Last night was New Year's Eve and the TV stations went all out showing traditional music and Mongolian wrestling. In fact, 5 of my 14 channels showed the same wrestling competition. Two channels had the same group of musicians on, but from different concerts. This group was really interesting. They were playing some traditional Mongolian music, but with a contemporary influence. The woman in the group was playing 2 instruments that I'd describe as Chinese zithers simultaneously. Maybe someone out there knows what they're called. One guy was playing an electric guitar; there were 2 drummers and one person with something that looked like a very large tambourine, but he wasn't slapping it, just slowly moving it in a circle horizontally. Someone else was playing a horsehead Mongolian cello (that's the only way to describe it) like the one played in Story of the Weeping Camel. There was someone playing a 2-string mandolin with a very long neck, but the most interesting instrument was something that looked like a clarinet on the top (and sounded like a clarinet), but curved clockwise to the right just like a French horn or a ram's horn. I've never seen anything like it before. Some of the singers were throat singers, but some sang in the customary way. I watched them for quite a long while.
Shortly after I went to bed and fell asleep I woke up to the sounds of fireworks at midnight.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
If you log on to www.mongolia-attractions.com/mongolian_musical_instrument.html you can see the fellow playing the instrument and read the myth about how it became a horse head viola. What I can't quite understand, from seeing the man play the instrument, is what string he frets. Yes, there are two strings, one of which is a drone string, but it doesn't look as tho he's fretting the other string. That string never seems to change height from the fretboard. Did you get a better look at the TV musician? Was he indeed fretting the other string? Interesting.
ReplyDelete