Trembits were used by the inhabitants of Transcarpathia as a kind of means of communication. This is an analog of mobile communications of the past. The sound of this instrument in mountains it is distributed over a distance of tens of kilometers. Played on trembits shepherds, who gathered flocks of sheep for grazing. There were also Christmas carols and trembits. Also, the signal trembita announced the death of.
These days, there are very few people who produce trembits left, although the technology of their production quite simple. From the trunk of a spruce or larch, the billet is cut out and allowed to dry the wood for a year. Then it is sawed lengthwise into two parts and the core is hollowed out. The thinner the walls of the instrument, the better it sounds. Then the prepared halves are tied together with birch bark. For convenience, they make collapsible instruments, but they sound worse. The largest of the trembita reach a length of four meters. The trembit was even noted in the Guinness book of world records as the world’s longest woodwind instrument.
Today can hardly be found in the meadows pestovnikov the sound of the trembita. As a rule, trembits are played during big holidays or festivals’or at the reception of important guests from the capital.
Similar to the wind instrument, but smaller in length is the inhabitants of the Alpine mountains-the so-called Alphorn. Unlike the trembita, it is held down, not up.
There are several versions of the origin of the name trembita. According to one of them, the name of the tool comes from the way it is used. In order to play it, you must not just blow the air, but make sure to make a kind of trembling of the lips. The more skilful such manipulations are, the stronger the sound of the trembita will be. According to another version, once upon a time three brothers lived in the mountains Hutsuls, who inherited a huge flock of sheep. They were not experienced shepherds, so they lost many sheep in the first few days. In desperation, they turned to a folk master and asked him to make a musical instrument that could be heard throughout the valley. They hoped to use this instrument to coordinate their actions in the mountains while grazing sheep. The master agreed, found a fir tree in the forest that had recently been struck by lightning, and made a trembit from it, which was named after the three brothers. Since then, the sound of real thunder it sounds in Hutsul it has become an integral part of the local color.
