Hungarian duda : Hungary musical instrument

The Hungarian duda is the traditional musical bagpipe of Hungary. It is an example of a group of bagpipe musical instruments known as Medio-Carparthian bagpipes.

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source of picture: passiondiscs.co.uk

Different stories exist about the exact form of the musical instrument. Cocks describes the musical instrument as analogous to the Bulgarian one that has chanter and a bass drone but no tenor drone. Baines gives Hungary as one of the countries having the duda that has this construction, also a Hungarian bagpipe with a diple chanter, one bore that gives a variable drone, the bagpipe having an additional bass drone.

The most characteristic feature of the Magyar duda is the double-bored chanter on it. One chanter bore, the dallamsip, performs the melody within an octave range. The second chanter, the kontrasip or kontra possesses a single finger hole and the sounds either the lowest note on the melody pipe or drops to the maximum.

The Hungarian piping is characterized by use of the kontra to provide rhythmic accompaniment and also to differ the sound of the drone. The melody pipe has a ‘flea hole’, a general feature in the eastern bagpipe musical instruments: the top hole on the chanter is very thin and uncovering the hole makes it to raise the pitch of the any other note by approximately a semitone, making the bagpipe musical instrument largely chromatic over its range. In some historic examples, the Magyar duda was tuned using a neutral third and sixth and the flea hole of the instrument was filled in the wax.

There is a considerable difference in the appearance of the Hungarian duda, but the most common form of the musical instrument has a chanter stock that is in the form of an animal’s head and a cow horn bell on both the kontra and the drone of the instrument. Historically, the musical instrument was usually manufactured from the skin of a dog, but in the modern days, the musical instrument is commonly manufactured with the skin of a goat.

Other versions of the musical instrument especially the ones that are being played along the borders of Croatia and Slovakia, have as many as four chanter pipes. In these examples, one hand of the performer plays the dominant through the octave on one pipe while the other hand of the player performs the tonic through the subdominant on another. If the fourth pipe of the instrument is added it is a stopped pipe that has a thumb hole that sounds the octave when it is being uncovered.

The Hungarian bagpiping is known in its styling by hiccupping, use of high notes to perfect lower notes, producing a characteristic rhythmic squeaking while the musical instrument is being performed. The playing pattern has greatly influenced certain genres of the fiddle music in Hungary, and also characterized early church organ music in the country: before the introduction of organs in the country, the duda musical instrument had been used as an accompaniment instrument to hymnody in most churches. 

Up till the 1920s, the duda was the primary musical instrument that is used at celebrations in much Hungary. As the economy of the country improved and the pastoral lifestyle of the people declined in essence, the lone piper at the country ball or wedding was increasingly discarded by professional Gypsy bands that performed an urban repertoire on more complex and more capable musical instruments. The Hungarian bagpipe musical instrument was essentially dead except in small pockets by the 1950s but was recovered as part of the Hungarian folk revival and today, the musical instrument is still very crucial among the folk bands of the country and their fans.

As the case was in the Europe, the musical bagpipe instrument was linked with shepherds and a pastoral lifestyle, and the instrument was usually performed in the Christmas scenes to awake the shepherds of the nativity. At the same time, the musical instrument was linked with the pagan lifestyle of the countryside.