Gadulka: Bulgarian musical instrument

The gadulka is a traditional Bulgarian bowed string musical instrument. The name of the instrument comes from the root meaning which is “to make noise, buzz or to hum”. The gadulka is a constituent part of the Bulgarian traditional instrumental groups that is commonly played in the context of dance music.

source: en.wikipedia.org

The musical instrument commonly possesses three main strings and sometimes four and up to ten sympathetic resonating strings beneath, but there is a small difference of the instrument in the Dobrudia region with no sympathetic strings of any kind. Only the main melodic strings are moved by the player of the instrument and with his fingers and the strings are never pressed much down to touch the neck. The musical instrument is held vertically while playing it with a bow also held perpendicular in an under-hand hold.

This musical instrument is similar and related to the gudok found in Russia. Another possible origin of the gadulka is suspected to be the lira, the bowed Byzantine instrument of the 9^th century AD and the ancestor of most European bowed musical instruments. Similar instrument has been played continually in the Mediterranean and the Balkan until today.

The body of the instrument as well as the neck is carved out of one piece of wood, the body of the instrument forming a bowl or gourd similar to the lute. The top which is made of straight-grained softwood is also carved with a shallower arch. The total construction of the instrument is quite heavy when compared to a violin. The bridge that is placed between the two roughly D-shaped sound holes has one foot place on the top of the instrument while the other foot rest on the top of the sound post that contacts the inside of the back. The vibration of the string is as such directly moved to both the top and the back of the musical instrument. Different from other stringed musical instruments, there is nothing like nut at the top of the strings as the strings are simply stretched between a tuning peg at the top and the tail piece that is located at the bottom, passing over the bridge or probably through the holes in the sympathetic. The tail piece of the musical instrument is typically produced out of bone and it is secured to the carved projection by short steel wire. The endpin as well assists to hold the bottom of the instrument to a strap that the player is wearing. The strings of the gadulka are of steel and can either be plain in the smaller gauges or wound with steel in the larger ones, sometimes bronze. The strings are guided to the tailpiece by their ball ends.

There are many tuning that are available for the gadulka but the standard tuning of the instrument is A-E-A for the three playing strings while the bridges are tuned chromatically to cover all notes apart from A and E depending on the number of bridges.