The titti ( te, titti, masaka titti, or tutti) is a type of
bagpipe
Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, ...
played in
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...
, India, made from an entire goat-skin.
[Subhash Kak (Louisiana State University). ]
The Indian Epic Song Tradition
'. Presented at The 7th International Conference and Festival of Asian Music, Busan, Korea, Sept 26-Sept 30, 2002. The instrument is described as a goatskin with a double-reed inserted into one leg, and a bamboo blowpipe into the other.
The term ''tittii'' is used in Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.
History
Several paintings possibly depicting bagpipes are shown in Kerala, from the early eighteenth century.
Colonel
James Tod
Lieutenant-Colonel James Tod (20 March 1782 – 18 November 1835) was an officer of the British East India Company and an Oriental scholar. He combined his official role and his amateur interests to create a series of works about the hist ...
(1782–1835 CE) notes that the
Yanadis, a forest tribe in
Madras, also play the bagpipes,
[as do later sources in 1900 describing the Yanadi.]
Usage
The instrument is often used to provide solely a constant drone. References note the instrument being used as a drone accompaniment by storytellers and singers,
as well as for village dance-dramas.
See also
*
Mashak
The mashak (also known as , , , ', ', ', ', '', )'' is a type of bagpipe found in Northern India, Uttarakhand, Sudurpaschim Province (especially Baitadi and Darchula district) of Nepal and parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The pipe was associate ...
, a Northern Indian bagpipe
*
Sruti upanga
The sruti upanga ("drone bagpipe", or bhazana-śruti,Payer, Alois (1944 - ). '. (Materialien zur karnatischen Musik). Fassung vom 2009-05-20. druthi, or nosbug) is a type of bagpipe played in Tamil Nadu, southern India. The instrument was often us ...
, a bagpipe of Tamil Nadu.
References
{{reflist
Bagpipes
Indian musical instruments
Culture of Andhra Pradesh
Culture of Kerala
Telugu people