crukster

I play a kisa sap baglama saz. It's the progenitor of the modern guitar from the Islamic world. It's got a steep history in nomadic spoken word cultures pre-Islam.

It has seven strings and it's called a baglama because you tie the strings off at the bottom, baglamak means to tie in Turkish. It's a short neck, the long neck being twice as long for a higher range of notes. Kisa sap, means short stick or neck in Turkish. I don't know where the word Saz originates it's unique as the instrument name.

I bought one new two months ago off of Amazon for £160 after saving from my job and then getting sick money when I broke my leg. It came from Germany because they're quite hard to get here or bring back from Turkey. I'm really, really careful. It's so nice and I'm so glad to have one again. I have owned two and broke them because I used to suffer from rage fits. I haven't even broken a string yet, and that was something so common that I feared.

Picking it up, right away I know about four songs off the bat because I used to learn a song a year since I was about 17. My skill has definitly improved, and I find that it's the old addage about never forgetting to ride a bike because my hand placement naturally conforms.

The strings are in three sets, a melody, a rhythm and a bass. The bottom set of strings is three strings and has an accompanying bass. It's usually tuned to the key of C, traditionally, but there are a number of different styles or tuning for example kirgin, which means broken, or kara which means dark. I think the traditional one is kirgin. Being middle Eastern music we use the Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si scale. The middle set are slightly thicker and in a pair. The bottom set is uniquely fine and a thick wound bass. You tune each set two frets down the neck starting from the melody, traditionally. This allows you to get the whole range of notes across the level of depth without moving all the way up and down the fret. You play it across the fret fingers pointing downwards, whereas guitar usually you will play chords across the fret holding fingers sideways.

I also own a set of panpipes. Funny story, I thought for ten years they were damaged. It turns out - the hole is meant to be there and it's a reed! That makes it so much easier playing them, I thought you need the lung capacity.

I also still dabble on Harmonica but I wouldn't pay more than a dollar for a mouth harp.