Art of Kazakstan

products of those activities, usually involving imaginative or technical skills.

Painting
Sculpture
Primtmarking
Photography
Music, theatre, dance

strings. It was hollowed out of one whole wooden piece

– juniper (arsha), maple, pine-tree and birch. The instrument consisted of three parts: head (bas), middle (base is keude) and lower part (ayak). The base is made in the form of an open bowl stretched downside. This lower part of the instrument is covered with leather (sounding board). The support (tiek) is established on it. Even in our days, the strings for kobyz are made of horse-tail.

of gusli or lying harp. The most ancient type of

zhetygen looked like the prolonged box hollowed out of the wooden piece. Such zhetygen did not have the upper sounding board and pins. The strings were stretched by hand from the outer side of the instrument. Later the upper part of zhetygen was covered with the wooden sounding board. Assyks were out under each string from two sides. Moving them it was possible to tune the string. If assyks were drawn closer to each other the tune was rising, and if drawn apart the tune was falling. String tuning was made by the pins and by moving the supports.

played the same way as the dombra. But sherter is

much smaller than dombra, it had a short neck without the frets, it had different, stronger sound than dombra. Sherter resembled kobyz because it was also hollowed out of the whole wooden piece, it had the bent shape and the base was covered with leather. Two strings were made of horsehair. The instrument had just one pin; therefore both strings were put through the head, then one of them was attached to the pin and the other string was attached to the head itself. Tuning of strings was related to the long shape of the instrument. The string fixed on the sherter head was stretched by hand and the second string fixed on the pin was tuned corresponding to the pitch of the first string. Sherter was mainly used for accompanying songs, tales and legends. It was popular amongst the shepherds

instrument. It entered the musical life of the people. Sybyzgy

helped the shepherds in solitude at the far-away grasslands. It brought joy to people during the evening hours of rest when the musicians were telling and playing beautiful ancient legends and stories

Dombra can be met in each yurta; it was referred

to as one the most necessary and obligatory things in the life of Kazakhs. The history of this instrument’s origin goes into the depth of centuries. There are two types of dombra – western and eastern. Different shapes of dombra were caused by the features of two performance traditions. In order to perform fast, masterly tokpe-kuis

handle covered from both sides with leather. Usually the warriors

were using dabyl (during the attack). It was the instrument with a very strong and loud sound, which served for making signals. In ancient times percussion instruments (dabyl, dauylpaz and shyndauyl) were widely used in the life of Kazakhs. Loud sounds of percussion instruments were calling the aul residents for hunting, for conducting religious rituals; and they were also informing about the forthcoming migration.

tambourine: the rim covered from one side with leather, inside

of which there were small metal chains, rings and plates, sounding when the leather is stricken and during the movement there was an additional noise effect. Dangyra was an attribute of shaman rituals.