There are several Bulgarian Gaidas on eBay right now, very reasonabley priced and I am sorely tempted to get one but I just don’t know anything about them. What should I look for in a Gaida? are these really a good buy, are these eBay pipes any good? What is a good/proper key?
Music sources? Anyone?
Jeff
I’d avoid the gaida on ebay like the plague. I learned my lesson the hard way and have lost lots of money on poor quality instruments both gaida and kaval. If you are serious about it I’d contact either Vassil Bebelekov, or Hector Bezanis. Both are very good makers living here in the states. Sure they are not as cheap, but you will have a serviceable, and stable instrument. I am not sure about kaba gaida, but for djura gaida you will need one in G.
OK, thanks, do you have their contact information?
I love the sound of the Kaba gaida
Jeff
PM sent…
About keys, be aware that the nomenclature used in Bulgaria is a bit odd compared to the Irish and Scottish way of naming things.
A gaida in “re” or “D” actually plays in the key of A. The chanter keynote is the three-finger note, the note you get when you finger
x xxx ooox
and the drone plays this note. But gaidunitsi and gaidi are named not from the tonic, the three-finger note, but rather from the bell note, the note you get when you finger
x xxx xxxx
The “re” gaida is the lower-pitched gaida developed for orchestral use, for the bitov ensembles.
The other common pitch is the “sol” or “G” gaida. It’s keynote and drone note are D.
The “sol” gaida is the most common solo gaida, or the one used in a duet with a drummer for weddings etc. It’s rather high-pitched.
Gaidunitsi are made in just about every key. I used to have gaidunitsi in four different keys, Do, Re, Fa, and Sol.
I should say that my information here is regarding the ordinary Bulgarian gaidi. The Rhodopi Kaba Gaida is a completely different animal.
Thanks, confusing… 
Who made your set and where’d you get it from?
Good gaida makers in Bulgaria are (among others) Apostol Apostolov from Beloslav, Encho Pashov from Plovdiv and Veso Hasabaliev from Haskovo. Veso seems to be the only one who can be contacted by email and in English language…also, he makes djura as well as kaba gaidi.
Just to add to the confusion, kaba gaidi are named by the actual key note. The most common key for kaba gaida is E.
Anyhow, a pipemaker as close as possible to you, with whom you can communicate without the help of an interpreter, is most advisable.
About who made that “set”, it’s really not a “set” in the usual sense.
Modern Gaida players often play without drone, so the instrument is the chanter (gaidunitsa).
Professional gaidari travel about with a number of chanters in various keys so as to be able to perform any music they need to. They’ll have a single bag, with corked off drone stock, to play all their chanters in.
I took lessons for a year from Georgi Doichev. He had seven or eight chanters to cover all the keys. I bought the biggest chanter, the Do, and the next-highest, the Fa, from him. The Do (bellnote C, tonic G) was of an unknown make and probably from the 1940s according to Georgi. Georgi said that that pitch was quite rare. That was a fantastic-playing chanter with interesting bone rings. The Fa chanter is more modern but that’s also an unusual key, bellnote F, tonic C.
The Sol chanter is by Kostadin Varimezov, the Re chanter by an unknown maker. Later I got a Re chanter by Hector Bezanis (the great American gaida player and maker). Georgi was able to sell me those two unusual chanters because Hector was making him a complete set in all the keys.
By the way, all four chanters are in the same wood, what the Bulgarians call dogwood. The Varimezov Sol chanter is stained, as dogwood Bulgarian gaidas and kavals often are.
The basis of the drone was a Varimezov G drone. I had somebody make me various sections so that I could have a drone for all of the four chanters.
I played all four chanters on a regular basis in the International Folk Dance band I used to play in. It’s because the singers had to do various songs in certain keys to suit their voices. Hector said I was crazy, maintaining four chanters in tune like that.
Not only does the Kaba Gaida use different nomenclature for naming chanter pitch, the Kaba Gaida drone uses a different harmonic than the normal Gaida drone does.
Thanks guys, fascinating stuff.
such sweet defined confusion.
I love it.
tansy
Us woodwind players are used to it.
It’s exactly like the various naming practices for orchestral flutes/saxophones vs clarinets vs Irish woodwinds.
The Boehm flute and saxophone are named by this note xxx xxxx just as standard Bulgarian gaida chanters are.
So on a Boehm C flute and a Bulgarian C chanter xxx ooox is G.
The orchestral clarinet and Bulgarian Kaba Gaida are named for this note x xxx ooox.
Irish whistles and flutes follow neither, using xxx xxx.
Does anyone know what the tune in this video clip is? I like it, hypnotic.
These tunes very rarely have real names.
It is a “pravo horo” (2/4 time, consisting mostly of two triplets per bar, therefore sounds like 6/8) from the rhodope mountains, so you could call it a “rhodopsko pravo horo”. On two different CDs I have this same recording named “rhodopska kitka” (rhodopean medley) as well as “gaidarski melodii” (bagpipers’ melodies).
These tunes are in no way firmly composed, they consist of a number of parts which the musician is free to combine in whatever order he likes (unless, of course, in case of a big band like in this recording).
are these “parts” formalized, that is written down, learned, and played be everyone or is it a looser " I have my ‘parts’ you have your ‘parts’" kind of thing?
Is gaida music written down at all or is it mainly learned by ear?
Are there standardized gracings (rolls, crans that kind of thing)or is it individual? I hear lots of pips and pops in the music but can’t tell if that is just individualized playing or something else - like a birl or cran or whatnot.
I play uilleann pipes and gaita galega - pretty standardized in how the instruments are played - jigs, reels hornpipes, rolls, crans, triplets, etc. I get the feeling that the gaida is more like freeform jazz. make sense?
Are there any good online resources for an English speaking westerner for learning Bulgarian music, or is this it?
sorry, lots of questions.
Jeff
My teacher did both - first he taught me a tune by ear, and after I had it he gave me the sheet music so I could practice and not forget parts of the tune (bulgarian tunes generally have more parts than Irish tunes, 8 - 12 parts is pretty standard, but tunes with more than 20 parts are not unusual). I am quite sure that most, if not all gaida teachers use sheet music.
The music for thracian gaida seems to be much more formalized or standardized than the rhodopian music. There are tunes that everone plays the same (like “Plovdivska râchenitsa” for example, and other tunes that have been recorded by famous players like Kostadin Varimezov or Nikola Atanasov) and that are taught by the music teachers in Bulgaria, but many more are individually composed by the players. It is not easy to get sheet music, the only tune book I know was compiled by my teacher and published in 1990, with only 400 copies printed.
AFAIK there is no written source for rhodopean music, and the “I have my parts, you have your parts” thing seems to be much stronger in this tradition.
There are standardized gracings, the most important being the thumb gracenote which is frequently employed for the top hand notes, the upper ring finger graces the bottom hand notes. Another important movement consists of the thumb gracenote followed by opening the fleahole twice, thus playing the semitone above the melody tone. A movement very similar to the roll is also common, as well as one similar to the scottish throw. For longer notes vibrato is important, this is done by rocking the forefinger on the flea hole, so this vibrato goes upwards instead of the downward vibrato used in west european music.
I am not aware of ANY good resources for learning bulgarian music, be it printed or online, but the man you should ask would be Vasil Bebelekov. Yves Moreau’s page has a great number of links related to Bulgarian music and is definitely worth having a look at.
thanks Michael, your post is a big help.
Jeff
OK, so I bought a Kaba Gaida in E made by Manol Tashkov, it arrived today. It is a primitive thing, absolutely massive reeds, take a lot of air (just to fill the bag), plays in tune to maybe a little flat. The bag stinks of goat and our 2 dogs are fascinated by it (especially the border collie - I think she wants to herd it). Is there any way to de-stinkify the bag? also does anyone have a fingering chart for the kaba gaida?
Jeff
If the bag was seasoned properly the smell should go away in a day or two. When they are packaged up like that for the mail they get pretty bad especially if it was recently seasoned and still damp.
Most kaba gaida players use a fairly closed fingering style.
The scale starts in the middle of the chanter:
x xxx oxxo E (can also be played x xxx ooxo)
x xxo xxxo F#
x xox xxxo G# (can be played x xoo xxxo)
x oox xxxo A
o xxx oxxo B
The fleahole raises F# by a semitone, so this fingering will give you Gnat:
x oxo xxxo
Some chanters will give you Fnat x oxx oxxo but many won’t.
Often it is favourable leaving the bottom hand index finger open for the top hand tones, enabling you to separate other top hand notes with E. This is always the case when two high Bs are to be separated, so I showed the E open for high B fingering.
The bottom hand tones:
x xxx xoxo D (or x xxx xoox, or x xxx xooo)
x xxx xxoo C#
x xxx xxxo B
x xxx xxxx A
Of these, only D is regularly used in melody playing.
Low B is frequently used to separate other notes, C# and low A are seldom heard (and have, on many chanters, not been tuned).
Generally it is the highest open tonehole that defines the tone being played, it doesn’t matter much what you do with the fingers below that. Therefore you should try to find a fingering style that suits you. Being able to play E or low B inbetween notes is a good thing.
Is the bag still smelly?
Thanks Michael!
Interesting thing with the drone. If I mouth blow it, it plays fine, once I insert it in the stock though it tends to overblow until I flick the end of it with my finger. Is this common, or is it just becoause I bought a cheapo gaida? I did notice someone having to do the same thing in a you tube video.
Jeff