The Armenian Duduk
April 25th 2007 02:22
A short while ago, an Armenian friend of mine asked me if I could learn to play the duduk for a possible work he was writing. After spending a little bit of time with the duduk, I thought I might post some of my impressions and what I've learned of this unique and curious instrument.
The duduk is a double reed instrument(like the oboe and bassoon) but has a much larger reed than both of these instruments. As such, it requires a great deal of lung capacity to play uninterrupted phrases on it, and players of traditional orchestral instruments may be surprised initially at the resistance offered by this small instrument. It is almost always played with vibrato, and the design of the instrument lends itself well to both lip and finger portamentos. These are a characteristic feature of much music for the duduk. It is also interesting to note that like clarinets, there is an extended family of duduks in all ranges. In recent times, the characteristic expressive, moan like sound of the duduk has seen its way into movies such as The Last Temptation of Christ, Syriana, and Gladiator.
The reed doubles as the mouthpiece for the duduk, like on all double reed instruments. Unlike the oboe and bassoon however, there is an absolutely massive variation between some of the reeds used, and the pitch of the instrument can be significantly changed by using a reed with a larger resonating chamber. The tips of the reed are also interestingly large - all orchestral instruments which use reeds have reeds that thin out to nothing at their tip, but the tips of the duduk's reed are very solid, measuring at 1mm or even more! Due to this, the reeds tend to last a bit longer than with traditional western instruments, and this thickness also helps give the duduk its traditional stuffy and thick sound. Reeds also come with a small wooden clip which is placed around the reed at a point chosen by the player. This changes the dimensions of the resonating chamber of the reed, and by doing so both acts as a tuning mechanism and as a limit on how much a note can be bent.
While the origins of the instrument go back thousands of years, the modern Armenian duduk is generally tuned to a diatonic major scale, and has a range of about an octave(this can be slightly expanded at the edges through extreme lip control). Chromatic notes are achieved either through lip bending or a variety of cross fingerings and half holing. The requirements for extra finger techniques to play chromatically and in tune are reminiscent of similar practices required of Western wind instruments around the 18th century.
If you wish to find out more about this instrument, the wikipedia article has some external links, and a quick search on youtube will turn up a great deal of videos of duduk playing.
The duduk is a double reed instrument(like the oboe and bassoon) but has a much larger reed than both of these instruments. As such, it requires a great deal of lung capacity to play uninterrupted phrases on it, and players of traditional orchestral instruments may be surprised initially at the resistance offered by this small instrument. It is almost always played with vibrato, and the design of the instrument lends itself well to both lip and finger portamentos. These are a characteristic feature of much music for the duduk. It is also interesting to note that like clarinets, there is an extended family of duduks in all ranges. In recent times, the characteristic expressive, moan like sound of the duduk has seen its way into movies such as The Last Temptation of Christ, Syriana, and Gladiator.
The author's duduk - a clarinet reed is included on the left for scale.
While the origins of the instrument go back thousands of years, the modern Armenian duduk is generally tuned to a diatonic major scale, and has a range of about an octave(this can be slightly expanded at the edges through extreme lip control). Chromatic notes are achieved either through lip bending or a variety of cross fingerings and half holing. The requirements for extra finger techniques to play chromatically and in tune are reminiscent of similar practices required of Western wind instruments around the 18th century.
If you wish to find out more about this instrument, the wikipedia article has some external links, and a quick search on youtube will turn up a great deal of videos of duduk playing.
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