{"id":6955,"date":"2021-03-13T17:24:59","date_gmt":"2021-03-13T23:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/?p=6955"},"modified":"2021-03-13T17:24:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-13T23:24:59","slug":"susiputimai-bagpiper-blowouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/susiputimai-bagpiper-blowouts\/","title":{"rendered":"Susipu\u0304timai: Bagpiper Blowouts"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gvidas Kove\u0307ra<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

About 1968, more and more students became interested in the old heritage of our country and ethnographic expeditions were organized. Their purpose was to collect surviving traditions, examples, stories, songs and dances. People formed groups to play traditional folk music. During the period of Soviet occupation from 1945 to 1990 the communist regime supported \u201cthe art of folk\u201d by professionally distorting reality and selecting works that were considered suitable for their ideology. Folk art and dance ensembles like \u201cNemunas\u201d, \u201cLietuva\u201d and \u201cRasa\u201d were established and supported for this purpose. However, the movement of true folklore enthusiasts that started in 1968 was the beginning of an authentic ethnic music revival. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Participants in an earlier susipu\u0304timas of bagpipers held at Vilkija. (photo: A. Morku\u0304nas)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some people tried to make bagpipes, but in most cases these attempts were not successful and there were no experienced makers who could make a good-sounding instrument. In 1987, a jazz musician, Skirmantas Sasnauskas, got together with a craftsman to successfully construct a bagpipe which was then used in jazz compositions. He still plays this particular instrument in concert. <\/span><\/p>\n

I first acquired my own bagpipe in 1999. I bought it from bagpipe master Todar Ka\u017ekurevic\u030c from Belarus and started playing it in my apartment. Of course my neighbor heard the playing and came to listen… After listening to me he told a story about him visiting Labanoras, a small village in Lithuania, in 1970. This was the place where he heard a \u201c<\/span>Labanoro du\u0304da”\u00a0 <\/i><\/span>(Labanoras pipe) being played by a priest. This aroused my interest and after some time I went to that village and started asking local people about that pipe and, after several years, came across the instrument at the \u0160venc\u030cionys museum. That was the beginning of my interest in the history of this instrument in Lithuania. My friend Todar Ka\u017ekurevic\u030c and I visited all the museums in Lithuania that had bagpipes. We took pictures of these instruments and measured them. In all we found twelve examples, not all of them well preserved. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Bagpiper (and member of the Lithuanian armed forces) Juozas Slaboda from Marijampole\u0307. (photo: V. Suslavic\u030cius)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We have had many discussions with bagpipe makers about the role of the bagpipe in life today. Our intention was to recreate this instrument, which has a place not only in our mythology but also in our rituals. Over time, people started to invite us to play bagpipe at their baptisms, weddings, and funerals, but the instrument did not find a place in popular music. <\/span><\/p>\n

A breakthrough happened in 2004 when the CD \u201cSilence of Labanoras\u201d was recorded together with Lithuanian jazz star Petras Vy\u0161niauskas. The recording was made inside a 300 year old house, which now is a museum (of Antanas and Jonas Ju\u0161ka). The space gave the recording a peculiar sound and special mood. The music was free improvisation based on folk melodies. After the release of this album we were asked to perform in some of Lithuania\u2019s largest cities, including the international festival \u201cKaunas Jazz,\u201d part of the Europe Jazz Network and a concert venue that features highly valued jazz stars from all around the world. This was strange music, but more and more people wanted to start playing bagpipes. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Bagpipes can also be used to play modern music and jazz. (photo: M. Petrauskas)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For seven years Todar Ka\u017ekurevic\u030c made bagpipes and it was his only source of income at the time. There are now some new craftsmen who are trying to make bagpipes, though as yet their results are not very promising. In Lithuania some musicians play Latvian bagpipes, but in general people who want to play pipes rely on instruments supplied by makers from Belarus such as Dzianis Sukhi and Todar Ka\u017ekurevic\u030c. Dzianis and Todar create instruments based on museum examples while adding their own improvements in construction and materials. Also, they have to consider which pitch to make the instrument in. Bagpipes in the key of either D or G, with one or three drones (bourdons), are the most popular today and play with a fully opened fingering system. However, in old recordings we often hear musicians playing pipes pitched in the key of A. <\/span><\/p>\n

In 2008, I invited bagpipers from Lithuania to the the first gathering of pipers. It is difficult to translate the title of this event; we call it <\/span>susipu\u0304timas <\/i><\/span>in Lithuanian; in English it would be something like \u201cbagpiper blowout.\u201d This unusual event is like a festival for bagpipers: participants listen to each other playing and share their experiences. If there is a possibility, I invite bagpipe makers from all European countries. Till now we have had participants from Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Slovakia, Sweden, and Croatia. The makers talk about their instruments and demonstrate how they tune them and play their traditional music. We also organize two public concerts for the audience. As Lithuanian bagpiping was on the edge of extinction, these are the methods being employed to try and raise interest amongst the people, restore the traditions and develop a taste for this musical genre.Today there are more than one hundred instruments in Lithuania, though not all of them are in a proper condition to be played. Bagpipe music is now often performed on radio and can be heard during various ceremonies and festivals. <\/span><\/p>\n

There have been seven of these <\/span>susipu\u0304timai <\/i><\/span>over the past 12 years. The most recent was held in 2019. Videos of these gatherings can be enjoyed at www.dudmaisis.lt\/events.php<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gvidas Kove\u0307ra. About 1968, more and more students became interested in the old heritage of our country and ethnographic expeditions were organized. Their purpose was to collect surviving traditions, examples, stories, songs and dances. People formed groups to play traditional folk music. During the period of Soviet occupation from 1945 to 1990 the communist …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,66,67],"tags":[245],"class_list":["post-6955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-culture","category-folk-songs-dance","category-music","tag-kovera-g"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6959,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955\/revisions\/6959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}