A three-holed pipe of the Pipe and tabor ensemble (it is classified as an Aerophone). It is of Provençal origin, and the name probably derives from an Old Provençal verb, galaubar, meaning ‘to play magnificently’. It was used to accompany dancing throughout the Middle Ages. Elsewhere it was known as a flute à trois trous or flûtet, but the term ‘galoubet’ (and its colloquial variant jombarde) came into more general use during the 18th century. The galoubet was made of wood, usually boxwood, and was about 30 cm long with two front holes and a rear thumb-hole. It had a very narrow cylindrical bore, and was pitched in D. The player held it in one hand, while the other hand played a drone instrument such as the Tambourin de Béarn, or a snared drum. Praetorius describes the instrument (which he calls a ‘Schwegel’), and in the 18th century its sound was imitated in sailors' scenes in French opera. Pieces for galoubet by Chateauminois (Oeuvres … pour le galoubet, contenant instructions, mélanges, airs, Paris, n.d.) and Lavallière (Six sonates en duo pour le tambourin avec un violon seul, Paris, n.d.) survive in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and examples of the instrument survive in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
A. Jacquot: Dictionnaire pratique et raisonné des instruments de musique anciens et modernes (Paris, 1886)
D.P. Charlton: Orchestration and Orchestral Practice in Paris, 1789 to 1810 (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1973)
W. Bosmans: Eenhandsfluit en trom in de Lage Landen/The Pipe and Tabor in the Low Countries (Peer, 1991)
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