The Sampognaro

My source for this illo claims the musical instrument depicted is called a "sampognaro." Yet googling reveals no such creature.

Who can help?

     Posted By: Paul - Wed Jul 08, 2020
     Category: Music





Comments
I know nothing other than Sampognaro is a last name and a lot of instruments were eponyms (including lots of instruments that never really caught on). Saxophone, Sousaphone, Martenot and Theremin are eponyms the come immediately to mind but there are more (Moog?).
Posted by Floormaster Squeeze on 07/08/20 at 07:10 AM
alternate spelling of the Zampogna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zampogna
Posted by mjol on 07/08/20 at 07:45 AM
And here is what they sound like. Interesting really.
Tarantella Zampogna a chiave di Peppe Ranieri e Carlo Martorano https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxYD-cKaHD0
Posted by eddi on 07/08/20 at 08:31 AM
Before I read the other comments, my initial reaction to the picture was that it looked like a form of bagpipes, and the man's clothing middle-eastern. Bagpipes originated in Turkey, and spread out from there to other parts of the world, and now are most well-known as a Scottish instrument.
Posted by Patrick on 07/08/20 at 08:35 AM
Wow! I am thrilled--but not totally surprised--that members of the WU community so quickly solved this mystery, even with clips of the instrument in action. WU-vies are the smartest and best people! Many thanks, to Mjol and Eddi in particular!
Posted by Paul on 07/08/20 at 11:01 AM
The Wikipedia article has a video as well. It's shorter but just as repetitive.
Posted by ges on 07/08/20 at 01:09 PM
@Patrick - it's a bit of a stretch to say that they were invented in Turkey. Certainly a very early reference is found in Hittite works, in what is now called Turkey, but... A. it wasn't called Turkey then, and the Turks themselves then lived hundreds or thousands of miles away; B. the Hittites, meanwhile, were Indo-Europeans (thus, more related to you, me, Peter the Great and Gandhi than to the Turks), and C. other examples of bagpipes have been found all over the Near East, and later all over Europe.
Posted by Richard Bos on 07/11/20 at 09:04 AM
One point of clarification: The Hittites who lived, long ago, in what is now Turkey, are of no relation to the Biblical Hittites (B'nai Het). The latter were likely Semitic Canaanites.
Posted by Joshua Zev Levin, Ph.D. on 07/19/20 at 11:35 AM
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