Sorna

The sornā or Sarnā (Persian: سورنا، سُرنا‎ sornā, also سورنای، سُرنای sornāy, also Surna and Zurna) is an ancient Iranian woodwind instrument.

Sorna
Classification Double reed
Related instruments
For Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, see Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.
For the administrative subdivision of Iran, see Sorna District.
Sorna, Ancient Persian/Iranian woodwind musical instrument.

Etymology

The word sorna is a Pahlavi derivative of sūrnāy (literally "strong flute"), which is a compand of 'sūr-' (strong) and '-nāy' (flute).[1] Possibly it was called "strong flute" due to its double-reed-construction rather than usual nāy, which was made of a single tube of cane. Also it is suggested that the first part of word of sorna, is from sūr- again from Pahlavi and New-Persian, meaning the "banquet, meal and feast", thus the "banquet-flute".[2]

It is also suggested that "Sorna" is a cognate of "Horn", as "Sorna" simply means horn. This is a result of the Centum-Satem isogloss, and later Grimm's Law. Even in Persian there is another wind instrument whose name appears to be a cognate of both "Sorna" and "Horn", called "Karna" (کرنا); this may stem from a re-borrowing from another language.

History

The instrument's history dates back to the Achaemenid Dynasty (550-330 BCE), and was used to play at the end of the day from the city gate or from the local administration building. This custom persisted in England until the 19th century, the town waits playing shawms to mark the hours. The instrument was mainly played in outdoors in regional music of Iran in the festive ceremonies (the Persian poet Molana Rumi mentioned the sorna and dohol in his poems).

The Achaemenid sorna was a large trumpet-like instrument, but in later dates was reduced in size, and became more like (shrill oboe), or dozale (double oboe), which is characterized by a turned wood body of simple shape, with a heavily flared bell. The earlier was categorized as a trumpet, but this was a mistaken idea based on the bell of the oboe and the freeblowing embouchure that often gives a superficial resemblance to a brass embouchure, particularly if the oboe is fitted as so many are with a lip ring.[3]

According to the Shahnameh, it was King Jamshid who devised the Sornā.[4] Except the literary evidences, there are also number of artefacts from Sasanian dynasty (224-651 CE), depicting Sorna, such a silver dish, currently in Hermitage Museum.[5]

Function

A small amount of air is forced under pressure through a small metal tube called the staple which serves to hold the reed and match it to the bore. This requires the player to make sure, as in oboe playing, that one also empties the lungs of stale air when taking a new breath.

Often sornas were played in pairs, with a melody and a drone player. This drone may move to different notes during a piece of music, changing at prescribed places in the composition.

Several other names, such as dohol, davul, tavel, and so on have been applied to the sorna. Since dohol is a double-faced drum sometimes it is called do-rūyeh in Persian language, in contrast to ghaval and daf, which are yek-rūyeh (one-faced).

Popularity

The Sorna is mostly played in Loristan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Kurdistan, Sistan and Baluchestan Province and Iranian Azerbaijan.

In Loristan, Sorna is used as a main instrument during wedding ceremonies and also funeral ceremonies (which is called Chamaryounah). Sorna almost always is accompanied with dohol in this region.

In the region of Sistan and Baluchestan, sorna is mostly used in wedding ceremonies and other celebration. The instrument is always accompanied by dohol and sometimes may include traditional dance by forming a circle.

gollark: Hmm, so, designoidal idea:- files have the following metadata: filename, last modified time, maybe permissions (I may not actually need this), size, checksum, flags (in case I need this later; probably just compression format?)- each version of a file in an archive has this metadata in front of it- when all the files in some set of data are archived, a header gets written to the end with all the file metadata plus positions- when backup is rerun, the system™ just checks the last modified time of everything and sees if its local copies are newer, and if so appends them to the end; when it is done a new header is added containing all the files- when a backup needs to be extracted, it just reads the end and decompresses stuff at the right offset
gollark: I don't know what you mean "dofs", data offsets?
gollark: Well, this will of course be rustaceous.
gollark: So that makes sense.
gollark: I do want this to be able to allow just appending extra new versions of files to an archive for backup purposes, see.

See also

References
  1. MacKenzie, D. N., A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary, London (1971), p. 78 ISBN 0-19-713559-5.
  2. MacKenzie, D. N., A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary, London (1971), p. 78 ISBN 0-19-713559-5.
  3. Pope, U., "An Outline History of Persian Music and Musical Theory", in Survey of Persian Art, Vol. VI, pp. 2783-2804.
  4. Pope, U., "An Outline History of Persian Music and Musical Theory", in Survey of Persian Art, Vol. VI, p. 2784.
  5. Farmer, H. G., Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments, 2nd ser., London (1926), pp. 69-86.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.