Armenia · Musical Instrument Making
դուդուկ (Duduk); կիրանափող (Tsiranapogh, "apricot-horn")
The shaping of the duduk, Armenia's double-reed woodwind instrument, from apricot wood aged and dried for twenty to thirty years to achieve the density and stability its characteristic warm, melancholic tone requires — a tradition in which the instrument's body and its double reed, called ghamish or yegheg and cut from cane growing along the Arax River, are historically made by two entirely different specialist craftsmen, each dedicated to their own half of the finished instrument.
Risk level: Vulnerable · Proclaimed by UNESCO in 2005 a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity and inscribed in 2008 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as 'Duduk and its music.' This is a genuine, confirmed UNESCO inscription.
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