Re: JEWISH-MUSIC digest 1779

[Paul M. Gifford <pgifford...>]

On      Fri, 12 Jan 2001 23:18:19 -080  Susan Lerner <meydele (at) 
ix(dot)netcom(dot)com>
wrote:

> At 12:10 AM 1/13/01 -0500, you wrote:
> >the Ukrainian "kobza," formerly used by the gentry there, is obsolete
> 
> Do you mean the spelling or the instrument?  The Ukrainians I've talked to 
> for (very limited) field work talk about kobzar players in the present 
> tense.  It may not be widely played, but has it died out entirely in 
> Ukraine? 

I'm under the impression (from attempting to read Ukrainian 
material) that the kobza died out, and it has since been revived, 
probably in association with bandura groups. Probably in the
Soviet period it was one of several traditional instruments that
were identified as national instruments and were "modernized."  I
might have been wrong about the gentry playing them---I was 
thinking of the *torban*, or theorbo. 

Incidentally, the modern Moldovan cobza is different from the 
traditional one not only in that it has a flat back, but it also
has frets. In this discussion of the cobza, I don't think that's been
mentioned. Since it doesn't have frets, it isn't designed for playing
chords----if you played an open string simultaneously with a 
stopped string, you wouldn't get a chord that would sound right. 
Also the neck is short, so that the practical range is only that of a 
fourth from the nut.  The Moldovan cobza neck looks longer, too.

Paul Gifford

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