The sipsi () is a

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 ...

-like,

single-reed instrument 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 o ...

used mainly in

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

and native to the Aegean region of

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

and

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. The word ''sipsi'' is possibly

onomatopoeic Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...

. In ancient Greece, it was known as kalamavlos (καλάμαυλος), meaning cane-flute. The sipsi can be made of bone, wood, or

reed Reed or Reeds may refer to: Science, technology, biology, and medicine * Reed bird (disambiguation) * Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times * Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales * ...

, though the reed variant is most common. Its size varies from region to region, but it generally contains five finger holes in the front, and one finger hole in the back. The sipsi is one of many reed instruments in Turkey used to play lead melodies in instrumental folk music. It is generally played in the Western part in the

Aegean Region The Aegean Region () is one of the 7 Geographical regions of Turkey, geographical regions of Turkey. The largest city in the region is İzmir. Other big cities are Manisa, Aydın, Denizli, Muğla, Afyonkarahisar and Kütahya. Located in w ...

of Turkey. Most folk tunes played in this area with the sipsi are in 9/8

time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

Playing

The

timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or musical tone, tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voice ...

of the sipsi is similar to that of the Irish bagpipe. Players of the sipsi employ the

circular breathing Circular breathing is a technique used by players of some wind instruments to produce a continuous tone without interruption. It is accomplished by breathing through the nose while simultaneously pushing air through the mouth using air stored ...

method, in which air is breathed through the nose while it is being pumped out of stored air in the cheeks. This breathing method is used to form an uninterrupted sound. To tune the sipsi, one must wrap a thread around the bottom of the reed, which is placed into the main body of the instrument. Adjusting the reed with the string is the way to tune. The instrument's range is greater than its six finger holes would suggest, the upper registers can be attained by particular approach to breathing.

Playing

See also

References

Further reading