I have a few notes on the Turkish folk clarinet called the "sipsi"
on my website: http://www.campin.me.uk/Music/Sipsi/ .  Last night
a friend of mine (actually the guy in the photo there) told me he'd
come across a reference to a similar Welsh instrument with almost
the same name.

Interesting because the area of Turkey where the sipsi is most played
is the part of western Anatolia where the Galatian Celts settled.
The word can't be natively Turkish; I'd guessed it might have been
Greek but don't know enough Greek to check.  Geographically and
historically it would make more sense for it to be of Celtic origin
than to have been adopted from the same source by both the Turks and
the Welsh.

Comments from Welsh speakers/musicians?

==== j a c k  at  c a m p i n . m e . u k  ===  <http://www.campin.me.uk> ====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557
CD-ROMs and free stuff:  Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

Jack Campin - bogus address wrote:
> I have a few notes on the Turkish folk clarinet called the "sipsi"
> on my website: http://www.campin.me.uk/Music/Sipsi/ .  Last night
> a friend of mine (actually the guy in the photo there) told me he'd
> come across a reference to a similar Welsh instrument with almost
> the same name.
> 
> Interesting because the area of Turkey where the sipsi is most played
> is the part of western Anatolia where the Galatian Celts settled.
> The word can't be natively Turkish; I'd guessed it might have been
> Greek but don't know enough Greek to check.  Geographically and
> historically it would make more sense for it to be of Celtic origin
> than to have been adopted from the same source by both the Turks and
> the Welsh.
> 
> Comments from Welsh speakers/musicians?


Only that the instrument maker in Bodrum who sold me my 'dilli kaval' 
called the small pipe instruments, one of which I think I might have 
given you, sipsi. I don't have one left myself as the sound was er, not 
condusive to domestic harmony...

The 'duduk' word for pipe occurs Armenian, Bulgarian, and was on the 
boxes for my Romanian wooden pipes (made, I suspect, in Bulgaria). 
Meaning totally different instruments. The 'gaita' root for bagpipes 
occurs all over the place from Spain to the Caucasus with variations.

Migrating Celts is one possibility, but how about travelling musicians, 
at a later era, for all these words which get spread around? Any early 
tunebook shows how widespread so-called Moorish dances (not Morris 
dances) or tunes were 400-500 years ago, and gypsies had a reputation as 
musicians (still do in the Eastern countries).

So maybe a word could have spread around 1500 years after Galatean 
settlement. The sipsi looks exactly like the sort of small pipe that 
travelling folk made for sale at fairs - find the reeds or bamboo on the 
road, cut and make up the instruments as you go. I got two Indian six 
hole wooden whistles, very crudely made and marked A and G, for £2 each 
from Treefest Inverleith Park in 2006 - perfectly in tune as marked.

I have an Egyptian item like a double sipsi purchased in the street 
market in Luxor (demonstrated by a vendor who stuck each example in his 
mouth to show how well it worked, then spat copiously into the dust 
before handing me it to try... I'm afraid I just pointed to an un-tested 
one which looked OK and said 'THAT ONE, and I don't want to hear it...')

Sterlised before use on return, but I probably paid twice the true value 
just to get it quickly before he had a chance to demonstrate.

David

>> I have a few notes on the Turkish folk clarinet called the "sipsi"
>> on my website: http://www.campin.me.uk/Music/Sipsi/ .  Last night
>> a friend of mine (actually the guy in the photo there) told me he'd
>> come across a reference to a similar Welsh instrument with almost
>> the same name.
>> Interesting because the area of Turkey where the sipsi is most played
>> is the part of western Anatolia where the Galatian Celts settled.
> Migrating Celts is one possibility, but how about travelling musicians, 
> at a later era, for all these words which get spread around? Any early 
> tunebook shows how widespread so-called Moorish dances (not Morris 
> dances) or tunes were 400-500 years ago, and gypsies had a reputation
> as musicians (still do in the Eastern countries).

What would decide it would be an etymology.  The word doesn't have one
in Turkish - the point of posting to scw was to ask if it had a Celtic
derivation.

If the Gypsies were essentially involved, the distribution of the
instrument should be different - you don't find it in the parts of
Turkey with the largest Gypsy populations, nor in the Balkans, central
Europe or Spain.  (A Romany derivation would be decisive, though).

It has one oddity of design - the thumbhole is the highest hole, as
in the Western recorder or Scottish bagpipe chanter.  In the Turkish
kaval and mey, the highest hole is that for the first finger of the
upper hand, with the thumbhole second.  There's no ergonomic or
acoustic reason for deciding on one way or the other - it's the sort
of thing that results from the inertia of tradition (switching between
the two types of hole layout is confusing to a player).  It's another
pointer to a non-Turkish origin for it.

==== j a c k  at  c a m p i n . m e . u k  ===  <http://www.campin.me.uk> ====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557
CD-ROMs and free stuff:  Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

"Jack Campin - bogus address"  wrote in message
news:bogus-E35677.10254609052008@news.news.demon.net...
> I have a few notes on the Turkish folk clarinet called the "sipsi"
> on my website: http://www.campin.me.uk/Music/Sipsi/ .  Last night
> a friend of mine (actually the guy in the photo there) told me he'd
> come across a reference to a similar Welsh instrument with almost
> the same name.
>
> Interesting because the area of Turkey where the sipsi is most played
> is the part of western Anatolia where the Galatian Celts settled.
> The word can't be natively Turkish; I'd guessed it might have been
> Greek but don't know enough Greek to check.  Geographically and
> historically it would make more sense for it to be of Celtic origin
> than to have been adopted from the same source by both the Turks and
> the Welsh.
>
> Comments from Welsh speakers/musicians?
>
> ==== j a c k  at  c a m p i n . m e . u k  ===  <http://www.campin.me.uk>
====
> Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739
557
> CD-ROMs and free stuff:  Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic
fonts

Do you mean the "pibgorn" ?

>> I have a few notes on the Turkish folk clarinet called the "sipsi"
>> on my website: http://www.campin.me.uk/Music/Sipsi/ .  Last night
>> a friend of mine (actually the guy in the photo there) told me he'd
>> come across a reference to a similar Welsh instrument with almost
>> the same name.
> Do you mean the "pibgorn" ?

No - the pibgorn is much bigger and louder, though it works on a similar
principle.  The Turkish equivalent of the pibgorn is the zurna.  It's a
more widely distributed and better-documented instrument than the sipsi.

==== j a c k  at  c a m p i n . m e . u k  ===  <http://www.campin.me.uk> ====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557
CD-ROMs and free stuff:  Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts