Gajda

The Macedonian gajda is part a family of closely related instruments found across the Balkan area, including Montenegro, southern Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, northern Greece, Bulgaria, the Turkish Thrace and the eastern plains of Romania (Resta 2018). Historically, it was a rural instrument that was played at festivities and weddings, with repertoire including songs and dances. As its tuning was not standardized, it was mainly played as a solo instrument, or accompanied by a drum (tapan) (ibid.). Since the 1990s, the Macedonian gajda, as well as other North Macedonian folk instruments, have been involved in a folk music revivals and were used by composers to build a sense of national identity (Angelov 2016:215-216).


This instrument was made in 1937 by Veljko Janevic in Skopje, Northern Macedonia. At the time, the territory was under the rule of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, commonly known as Yougoslavia. It features a single melodic pipe (gajdenica) which is typically made out of boxwood, as well as a final extension (rog) made out of horn. This extremity includes the last two holes of the melodic pipe, and is bent at the end, facing away from the musician. The melodic pipe features 7 fingerholes and one thumbhole, as well as a tuning hole on the lower part of the extension. The uppermost fingerhole is of a very small diameter (2mm) and is called the ‘marmorka’. This is used for ornamentation and to play a chromatic scale. The melodic pipe is fitted into a horn stock, which itself is attached to the neck of a goatskin bag. The bag is made out of an entire animal; the lower extremity of the animal hide is tied into a knot with string. The insufflation pipe is fitted into a dark wooden stock. It has a non-return valve, a leather flap inserted into a thin indent in the wood. The drone is fitted into a dark wooden stock and is in three parts, and adorned with dark wooden rings.


This instrument was formerly owned by Božidar Širola (1889 - 1956). Širola was a specialist of Croatian music in the first half of the twentieth century. He was a composer, the curator and director of the Ethnographic Museum, the dean of the Music Academy of Zagreb, and a high school teacher (Brožek 1957). The instrument was part of the New York Public Library collection until 1976, when it was exchanged along with forty-two other instruments and six accompanying items for a collection of sheet music and music books held at the Metropolitan Museum.

(Cassandre Balosso-Bardin, 2023)

Technical description

Single wooden chanter with cylindrical bore, 301 mm including angled, pronged horn bell;
7/1 holes, venthole in bell, top hole is "flea hole", usually with quill projecting across bore into thumbhole;

Single downcut cane reed: 1 drone in 3 sections (752 mm);

Reed similar to chanters;

Insufflation pipe (125 mm) with leather flapper valve;

Kidskin bag, with forelegs holding drone and blowpipe and neck holding chanter;

Blowpipe and drone stocks of grooved dark wood, conical horn chanter stock;

Pines of light turned wood, grooved and mounted with horn bands.


References

Angelov, Goranco, 2016.　‘Traditional musical instruments used in strengthening the national identity of the Macedonian people since 1989’.　In: Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe, Myth, Ritual, Post-1989, Audiovisual Ethnographies. Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria: South-West University "Neofit Rilski", 215-221.

Brožek, Josef, 1957. Božidar Širola.　Journal of the International Folk Music Council,　9, 77-77.

Resta, Fabio, 2018. ‘Macedonian Gajda – history, style and techniques’. In: Chanter (Winter).