Crowdy-crawn

Crowdy-crawn
Percussion instrument
Classification percussion
Hornbostel–Sachs classification
(Membranophone)
Related instruments
Drum, Bodhrán

A crowdy-crawn is a wooden hoop covered with sheepskin used as a percussion instrument known in western Cornwall at least as early as 1880.[1] It is similar to the Irish bodhrán.[2] It is used by some modern Cornish traditional music groups as a solo or accompaniment instrument.[3][4] The name is sometimes shortened to "crowd."[5]

The crowdy-crawn is said to have started out as a tool for gathering grain;[1] the term is derived from the Cornish "croder croghen," literally "skin sieve."[6][7] When not in use in the field, it was used to store odds and ends in the dwelling.[8] The term is also used modernly to describe a gathering of people for Cornish cultural storytelling, lace-making, quilting, spinning and similar activities.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b Margaret Ann Courtney and Thomas Quiller Couch. 1880. Glossary of Words in Use in Cornwall. London: The English Dialect Society, Trübner & Co., 1880, p. 16. Accessed at http://www.archive.org/details/glossarywordsin00quilgoog, September 11, 2011.
  2. ^ Tony Upton: Tony's Celtic Music Pages, http://tonyupton.tripod.com/cornwall.html, page last modified: Wednesday, 25-Oct-2006.
  3. ^ Cumpas -- Cornish Music Projects: Crowders, http://www.cumpas.co.uk/education/crowders.php, 29 Sep 2006.
  4. ^ Cornwall24 E-magazine, http://www.cornwall24.net/, n.d. (accessed September 11, 2011).
  5. ^ William Bottrell: Stories and Folk-lore of West Cornwall, Third Series; Penzance: F. Rodda, 1880, p. 18: "...some of the merry company ... beat up the time on a "crowd" (sieve-rind with a sheepskin bottom, used for taking corn, flour, etc.)..."
  6. ^ Mervyn Davey. 1978. "Cornish Music" in Carn quarterly periodical in English and Celtic Languages published by the Celtic League, Issue No. 24, Winter 1978, p. 19 — accessible at http://www.celticleague.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Carn%2024%20Winter%201978.pdf.
  7. ^ June Skinner Sawyers. 2000. Celtic Music: A Complete Guide; From Ancient Roots to Modern Performers: The Music of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Beyond. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, p. 17.
  8. ^ Robert Morton Nance: Old Cornwall Journal, No.5 (April 1927): "In old country house-keeping in West Cornwall, odd things, all worth saving, but for which no special place on the wall, shelf, chimney board, or dresser was provided, were tidied away into the "crowdy-crawn"; a sieve-rind with a bottom of stretched sheep-skin, serving on occasion also as a tambourine for dancers, but originally meant as a corn-measure, Cornish croder-croghen,"skin-sieve". This title seems just to fit Old Cornwall's repository of odds-and-ends."
  9. ^ Wisconsin Historical Society: Pendarvis Historic Site Events Calendar, http://pendarvis.wisconsinhistory.org/Events/EventDetail/Event189.aspx, n.d. (accessed September 11, 2011).
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