Forgot to mention, Re: kobza

[Owen Davidson <owend...>]

Oh, one other little thing.  I know I've mentioned it before.

According to Lulla Rosenfeld, the famed actor David Kessler played the instument
in his childhood:

"This David Kessler was the son of a Kishinev innkeeper, a dour, pious man with
a houseful of children and no money to feed them.  Since the innkeeper's son had
no turn for books, he was sent out as a peddler on the Kishinev streets.  There
he was called "Dovidl-with-the-Kobze" because he sang his wares, accompanying
himself on a kobze, a kind of beggar's guitar."  (Lulla Rosenfeld, _Bright Star
of Exile_, pp77-78)

I hope I have encouraged you to seek out the experts.



Seth Austen wrote:

> 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 Ukrainian "kobza," formerly used by the gentry there, is obsolete.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
>

--
Owen Davidson
Amherst  Mass
Repair, Construction and Design of Musical Instruments

The Angel that presided oer my birth
Said Little creature formd of Joy & Mirth
Go Love without the help of any King on Earth

Wm. Blake


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