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(53,339 posts)DFW
(54,058 posts)Wanna bet that's from Russia? I play the balalaika, and that's what instrument got drawn.
Someone mentioned a Balalaika... I may have to check that out.
Brother Buzz
(36,217 posts)Xyzse
(8,217 posts)DFW
(54,058 posts)My college had the only official Balalaika orchestra in the USA and we imported the whole range of sizes of them from the Lunacharski factory in Leningrad (as it was called then). As I played bass in rock bands in high school, I offered to play the contra (-bass) balalaika, as it is tuned like the lower 3 strings of a western bass. The posture takes a little getting used to, and the "pick" is like a mini-frisbee made from several layers of shoe leather stuck together! I can play a prima (the "regular" sized balalaika) too, but nowhere nearly as well.
My years with the University balalaika orchestra stood me in good stead, though. One New Years day, Theodore Bikel came up to me and said "get your guitar. We are going to find a room and sing Russian songs!" Which we did for the next 45 minutes. We could have sold out a mid-sized hall in New York City with that duet, and the only ones who heard it were two janitors from South Carolina (who had no idea what they were hearing) and my wife (who did).
Brother Buzz
(36,217 posts)Is that it's proper name, or is it a western (Italian) name for a bass, or double bass balalaika?
DFW
(54,058 posts)Informally, we just called it the bass, and Andreyevsky, the man who is credited for expanding the balalaika into the various sizes to form an orchestra, probably used western terms, as he would have heard them from western orchestras. The mid-sized balalaikas were called "alto," which is definitely from the Italian, as was "contra" for the bass. We were part of a fairly large group of Slavic music enthusiasts at the time (early to mid 70s) that spread from Washington to Philadelphia (where I was in school) to New York.
There were a bunch of us that were into Balkan music as well, and when I was in Yugoslavia, I picked up a couple of tambouritsa family instruments. When I was in Dubrovnik in 1974, my brother and I were staying with a Muslim family who rented us a room. Their daughters learned English in school. I could communicate with the parents on a very primitive basis where the Russian and Croatian words for things were similar. A program came on TV with a wide array of Croatian folk music, and my brother and I watched it, mesmerized by all this great music we had been fans of. The daughter of the family came in and saw us, completely perplexed. "Why are you watching this? Don't tell me you like this music?" I told her we thought it was great stuff. She thought we had lost our minds. I asked her what she liked. With her best Dracula accent, she explained: "David Bowie!! David Bowie is beautiful!!" Hard to believe that 20 years later her people and their neighbors would be at each other's throats. Too much David Bowie, maybe? I never went for David Bowie, but Croatian tambouritsa music? All day long!
Brother Buzz
(36,217 posts)Andreyevsky? Any link to a bio on him? Twentieth century?
DFW
(54,058 posts)Here is some background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balalaika#Balalaika_orchestra