devil’s fiddle

Local name: diabelskie skrzypce (devil's fiddle)
Classification: 3 Chordophones / 32 Composite chordophones / 32-21-4 Composite chordophones sounded by scraping and beating the string
Maker: Kuczkowski Łukasz
Date: 2009
Village / Town: Warsaw
Region: Mazovia
Country: Poland
Owner: The State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw
Inventory number: PME/2/KZ/1-2
Description: a wooden box with a heart-shaped opening is attached to a wooden stick, topped with a head; one string is supported by a triangular bridge (with the top cut); the string and the body is struck with a wooden club. In such instruments (appearing mostly in the Kurpie region) it is possible to change the string's tension by turning the knob where the upper end of the string is fixed
Materials: wood
Sound compass, tuning: undetermined
Performance practice: a music tool used to make the so-called ritual noise; nowadays used as a percussion instrument in some regions
Catalog card by: Zbigniew J. Przerembski


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