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A kemenche is a kind of lyra from the Black Sea region of Asia Minor (Pontus) and is also known as the "Kementche of Laz". It is the main instrument used in Pontian music. It is a bottle-shaped, 3-stringed fiddle played in the upright position. It is sometimes played by resting it on the knee when sitting, and sometimes it is held out in front. A kemenche is a bowed instrument, the bow is called Doksar. Its small light weight design allows it to be held up for a long time and in some cases the musician would follow the first dancer around (even dance as well). This is mainly due to the not-so-loud sound of the lyra. Pontic kemenche Most folk fiddles ranging from Southeasten Europe to the Indian sub-continent are played by the lateral pressure of the finger nails of the player’s hand against the strings with the instrument generally being beld facing outwards. Exceptions to this are some ‘primitive’ fiddles played by ligt pressure of the pads of the fingers upon the strings as is also done with some lyras which have the third or even the second string positioned in such a way so as not to allow the easy insertion of the finger between the strings and the spike fiddles, and there are those lyras whose strings are depressed onto the neck of the instrument by the player’s finger pads in the way violin strings are pressed such as an unusual type of Dodecanesian lyra with four strings, the large Cappadocian kemanes, and the kemenche. It may be that the old dancing master’s kit or pochette fiddle one form of which outwardly resembles the Pontic lyra, was adapted and developed later in isolation in Pontos led to the present form of kemenche. On the other hand, the kemenche may be result of the natural development of an instrument which had, at once time, an elongated water gourd for its body. Compare the from south Afghina with the kemenche/Pontic lyra. The center of lyra playing activity seems to have been the district of Trabzon and the contiguos areas of the districts to the west and east of it as well as to the south, Giresun , Rize, and Gümüşhane whose main town was Arghyrόpolis. As one moves west past Tirebolu towards Kerasounta/Giresun, the number of lyra players begins to decrease and the lute as well as the violin (keman) and tambourine (tef) begin playing a more important rple in Pontic music. Further west into the districts of the Kotyora/Ordu and before reaching the town of Samsun the lyra has virtually diasappeared so that Bafra, whose inhabitants were Turkish speaking Pontics, one finds the violin (kemane), the clarinet(gırnata), lute (Ud), and bass drum (davul) as the main musical instruments, Sinope/Sinop and its environs is not usually considered in recent tradition. Moving east of Trabzon, the picture is much the same. After Rize, the kemenche being facing competition from the bagpipes (Pontic dankiyo/tulum))
Tuning The lyra usually has three strings which have several tunings. Common tunings include: a-a-d, e-a-d, and many others in 4ths (the strings are of 2 octaves ... La, Mi, Ci). Since the instrument was often played alone, the tuning was often done according to the preference of the musician and his voice's range. The musicians usually play two or all three strings at the same time, utilizing the open string(s) as a sort of drone to the melody. Sometimes they play the melody on two strings at once, giving a primitive harmony in fourths. They tend to play with many trills and embellishments, and with the unusual harmonies. Old strings were made from dried entrails but now metal strings are used (guitar and violin) Reference Özhan Öztürk (2005). Karadeniz (Black Sea): Ansiklopedik Sözlük (Enyclopedic Dictionary). 2 Cilt (2 Volumes). Heyamola Yayıncılık. İstanbul. ISBN 975-6121-00-9 Petrides, Th. "Traditional Pontic dances accompanied by the Pontic lyra" (www.karalahana.com)
Links Article about the Pontic kemenche from the famous virtuoso Th. Petrides Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org"
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