Yuri »

The diameter of the bore is not everything. I have made two chanters in the past, both 8mm bore, parallel, both riding on single reeds, both chromatic fingering. (I seem to be stuck on chromatic fingering.) Well, the sound is very different. One is really mellow, the other harder than a loud Bulgarian Gajda. The difference is in the actual reeds. The first is using off-the shelf clarinet reeds. (Yes, the whole lot. It's far wider than anything I ever heard of in bagpipes) The second one is much more in line with normal bagpipe reeds, the tongue is very narrow. Both are composite reeds, as in a separate body with the reed tied on. The difference is really enormous.
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by sean an piobaire »

All these Posts are..... Wunderbar !!!! Thank You All !
So Herr Kelten Pastor, what is the Scale on your Mulitanky ?
Does it have a complete Octave ?
Are there any missing notes at the Top of the Scale ?
Does it cross finger any Sharps and Flats ?
Thanks in Advance, Reverend !
Sean
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by Celtpastor »

Well Sean - it's one of Juro's masterpieces, so it's for sure NOT really traditional. :D
Though it looks very trad: trad. sewn leatherbag, trad. droneposition, plumwood, horn-mouthpiece, trad. brassrings/fittings with trad. patterns engraved - alltogether 24 of them! Juro called this instrument "Lord of the rings" - I changed that, due to my first name, into "Cord of the rings" ;-) Valve and all 4 reeds are plastic. It's in G, scale ranges from F'-G'', most semitones are playable, not through crossfingering but through 2nd thumbhole. The reeds stay in tune incredibly well - if I wasn't able to play for a couple of weeks, no re-tuning is necessary, and they also don't react in any way to changing pressure. Technically, this is truly one of the best instruments I have in my collection - and Juro's prices are unbeatable (and at the moment, he's generally THE man for most types of Eastern-European pipes - Slovak, Hungarian, Bohemian, Polish, with or without bellows - he makes them all!)... Considering the sound - the dronearrangement is (octave, 3rd, 5th), where it fits, absolutely beautiful, and since You can switch them off separately with little plugs, and even easily change from 5th to 4th, You can play absolutely anything on that set. The sound is not unlike Saeckpipa - Juro assured me, with a cane-chanterreed it would be somewhat mellower, but I didn't try yet. I'd love to try, though, if it might work with a doublereed as well.
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by Ortrune »

I asked our oldes bagpipe played, who was one of the founders of our ensemble 30 years ago, and he had never heared of MechawKa before, too :(
I will ask my bagpipe teacher in the next week. I think he will know more about that.
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by Ortrune »

[ Thread revival ]

Push :)
Hi there. Two years ago, we already talk about sorbish Bagpipes.

1. Are there any Mechawka Makers and/or Mechawka Pipers in the Sorb community ?

Meanwhile I ordered a "Mechawka" (actually a Mulitanky) from Juraj Dufek (http://www.bagpipes.sk/historical-bagpi ... itanky.php). But I modified it a bit,so it will be bellow-blown, with the bellows at the right side. The Chanter will be Tuned in A, the 3 drones will be a, e', a'.
Tomasz Nawka also has a Dreibrümmchen made by Pavel Cip. The tuning is the same as mine will be.
Jens Güntzel now makes Mechawkas (also Mechawas and Kozols) (http://www.dudelsackwerkstatt.de/64-0-boecke.html). So he (and his staff) has to play it, too.

2. Is there any Music for the Mechawka (Drucken oder Handschrift) ?

Tomasz Nawka refered me to the book from Rezny (Der sorbische Dudelsack), you already mentioned above.
There are also Songbooks with traditional sorbian songs, but not really notes for Mechawka.

3. What was the Scale of the Chanter, and the Tuning of the Drones ?

Afaik there where no players of the mechawka at least the last hundred year in our region (Schleife). So there is a revival of these instruments now.
The only information we have, are these from the book of Rezny.

4. If the Sorb Pipers and Pipe Makers have not revived this Instrument, why Not ?

As I mentioned above Jens güntzel revived the instrument meanwhile. The problemis, that there are not really Pipe makers for srobian bagpipes.As I already told, Karl Tillich makes Kozols, he learned it some decades ago from polish pipe makers (bacause nobody here was able to do it, I think it could have been the same time when french bagpipes and mediaval bagpipes become popular in (East)Germany, so there where no bagpipe makes before). Our mechawa is the only one I know, he build (there maybe more!). Older instruments where made by the few players itself or inherited (the pipe of Hans Schuster should be made in 1798 [Rezny, p. 146]).
As a already mentioned, maybe many people did not know about the mechawka until Rezny told about it in his book. It wasnt common anymore.
This would also explain the regional differences. We are playing the Kozol in F, too. And with an open fingering (similar to a flute or clarinet). This also may be, because Karl Tillich is actually a clarinet player. He sayes, it would be easier to play with an open fingering then with an closed-fingering. So maybe other players/builders also modified the instument/fingering. Here was not a big tradition with bagpipe schools or big groups, there were only a few players, which may have played as they wanted ;)
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Re: Sorbish/ Wendish Bagpipes.... especially the Mechawa

Post by sean an piobaire »

This is great news Ortrune ! I am very happy to hear about your Mechawka / Multitanky revival !
I think any Sorbish Song within an Octave (plus the lead tone) could be accompanied by these Pipes.
If some of these Pipes can play with your Mechawa-Kozols in the key of F so much the better, to have the
possibility of a Musical Duet with an "F" Mulitanky and an "F" MECHAWA !
I wish You Ortrune, and all of Your Piping Friends,
the Very Best of Luck !!!
Sean Folsom
in California
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