A kontra is a
Hungarian ( hu, háromhúros brácsa, 'three-stringed viola'),
Czech,
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
,
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
**Romanian cuisine, traditional ...
,
Slovak and
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
instrument common in
Transylvania.
Construction
The ''kontra'' can be constructed new, but is most often classical
viola which has undergone several organological changes, for example, thinning ("regraduating") the top, back, and sides to increase the amplitude, and flattening the bridge, which allows the player to sound all three strings at once in order to produce chords. In addition, unlike the viola, they are only strung with three strings.
Tuning
The ''kontra'' is tuned like a viola, though lacking its low c string: g – d' – a' and frequently the a' string is replaced with a second g string tuned to a, a major second above the g, in a form of re-entrant tuning.
Technique
Due to the flattened bridge, the standard method of play is to play
double stops and
three-note chords and let the
fiddle
A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...
play melody lines.
Ensemble playing
The ''kontra'' has a defined role within dance band music. Its range lies between that of the
fiddle
A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...
or ''
Vioara cu goarnă'' on the high-end and the
double bass on the low-end. Many Hungarian and Romanian bands also feature the
cimbalom or ''
citera'',
clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound.
Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...
,
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
, and ''
Ütőgardon
The ütőgardon also called a gardon, gardony, ütősgardony, tekenyőgardon, is a folk musical instrument played in regions of Transylvania and Hungary. It is similar in appearance to a cello, but it is played percussively: instead of using a bo ...
'' or
cello.
See also
*
Music of Hungary
*
Music of Romania
*
Music of Slovakia
The music of Slovakia has been influenced both by the county's native Slovak peoples and the music of neighbouring regions. Whilst there are traces of pre-historic musical instruments, the country has a rich heritage of folk music and mediaeval ...
*''
Vioara cu goarnă''
References
{{Hungarian Folk Music
String instruments
Romanian musical instruments