Skip to main content

Setar or Rebab from Uzbekistan

Sound clip of me playing this (Setar (or) Rabab)


My brother went to Kazakhstan recently, and bought a Setar (or Rubab, or maybe it's a kashgar rabab) when he crossed through to Uzbekistan for a part of his trip. I think he got it in the city of Samarkand. It's a small rounded mandolin sized instrument, with four strings - which seem to have very different tunings, not mandolin like at all. From looking at Wikipedia, it looks like some of the strings are sympathetic strings, i.e. drone strings. Two drones and two strings that play mostly solos, punctuated by some fast strikes of the drones. In gamelan music it's the only free instrument, that only has to abide by the rule of stopping on the beat. As a rebab it's played with great style in the afghan city of Herat, in slowly reawakening musical traditions. It is played with a bow in general, and is considered to be the precursor of the violin. In the tradition of Uzbek and Kazakh people it's an instrument of great improvisation, which is only starting to show - as an actual forgotten classical tradition. It's a music which is of the same calibre as Hindustani classical at least - they share the same origins and this has also had the influence of Persian invasions and of the trade route through to other parts of Asia. It even ended up in andalusia and then came back - when spain was re-taken and many muslims moved east. It was really in the right place for a long time!

But how to tune it. I've settled for C, F, E, A - the last two being quite a bit higher than the others. This is because of a description of the modern afghan version and because of another site talking about the tuning of the Rebec, it's medieval sister instrument. This page on the other hand says there's something weird about it.

On TV there would be shows where these people would improvise songs about the lady in the third row or about what you could text in to the show, and improvising musicians would make songs up on the spot. This follows a tradition of improvised storytelling and music, and a lot of horse riding. Now though, in Kazakhstan at least, they ride 4 by 4s. Oh and they wouldn't be very nice to Borat, so I wouldn't expect a reality tv program for him there any time soon.

Here's some more info on uzbek music

On his way across the border back to Uzbekistan my brother said there was general chaos and loads of people trying to get through. The Rebab got a bit damaged then. I have to see a friend's friend who knows a lot about strange instruments apparently, and take it to hobgoblin music or somewhere in bristol that repairs and fixes these kinds of things.


Technorati Tags: , , , , , , ,

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poem for peace, from a pirate recording in a Cairo Museum.

My love With peace I have placed loving flowers at your feet With peace With peace I stopped the seas of blood for you Forget anger Forget pain Forget your weapons Forget your weapons and come Come and live with me my love Under a blanket of peace I want you to sing, beloved light of my eyes And your song will be for peace let the world hear, my beloved and say: Forget anger Forget pain Forget your weapons Forget your weapons and come And live in peace These I believe are the words of a widow at the tomb of her beloved. I got the words from this italian website . It was used in a seminal Italian anti-war song " Luglio Agosto Settembre Nero " by the band Area (although I guess they weren't called anti-war songs then) - whose vocalist Demetrio Stratos indirectly gives the name to this blog, and whose music is the inspiration for a lot of my mine. It's adapted in turn from a greek folk song, but no-one knows who wrote the original words, except that Stratos was probably...
4 comments
Read more

Using social currencies to fund the energy transition

This post is a translation of a proposal by Susana Martín Belmonte of which the original will soon be posted! On July 13 2016, the city of Barcelona published a government measure to create an energy operator in the city . This operator aims to accelerating the energy transition to renewable energy sources, facilitating the citizen's energy self-consumption, and providing the citizens with access to electricity generation business income, as well as addressing economic justice goals, such as ending energy poverty. One of this project's key points is financing new renewable energy generators, and this is where the social currency that the city of Barcelona is planning can play a very interesting role. I drafted the proposal that comes next and I shared with the economy and ecology groups, as well as the social currency group at Barcelona en Comú. In addition, this can also be framed in the working group on energy and climate change mentioned in the doc...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reviving Indigenous Wisdom: Exploring the Intersection of Paganism, Shamanism, and Decolonisation

For me, paganism in the British Isles has primarily revolved around music, ceremonies at stone circles, solstice singing, and practices like Samhain. It also encompasses eco-awareness and active defense of the Earth. I've also wondered how these practices differ from Norse, Germanic, or other cultural traditions. Recently, as I got into Andean spirituality or cosmovision especially since the time of the chilean uprising in 2018 and when I witnessed indigenous delegates attending COP26 in Glasgow, I discovered connections between Mapuche ceremonies from the southernmost ends of the Americas and those performed by Scottish groups with ties to indigenous or at least traditional spirituality. Through these ceremonies, people expressed a sense of rekindling a lost link. I believe this spirit stems from a desire to heal a wound or reclaim something that was taken away. In Chile and other parts of the world, we refer to this process as decolonising. Perhaps it arises from the belief that ...
Post a Comment
Read more