Kirghiz Instruments and Instrumental Music

Abstract

T here are today about two million Kirghiz herdsmen pursuing their nomadic life under Soviet rule in the Kirghiz Autonomo s Republic on the Kirghiz Steppes north of the Caspian and Aral Seas. The recent publication of Vinogradov's Kirghiz Folk Music brings up to date the information on the music of these people; it seems useful to summarize in English some of this material and other data scattered through the literature. With regard to the instruments, there is only one membranophone, a kind of kettle-drum called dolbas, principally used for signaling in warfare. The absence of percussion instruments in the art music of the Kirghiz was noticed by Hornbostel: It seems odd that in the whole range of Kirghiz instruments there is no percussion since this sort of instrument is common in much more primitive cultural circumstances. (1911:211) The frame drum (dabyl), described by Castagne in connection with magic rituals, was probably not a native Kirghiz, but a Kazakh instrument taken over by the Kirghiz shamans (b'akhsa) together with a plucked instrument called dombra. (Castagne, 1930:61ff.) Chordophones are represented by two instruments, one bowed and one plucked. The bowed one, kyiak, is a primitive, Central-Asiatic fiddle, found also among Kazakhs and Caucasian tribes. Its bowl-shaped body is hollowed out of one piece of wood. The resonator is covered with camel hide only in its lower portion. Two horsehair strings, attached to a broad stub, rest against the bridge, which is placed on the skin membrane, and extend to the pegbox (round or rectangular) equipped with two long side-pegs. The shape and measurements vary considerably from one specimen to another, but are never so different as to produce bass and treble sizes. They usually stay close to the following: