Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
|
Building a Bulgarian Tambura
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
   
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
 RE: Building a Bulgarian Tambura (in reply to estebanana)
|
|
|
Stephen,
I will be interested in following your progress in building the Bulgarian tambura. Many years ago (1974-1976) I was posted to the American Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria as a young Foreign Service Officer. It was my first assignment after entering the U.S. Foreign Service, and to make matters more interesting, it was at the height of the Cold War, with a hard-line, totalitarian communist government in charge and Todor Zhivkov at its head. The American, British, West German, French, and other Western diplomatic missions were deliberately kept isolated from the Bulgarian people by their own government. We dare not have casually approached ordinary Bulgarian citizens, since to have done so would have put them in danger of the "midnight knock on the door" from the Bulgarian secret police. All inter-action with Bulgarians had to be carefully choreographed. If you have ever read the British espionage novelist Eric Ambler, particularly his book "Judgment on Deltchev," you will have a good idea of how it was.
Your order to build a tambura revived pleasant memories of the instrument and Bulgarian music. Although the communist government of Bulgaria discouraged any experimental music, opera, theater, and other arts, it did underwrite traditional culture. I particularly remember a visit to the town of Koprivshtitsa, located due east of Sofia, in which there were well-preserved, traditional Bulgarian houses and buildings, as well as musicians. I remember sitting for a couple of hours in a traditional cafe, drinking good Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon (which was very good indeed!), and listening to a Bulgarian group play traditional music in which the tambura played the main role. Very good music, and for a moment one could forget that one was living in what amounted to a prison for most Bulgarians. Of course, all that has changed now. I hope, though, that there are still musical groups playing the tambura, and that Bulgarian society has not been overtaken by "rap" and "hip hop."
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 29 2011 22:35:52
 |
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.078125 secs.
|
Printable Version
, they do a good job: 
