Vladimirskiy rozhok

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The vladimirskiy rozhok (Владимирский Рожок) is an ancient Russian musical instrument made of wood.

The mentioning about ensemble playing the rozhok refers to 1600s that allow establishing the tradition of the rozhok play to much earlier time. It is possible that the name rozhok was fixed for the instrument later and that in the earliest written sources it is hidden under the name “pipe”.

A rozhok is a conical straight tube with the five playing holes on the top of it and one - below. At the low end is a small bell at the top the pasted in mouthpiece. The total length of a rozhok ranges from 320 to 830 mm. A mouthpiece is cut in the form of a small cap and the lower end of the tube is in the form of a conic bell.

A rozhok is usually made of birch, maple and juniper. Musicians say that rozhoks of juniper have the best sounding. In the past they were made in the same manner as shepherd's rozhoks, that is of two halves fastened with birch bark; today they are turned.

The sound of a rozhok is strong, but mellow. It is a rather difficult instrument to make sound. The range of a rozhok is little more than an octave. There are 2 types of rozhoks: for solo and for group playing.

An ensemble variety of an instrument is called among people vizgunok (squeaker) and bas (bass). They are always tuned up in close harmony and have a maximum and minimum possible size. For solo playing it is usually used a medium-sized instrument. So called polubasok (half-bass) belongs to this type.

Rozhok’s folk-tunes are divided into four stylistic varieties: signal, song, dancing and dance. Repertoire of folk-tunes is really wide. There are several types of shepherd’s signals and even more of others. The main repertoire is song folk-tunes.

A rozhok has different names – “shepherd’s”, “Russian”, “song”. The name “Vladimir” was acquired relatively recently; at the end of 1800s in the success that had the performance of the chorus of rozhok-players under the baton of Nikolai Vasilyevich Kondratyev from Vladimir region.