Music of Kyrgyzstan
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| Central Asian music |
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| Afghanistan |
| Badakhshan |
| Buryatia |
| Gansu |
| Inner Mongolia |
| Kazakhstan |
| Khakassia |
| Kyrgyzstan |
| Mongolia |
| Qinghai |
| Tajikistan |
| Tibet |
| Turkmenistan |
| Tuva |
| Uzbekistan |
| Xinjiang |
Kyrgyz music is nomadic and rural, and is closely related to Turkmen and Kazakh folk forms.
Travelling musicians and shamans called manaschi are popular for their singing and komuz-playing. Their music is typically heroic epics, such as the most famous story, the Manas epic (20 times longer than Homer's Odyssey), which is the patriotic tale of a warrior named Manas, and his descendants, who fight with the Chinese. There are modern reciters of the Manas who are very popular, such as Rysbek Jumabaev [1] (http://www.hauntedink.com/almaty/photos4a.html).
Aside from the komuz, Kyrgyz folk instruments include the kyl kiak, a two-stringed bow instrument, sybyzgy, a side-blown flute, chopo-choor and the timur komuz, a jew's harp. The komuz is considered the national instrument of Kyrgyzstan. It is a plucked string instrument. Shamanistic elements of Kyrgyz folk culture remain, includind the dobulba (a frame drum), the asa-tayak (a wooden device decorated with bells and other objects) and the qyl-qiyak (two-stringed upright fiddle).
References
- Broughton, Simon and Sultanova, Razia. "Bards of the Golden Road". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, pp 24-31. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
- [2] (http://www.hauntedink.com/almaty/photos4a.html)