Duda

Duda

The Hungarian duda (also known as tömlősíp and bőrduda) is the traditional bagpipe of Hungary. It is an example of a group of bagpipes called Medio-Carparthian bagpipes.Accounts are conflicting regarding the exact form of the Hungarian bagpipe. Cocks describes it as similar to the Bulgarian one which has a chanter and a bass drone but no tenor drone. Baines (pp. 77-79) gives Hungary as one of the countries possessing the duda, which has this construction, also a Hungarian bagpipe with a diple (i.e., twin-bore) chanter, one bore of which gives a variable drone, the bag pipe having a bass drone in addition. Robert Bright in Travels through Lower Hungary(1818), quoted by Flood (p. 79), describes the Hungarian bagpipe as having two drones and a chanter of square section (in other worlds the Dudelsack). Fraser (p. 243) has a picture of a Hungarian bagpipe with one chanter and one drone of medium length, probably a bass drone. It seems possible that all these forms of the instrument may be in use.

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