In the recent past I had a blog post about popular music in Kazakhstan. And while pop is the music that dominates the airwaves in Kazakhstan, there is another type of music that is just as well known: traditional Kazakh music. My interest in traditional Kazakh music started when the head facilitator for the youth development program in Ecik suggested that we take some time to learn how to play the dombra.
The dombra is the most popular Kazakh traditional instrument. According to archeologists, the dombra was invented over 2000 years ago, as they found ancient statues of people playing a two stringed instrument in a plucking manner in the ancient city of Khorezm. It’s lightweight but tough, made of wood and is a bit smaller than a guitar. The two strings are tuned a 4th apart, and people usually attach feathers to the ends.. If you want to read more about the dombra, you can check it out here.
One thing that I love about Kazakh musical culture is that each traditional instrument has a legend about how the instrument was created or what powers it’s said to have. For the dombra, it is said that if played correctly and with passion it has the ability to communicate without words and even save people from death. My saxophone never did that!
The legend of the dombra goes like this:
Back in the day when Kazakhstan was a nomadic country, a khan (leader) forbade his son to go hunting. Like all teenage children since the beginning of time, he didn’t listen to his father and went out anyway. While the son was out trying to find dinner against his dad’s wishes, he came across a herd of kulan (something like a deer), and shot the leader of the herd with an arrow, wounding but not killing it. The lead kulan, called Aksak Kulan (lame “deer”) took the arrow shooting personally and used its hoof to kick the khan’s son Chuck Norris style, killing him.
Not a roundhouse...but just as effective
When his son didn’t return from the hunt, the Khan got angry. He was so angry that he declared that anyone who came to him with bad news would be killed by having molten lead poured into their mouth. The lead thing may sound a bit excessive, but the Khan was only following in the footsteps of this guy with the same title who went into the history books as one of the greatest conquerors of all time.
Not this Khan.
Out of fear of being forced to quench their thirst with liquid metal nobody told the Khan what really happened to his son for a long time. Eventually, an old dombra player used music to get the Khan to realize what really happened. The dombra player played so sadly that the Khan realized that his son was dead. Since the dombra player never said anything, the Khan couldn’t kill him. So instead, the Khan ordered that the dombra be filled with molten lead, thus saving the life of the musician and everyone else.
My dombra. Because it is now in my barely competent hands, I doubt that this particular dombra will save any lives.
I don’t think I’ll get really good at the dombra in my remaining 3 weeks in Kazakhstan. I’m not good with stringed instruments, I like woodwinds better. I’ll be happy if I could play and sing a song or two by the time I leave Issyk. Our teacher is the head music director from the local Kazakh school and she is very patient with us. She doesn’t speak English, but we get along just fine and I am learning a lot. Music is one of those special things that transcends language. However, I have high hopes for the trainee that also joins us in our lessons, as she’ll have at least 2 years to practice and will probably become a dombra hero.
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