Local musician Harley Gittleman introduced Sedona listeners to a key piece of traditional music-making during his “Whispers of Antiquity” presentation at the Sedona Public Library on Saturday, June 22, with his demonstration of the Armenian duduk — pronounced du-DOOK — the world’s oldest double-reed wind instrument.

“It is extremely important to the heritage of the Armenians,” Gittleman said, describing the tone of the instrument as “soothing,” “inward-looking” and “a little bit of a party.”

One member of the audience compared its sound to that of a saxophone, and the color of the duduk’s sound does indeed resemble the mellowness of the tenor sax, albeit with a stronger possible drone. It also has the same tendency to squeak at the upper end of its range that the sax does, requiring careful attention from the player, which is necessary in any event given the instrument’s simplicity.

“It’s very limited in terms of technological advancement compared to Western instruments,” Gittleman explained.

A Reed Instrument

Like a recorder or American Indian flute, the recorder uses finger-holes rather than keys for changing pitch, although, as a reed instrument, it can more closely be compared to the medieval shawm, likely a descendant of the duduk and the progenitor of the modern oboe. This simplicity can actually be an advantage to a knowledgeable player, who can use it to produce effects impossible on keyed instruments, including slides and continuous vibrato.

“You have whole tones, half tones, quarter tones that you can create depending on how you finger the holes, and that becomes an essential part of Armenian musical culture, because they’re using different scale patterns than we do in the west,” Gittleman said of how the duduk lends itself to variety and flexibility. He opened the afternoon with some loosely-structured improvisation of his own, which he called the bigger prize than sticking to any scale, before moving on to selections from jazz, spirituals and his own compositions as well as folk songs.

One point that the duduk does have in common with many western woodwinds, however, is the dreaded reed.

“The reeds are extremely temperamental,” Gittleman said. “They’re subject to all kind of weather conditions that make it a challenge to know if it’s going to work for you at the time that you need it to.

“Many duduk players will have 30 or 40 reeds in their collection, ’cause you never know how it’s going to end up responding on the day that you want to play it.”

Made from Apricot Wood

While the body of the duduk is made from apricot wood, the reed is, as is usual in wind instruments, made from cane. “It’s processed for years in different weather conditions to have that resonance,” Gittleman told his listeners.

In Armenia, the instruments and reeds are traditionally made by different craftsmen who are specialists in each field. Since the duduk is a non-tempered instrument, it also incorporates a sliding ring to clamp the reed and keep the instrument in tune.

As with other end-blown wind instruments, the duduk can be constructed with a fixed tonal center.

“For every single key, there is a duduk,” Gittleman said.

He demonstrated two different duduks in the keys of A and C, and noted that he currently has a bass duduk on order from Armenia.

“On this instrument, you have about an octave and a third max. That’s it,” Gittleman continued. “When you are limited in range, there are other ways that you can make up for that, and that’s what the musician brings to the mix. The musician has to know how to use those things, those particular ornaments in the right place, in order to make the instrument sound more enhancing to the ear of a listener … You’ve got to use all of the embellishments that are available.”

Gittleman further observed that playing the duduk requires a lot of air and a lot of mouth movement: “It has to come from the diaphragm, it has to come from the internalizing of whatever the musician brings to the instrument … on a duduk, you’re keeping the air in your jaws, and your jaws control that vibrato, and it becomes very, very instrumental in how the duduk sounds apart from other instruments.”

Armenia and Turkey

Although considered a significant part of Armenia’s cultural heritage, the duduk is also heard often in neighboring Turkey, where Gittleman first encountered it while traveling and was inspired by “the idea of playing something very unique.”

A jazz player with a background in several other instruments, he proceeded to teach himself duduk and continues to incorporate it in his own compositions, using it “as part of the palette,” including in a pastoral, Renaissance-tinged number titled “The Village Fountain.” He pointed out that it has been widely adopted in India as well, where duduk players use raga scale patterns in their playing, and throughout the Middle East, where it is a common accompaniment to the recitation of poetry.

“It has been used to complement not only the poem itself, but when you add the duduk in the background, it gives atmosphere that perhaps provides context for the poem when the musician is receptive to picking up cues that are in the poem and playing based on those cues,” Gittleman said. “Quite a lot of the poetry you hear coming out of the Middle East accompanied by the duduk, as well as in Armenia, has a lot to do with the Sufi poets, mystics, that are very much a part of what the duduk can do … you have Hafiz, you have Rumi, you have various different mystics of that tradition.”

He demonstrated by accompanying a recitation of Hafiz’s 14th-century poem “Laughter,” a set of verses that describe God coming out from behind a cloud and a sensual battle of mouths and tongues.

The duduk’s very differences from Western instruments, Gittleman reflected, “create a sort of allure.”