{"id":1047,"date":"2021-03-18T16:08:04","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T08:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbcone.hkust.edu.hk\/music-costumes\/?page_id=1047"},"modified":"2021-03-25T11:52:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T03:52:00","slug":"kyrgyz-komuz","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lbcone.hkust.edu.hk\/music-costumes\/musical-instruments\/kyrgyz-komuz\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyrgyz Komuz"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kyrgyz Komuz<\/p>\n

The Kyrgyz komuz is a three-stringed lute played among the Kyrgyz<\/a> living in Kyrgyzstan and in today’s Xinjiang in China. It is the most emblematic Kyrgyz instrument, used by singers to accompany themselves in narrative and lyrical songs. It is also a solo instrument with a wide repertoire.<\/p>\n

The name \u201ckomuz\u201d comes from the Turkic word \u201cqopuz\u201d that represents an unspecified string musical instrument in traditional epic stories. Like the Uzbek<\/a> and Turkmen<\/a> dutars, the origin of the komuz is also linked to Baba Kambar, known as Kambarkan in Kyrgyz. According to one legend, Kambar the hunter heard a magical sound in the forest. It turned out to be the sound of wind blowing through dried intestines of a monkey that stretched out from the tree branch to the ground – the monkey had fallen on to the twigs of the tree which caused its belly to burst. Kambar was inspired then to fix the intestines onto a piece of wood to create an instrument that became the komuz.<\/p>\n

The komuz is made out of a single flat piece of apricot, nutwood or juniper and has no frets, contrasting with the round-bodied dutars and Kazakh dombyra<\/a> which have frets. Traditionally it used gut strings, which are nowadays replaced by nylon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n