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Pungi
The pungi (Hindi: पुंगी, ur, پُنگیپُنگی, Burmese: ပုန်ဂိ), originates from the Indian subcontinent. The instrument consists of a reservoir into which air is blown and then channelled into two reed pipes. It is played with no pauses, as the player employs circular breathing. In street performances, the pungi is used for snake charming. History The pungi is an Indian folk music instrument that is mostly played by cobra charmers in Sindh, Pakistan, and Rajasthan, India. The instrument is made from a dry hollowed gourd with two bamboo attachments. It is also a double-reed instrument. The pungi is played by Jogi in the Thar desert. It was theorized that it was made not just for snake charming, but to make people enter a half-conscious state as part of a religious practice. It is in particular played by snake charmers, mostly in the Terai and Nepal, to arouse snakes to dance. The instrument has a high, thin tone and continuous low humming. It ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snake Charming
Snake charming is the practice of appearing to hypnotize a snake (often a cobra) by playing and waving around an instrument called a pungi. A typical performance may also include handling the snakes or performing other seemingly dangerous acts, as well as other street performance staples, like juggling and sleight of hand. The practice was historically the profession of some tribesmen in India well into the 20th century but snake charming declined rapidly after the government banned the practice in 1972. Snake-charmer performances still happen in other Asian nations such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia. The tradition is also practiced in North African countries of Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. Ancient Egypt was home to one form of snake charming, though the practice as it exists today likely arose in India. It eventually spread throughout Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Despite a sort of golden age in the 20th century, snake ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indian Musical Instruments
Indian musical instruments can be broadly classified according to the Hornbostel–Sachs system into four categories: chordophones (string instruments), aerophones (wind instruments), membranophones (drums) and idiophones (non-drum percussion instruments). Chordophones Plucked strings Bowed strings * Chikara * Dhantara * Dilruba * Ektara violin * Esraj * Kamaicha * Kingri (string instrument) * Mayuri Vina or Taus * Onavillu * Behala (violin type) * Pena (musical instrument) * Pinaka vina * Pulluvan Veena - one stringed violin * Ravanahatha * Sarangi * Classical Sarangi * Sarinda * Tar Shehnai * Villu Paatu - arched bow instrument + Behala - Bengal Murshidabad Violin Persian "Behaaleh" (Restless) Other string instruments * Gethu or Jhallari – struck tanpura * Gubguba or Jamuku (khamak) * Pulluvan kutam * Santoor – Hammered dulcimer Aerophones Single reed *Pepa *Pungi or Been Double reed * Kuzhal * Mukhavina * Nadaswaram * Shehnai * Sundari * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thar Desert
The Thar Desert, also known as the Great Indian Desert, is an arid region in the north-western part of the Subcontinent that covers an area of and forms a natural boundary between India and Pakistan. It is the world's 20th-largest desert, and the world's 9th-largest hot subtropical desert. About 85% of the Thar Desert is in India, and about 15% is in Pakistan. The Thar Desert is about 4.56% of the total geographical area of India. More than 60% of the desert lies in the Indian state of Rajasthan; the portion in India also extends into Gujarat, Punjab, and Haryana. The portion in Pakistan extends into the provinces of Sindh and Punjab (the portion in the latter province is referred to as the Cholistan Desert). History of desertification Ice-age desertification During the Last Glacial Maximum 20,000 before present, an approximately ice sheet covered the Tibetan Plateau, See chapter entitled: "Reconstruction of an approximately complete Quaternary Tibetan Inland Glaci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hulusi
The ''hulusi'' (traditional: 葫蘆絲; simplified: 葫 芦 丝; pinyin: húlúsī), also known as the cucurbit flute and the gourd flute is a free reed wind instrument from China, Vietnam and the Shan State and by the indigenous people of Assam. It is held vertically and has three bamboo pipes that pass through a Calabash gourd wind chest; the center pipe has finger holes and the outer two are typically drone pipes. It is not uncommon for a ''hulusi'' to have only one drone pipe while the second outer pipe is merely ornamental. The drone pipe has a finger hole which allows it to be stopped. Advanced configurations have keyed finger holes similar to a clarinet or oboe, which can greatly extend the range of the ''hulusi'' to several octaves. The ''hulusi'' was originally used primarily in the Shan State of Myanmar, Yunnan province and Assam by a number of ethnic-minority groups, in particular the Dai people who call the instrument "pi lamtao" (筚朗叨 – the word "pi" mea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wildlife Protection Act, 1972
The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted for protection of plants and animal species. Before 1972, India had only five designated national parks. Among other reforms, the Act established scheduled protected plant and hunting certain animal species or harvesting these species was largely outlawed. The Act provides for the protection of wild animals, birds and plants; and for matters connected therewith or ancillary or incidental thereto. It extends to the whole of India. It has six schedules which give varying degrees of protectionSchedule Iand part II oprovide absolute protection - offences under these are prescribed the highest penalties. Species listed ianare also protected, but the penalties are much lower. Animals unde e.g. common crows, fruit bats, rats and mice, are legally considered vermin and may be hunted freely. The specified endemic plants iare prohibited from cultivation and planting. The hunting to the Enforcement autho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melody
A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively, the term can include other musical elements such as tonal color. It is the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or part need not be a foreground melody. Melodies often consist of one or more musical phrases or motifs, and are usually repeated throughout a composition in various forms. Melodies may also be described by their melodic motion or the pitches or the intervals between pitches (predominantly conjunct or disjunct or with further restrictions), pitch range, tension and release, continuity and coherence, cadence, and shape. Function and elements Johann Philipp Kirnberger argued: The Norwegian composer Marcus Paus has argued: Given the many and varied e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mijwiz
The ''mijwiz'' ( ar, , DIN: ''miǧwiz'') is a traditional Middle East musical instrument popular in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Its name in Arabic means "dual," because of its consisting of two, short, bamboo pipes with reed tips put together, making the mijwiz a double-pipe, single-reed woodwind instrument. Background The mijwiz consists of two pipes of equal length; each pipe has around five or six small holes for fingering. It requires a special playing technique known as "circular breathing," which is tricky but produces a continuous tone, without pausing to take a breath. The mijwiz is played in the Levant as an accompaniment to either belly dancing or dabke, the folkloric line dance of the Levant. The mijwiz is most popular today in the Levant (Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Many popular folk songs either include the mijwiz on recordings, or include the instrument's name in the song's lyrics. One example is the famous Lebanese dabke song "Jeeb el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single Reed
A single-reed instrument is a woodwind instrument that uses only one reed to produce sound. The very earliest single-reed instruments were documented in ancient Egypt, as well as the Middle East, Greece, and the Roman Empire. The earliest types of single-reed instruments used idioglottal reeds, where the vibrating reed is a tongue cut and shaped on the tube of cane. Much later, single-reed instruments started using heteroglottal reeds, where a reed is cut and separated from the tube of cane and attached to a mouthpiece of some sort. By contrast, in a double reed instrument (such as the oboe and bassoon), there is no mouthpiece; the two parts of the reed vibrate against one another. Reeds are traditionally made of cane and produce sound when air is blown across or through them. The type of instruments that use a single reed are clarinets and saxophone. The timbre of a single and double reed instrument is related to the harmonic series caused by the shape of the corpus. E.g. the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region of China China–Nepal border, to the north, and India India–Nepal border, in the south, east, and west, while it is narrowly separated from Bangladesh by the Siliguri Corridor, and from Bhutan by the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Sikkim. Nepal has a Geography of Nepal, diverse geography, including Terai, fertile plains, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the world's ten List of highest mountains#List, tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Nepal is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural state, with Nepali langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terai
, image =Terai nepal.jpg , image_size = , image_alt = , caption =Aerial view of Terai plains near Biratnagar, Nepal , map = , map_size = , map_alt = , map_caption = , biogeographic_realm = Indomalayan realm , global200 = Terai-Duar savanna and grasslands , countries =Nepal, India , elevation = , soil = alluvial , rivers = Sharda River, Karnali River, Gandaki River, Koshi River , climate = tropical savanna climate , animals = gharial, mugger crocodile, king cobra , bird_species = Bengal florican, lesser adjutant, swamp francolin, white-rumped vulture, Oriental darter, sarus crane , mammal_species = Indian rhinoceros, Asian elephant, gaur, blackbuck, tiger, leopard, jungle cat, fishing cat, leopard cat, smooth-coated otter, large Indian civet, Asian palm civet, small Indian civet, hispid hare , biome = , border = , borders = , area = , region_type = , coordinates = , geology = , conservation = , habitat_loss = , habitat_loss_ref = , protected = , protected_ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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