> For anyone still surviving my attempts to play instruments which
> have relevance to anything at all, lend an ear to this one - the
> Greek baglama. It is best described as a soup ladle which accidentally
> got strings.
The word and the instrument are Turkish, though the Turkish word (it
means "tied", referring to the frets) usually applies to a larger size.
The Turkish word for what you've got is "cura saz", the first word
pronounced like "Jura"; it also means a small shrill-voiced hawk. So
perhaps a set comprising "The Earl of Jura" and "The Hawk that Swoops
on High" might be appropriate.
(BTW, when did Jura ever have an earl? What is that tune about?)
> This is a little sort of primitive piece I've called 'Out of the Bag'
> and played on the baglama with a tabor-style drum beat accompaniment.
The pun doesn't work with the Turkish pronunciation - BAAlama.
> It's great for dispersing excess Shetland fiddlers!
My current exercise in instrument abuse is playing Scottish tunes
on the Black Sea fiddle or "kemence" - long thin soundbox, tuned in
fourths D-g-c, flattish bridge so you can't play the middle string
without sounding an outer one, hand-tensioned bow so you can relax
it and triple-stop at any time, played suspended vertically by the
left hand (traditionally, players are also dance callers, and dance
themselves, or at least leap about among the dancers, while playing
it). It's good for dreich ballad tunes, and pipe tunes aren't too
hard (transposed A -> D) if they don't use the low G. Should sound
dead mediaeval along with a wire harp. It isn't in fact mediaeval:
no kemence is known from before about 1880 and its earlier history
is obscure, it may have been invented by the Adzhar people of the
Caucasus, based on Turkmen and Italian models. I don't propose to
inflict an MP3 on the world in the near future.
=================== <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> ===================
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