Balalaika

From Music-Web Encyclopedia

One of the best known members of the traditional lute family from Central Asia is the balalaika, an instrument which has a distinctive, triangular shaped body. Characteristically, they also have a long thin neck and a single circular or patterned sound hole in their bodies. Some models have two strings, but most have three made from string or gut which are tuned to intervals of a fourth, and plucked with a pick (or plectrum). There are at least six sizes of balalaika, each standardized by a Russian musician, Andreyev, in the late 1800s.

Most scholars agree that the balalaika is an offspring of the Eastern tanbur (dating back at least to the 1600s) and the round-bodied Russian domra , a three-stringed mandolin. No longer exclusively a folk instrument, balalaika have become increasingly popular among contemporary eastern European musicians during the past century. Their often virtuousic, rapidly strummed sound has also been evoked in Russian art music as composed by Sokolovsky, Dargomizhsky, Balakirev and Stravinsky.

The traditional significance of the balalaika continues to live among Siberian communities who associate this instrument with forest spiritual beings who love music and assist hunters.