Re: kobza

[Seth Austen <seth...>]

on 1/12/01 2:19 PM, Paul M. Gifford at PGIFFORD (at) flint(dot)umich(dot)edu 
wrote:

Hi Paul,

> It's tuned like a mandolin, the G
> course being tuned two octaves apart, the D and A an octave apart,
> and the E course in unison.

Does it have a similar scale length to a mandolin, or is it much longer like
a bouzouki to accomodate the low bass notes? Wow, two octaves between a pair
of strings in a course! This is the first time I've heard of that in all the
different varieties of mandolin family instruments that I play. Well, that
certainly does start to explain where all that sound was coming from on the
recordings I've heard.


> Nicolae's father played it, so he knew the
> basics---it's traditionally played with a goose quill, the point cut
> and folded back and tied with string. I bought a live goose and
> eventually used the feathers up. However, a flat pick probably works
> better. 

The goose quill explains that nice flapping quality to the strummed sound.
I'd think that it would be hard to duplicate that sound with a plastic pick,
but, on the other hand, you don't see too many goose around New Hampshire.

> Mine looks to be about 60-70 years old. I don't know about
> currently made instruments. It is virtually extinct in parts of
> Romania, but I guess some non-Gypsies in Moldavia or Bucovina use it,
> including even some women singers. In southeastern Romania it was
> strictly an instrument for lautari. When in play, the hand is at a
> right angle to the forearm. The Romanian spelling is "cobza"; the
> Ukrainian "kobza," formerly used by the gentry there, is obsolete. In
> Moldova, the cobzas used in the ensembles in the pictures I've seen
> are "modernized," with a flat back, and have a different sound. The
> article by I. Kara at the Di Naye Kapelle website mentions Jewish use
> in the past. In the southeast, they usually play *tiituri*
> (accompaniment patterns) on it, the same as the t,ambal. For some
> reason, the soloists on record seem to like to play geamparalele in
> 7/8 as solos. So I'd say go to Bucharest and contact Strimbeanu,
> maybe by going to the musicians' *bursa* at the restaurant
> in Cismigiu Park Thursdays around 2 to 5 in the afternoon (where
> people come to hire them for weddings), or whenever it is, and tell
> them Haliciumba sent you. It probably wouldn't be hard to find one,
> since they have them and no longer use them.
> 

Thanks for all the information. I've heard from a couple of other folks on
the list with some information on getting o hold of an instrument. Perhaps a
little trip to eastern Europe will happen soon.

All the best,

Seth

-- 
Seth Austen

http://www.sethausten.com
email; seth (at) sethausten(dot)com


"Music is far, far older than our species. It is tens of millions of years
old, and the fact that animals as wildly divergent as whales, humans and
birds come out with similar laws for what they compose suggests to me that
there are a finite number of musical sounds that will entertain the
vertebrate brain." 

              Roger Payne, president of Ocean Alliance, quoted in NY Times

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