The Mazanki is a type of Slavic folk musical instrument that belongs to a group of

idiophone An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself, without the use of air flow (as with aerophones), strings (chordophones), membranes (membranophones) or electricity ( electrophones) ...

s or

string instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the ...

s. They were particularly popular in regions of Poland

Greater Poland Greater Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska (; german: Großpolen, sv, Storpolen, la, Polonia Maior), is a Polish historical regions, historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief and largest city is Poznań followed ...

and in Lubusz Land and usually used along with

bagpipes 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, No ...

and/or

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...

. By the 20th century it was replaced by the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

Construction

The Mazanki is similar in shape to the

, with the difference that it is smaller and has 3 or 5 strings that are tuned in fourths. The body and the neck are made of one piece of wood, and the soundboard is slightly raised. The bridge is the most characteristic element of the instrument as one of its feet is longer than the other and going through the E-whole in the top it touches the bottom of the instrument and in this way replaces the sound post.

Technique for playing

The sound producing technique is also a little different from the modern violin technique. the performer, instead of using a regular bow, moves the strings with a tight rubber band tied to the ends of a wooden stick. To make the rubber band less slippery folk musicians will sometimes rub it with regular rosin or with a substance made of white flour mixed with honey and chopped walnuts.

References

{{Polish musical instruments Polish folklore Idiophones