When Khaysar Xabanbay interprets Kazak folk music with a classical guitar, he is contributing to both repertories.

The Dark-eyed Girl, Alkonger, Chestnut Trotter, all the songs that Khaysar used to play on the two-stringed Kazak instrument dombra, have been given a new sound on the six strings of the guitar. At the same time, these works bring to guitar music for the first time the melancholy character and variable beats of the Kazak people.

There are perhaps more differences than similarities between the dombra and guitar, but Khaysar has linked the two instruments with his creative work.

"When I practised the guitar sometimes, without noticing, I began to play tunes that I used to play on the dombra," says the guitarist from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. "Then I realized that I could interpret these tunes in another way."

Path of learning

Born a Kazak in Toli, a county that borders Kazakhstan, Khaysar did not see a guitar until he was 16 years old, but started playing the dombra in childhood. He never had formal training, but whenever guests visited his home, young Khaysar would ask them to teach him some dombra tunes.

Khaysar's family was a hospitable one, so the young lad never had a shortage of teachers. Gradually, Khaysar became familiar with the world of Kazak folk music and the stories behind it.

"Closely related to Kazak oral literature, Kazak folk music usually tells stories about love or heroes, and is often rather sad," says Khaysar.

One tune that Khaysar learnt in childhood was Bozingen (White Female Camel), which also tells a sad story: One day a baby camel was playing with his mother when he fell into a fast flowing river. Fraught with anxiety, the mother kept running along the river, but could not find her son. At last, the despairing mother suffocated herself by pressing her neck between the branches of a tree.

This tune, typical of the style of narration in Kazak music, left a deep impression on Khaysar. Years later, he would adapt Bozingen for a guitar work and still keep the spirit of Kazak music.

In 1979, Khaysar saw a guitar for the first time, when an old classmate brought one home from his school in the city of Tacheng. His friend had just learned a little about the guitar, but the expressiveness of the instrument attracted Khaysar.

"The Dombra is basically a melodic instrument, but the guitar is more harmonic," says Khaysar. "In addition, the guitar has a wider range, and one can play a melody at different positions on a guitar."

However, not having a guitar of his own, Khaysar could not practise regularly. Mostly, he continued playing the dombra, and sometimes the accordion.

Next