Mutating Traditions

When starting this text, I didn't know where it would lead me. My passion for music has gone through many different phases – and while I’ve always liked looking for new sounds, two directions – experimental music and traditional music – have been with me for some time now. The first one fascinates me with its striving forward, searching for something new and opening ever further horizons of perception of what music, sound, rhythm, speech, motion, and even time mean. The second one is rooted in the past, but at the same time has an amazing and everlasting relevance, an ability to ground; I find it easy to think along with it while listening, to look into myself, to search not for the new, but for something rooted, mysterious, and unshakable. It is a movement not forward, but into the depths.

At some point it became clear that these two kinds of movement – forward and into the depths – are equally important to me. I can't set them as opposites nor choose between them. Therefore, I’ve always admired artists whose practice unites both pursuits. My encounter with artistic approaches that combine both of these aims started with such names as Mamer and Saadet Türköz. The biographies of both are inseparably related to the tragic history of the Qazaq people, and thus to their music. Although we never shared a common geography, I feel a powerful bond with them and with myself when I listen to their music. Every time, it's like someone brings me back to myself. So when I was going to CTM 2025 for the first time in my life, I was most excited to listen to some of the best artists who are practicing exactly this intertwining of depth and distance: Audrey Chen, Takkak Takkak, Adela Mede, Eldar Tagi, Saadet Türköz, Tarta Relena, Kuntari, Yara Mekawei, Kasimyn, Abdullah Miniawy, and many others.

In the course of my work I was asking myself numerous questions: What is traditional music in general and traditional music of Qazaqs in particular? Why does traditional music remain relevant and sound timeless? Is Qazaq traditional music about to die? What is contemporary Qazaq music, its nature, and what objectives does it accomplish? Why is Qazaq music ordained to the status of the sacred? What are the taboos in traditional culture, who breaks them, and why? What is authenticity? What is experimentation? Does the intertwining of tradition and contemporaneity harm tradition or help to preserve it?

I succeeded in finding answers to some questions in conversations with several artists featured in this article, although some questions remained unanswered. In choosing these protagonists, I was guided by the flow between the traditional and the contemporary. On the one hand, I wanted to talk to those who study Qazaq traditional music and are engaged in it, digging deep into it, and on the other hand – to artists for whom tradition became a backbone when all other foundations collapsed, allowing them to move forward. To put it another way, this article explores Qazaq traditional music and contemporary Qazaq artists.

What is the Qazaq "Traditional?": Yermek Kazmukhambetov

Yermek Kazmukhambetov – dombrist, ethnomusicologist, researcher of dombyra culture, and kuishi composer, calls himself a traditional musician who received an academic conservatory education. Traditional – because he received a "бата" (bata, which in this context it can be interpreted as "spiritual permission") from the masters to engage in traditional practices. We talked about the distinctions between the traditional and the contemporary, and why Qazaq traditional culture is a professional culture:

"There is traditional music, and carriers of authentic Qazaq culture who did not have conservatory education, did not know musical notation, were not in an academic milieu at all. They existed in their original culture. That is why they preserved their authenticity. There are few traditional musicians now, because globalisation, urbanisation – all this affects traditional culture. But they do exist, mostly in the older generation, and usually they live in remote areas. Qazaq traditional musical culture is alive because it is transmitted by word of mouth. This method in Qazaq tradition is known as the 'Ұстаз-шәкірт' (Ұstaz-shәkirt, meaning teacher-student) or 'Құйма құлақ дәстүрі' (Quima qulaq dәstüri, where quima qulaq literally means "absorbing ears" and is what intelligent children are called). It is a system of oral transmission of musical tradition. Thus, Qazaq culture is an oral-professional tradition. It is professional, on the same level as European academic music. To master a musical instrument, just to learn to play something, in particular the dombyra or kobyz, you need a significant amount of time, physical and mental effort. It means that you go through a real learning process. It can take many years; one dedicates their entire life to it.

Learning happens in this way: the teacher finds the student, or the student finds the teacher. I'll try to give you an example. There was such a kuishi, Kazangap Tilepbergenuly from 'Ұлы Жүз' (Ūly Jüz. Jüz indicates tribal divisions of Qazaq clans, of which there are three: Ūly (Senior) Jüz, Orta (Middle) Jüz, and Kışı (Junior) Jüz). He had a talented group of students. It was like a tree – one root grows, the trunk and branches multiply, and it all grows into a branched system. This is what makes traditional culture special. Kazangap taught a lot of students, among them Kadirәlі Yerzhanov, who in turn took on his own students. Kadirәlі’s student, Zhumabai Aksakal, is also known as Kazangap’s grandson. He is not Kazangap’s grandson according to the family line, but due to his studies with a disciple of Kazangap he is a 'немере-шәкірт' (nemere-shәkirt, meaning grandson-student). Zhumabai lived with Kadirәlі Yerzhanov for several years, shepherded his camels, did housework. And when guests came, or when Kadirәlі Yerzhanov was invited to the neighboring auyl to perform, Zhumabai used to sit near him and watch him. Such performances in the company of other people were called 'топқа түсу' (topka tusu, literally "to be in the crowd"). Learning doesn’t happen with teacher demonstrating something directly to a student, it happens only in live situations, when the teacher is performing topka tusedi, meaning that he performs at a 'той' (toy, a holiday, a feast, a wedding, a birth, etc.), and the student watches and absorbs, quickly learning the teacher’s techniques through this active setting. This is the phenomenon of Qazaq memory and sense of music.

Here it is worth telling more about dastans (dastan is an epic folklore or literary work), quite extensive pieces of literature, recited from memory. Sometimes it takes several hours to recite a dastan, and sometimes days or even weeks. Dastans convey epic stories, and have been passed on through memory since their creation. But they are not memorised exactly, word for word. The general narrative and certain important details are memorised, and then within this narration the narrator would improvise. That's why we didn't have musical notation. We didn't need it."

On the one hand, yes, we didn't need it. On another – if not for the ethnographer and composer Alexander Zatayevich, who spent most of his life recording and translating Qazaq songs and kuis into notes, a lot of things might not have survived until today. Zatayevich had perfect pitch – he could recognise by ear what note is sounding right now. Zatayevich collected a lot of compositions. His collections are still one of the main sources we can rely on. Therefore, the question of notation is not straightforward, even though it is quite problematic to record Qazaq music using European notation. And tradition does not stand still. Today we call traditional musicians those who study at the relevant department of a conservatory. Yermek shares his thoughts on the current context:

"It's a different situation now. Since the kuis are written in notes, students are asked to play them exactly and they are trained according to them. The tradition has changed from oral to written. It is impossible to translate our music exactly into musical notes; usually the general framework, the outline of the work, is included there. But there are melismas, vibrato, grace notes, and other ways of decorating a musical text, which are impossible to write down precisely. Then there is the concept of microtones, of precisely organising pitch. There are microtones in all Turkic musical cultures, especially in nomadic ones. The Qazaqs, the Kyrgyz, and the Turkmens very often have it.

The canon is present in Qazaq traditional music. It is like a form. For example we have the buyn (translates as 'joint') form in western Qazaqstan, a repetitive form of music within which musicians improvise. It has three variants – bas-buyn, orta-buyn, and saga – based on which part of the domybra’s fingerboard is played (respectively top, middle, bottom). These are repetitive forms, but within there are interpretive or improvisational changes.

Today one is still referred to old audio recordings, phonographs, and other archives that remain. The first phonographs from Europe were brought to Russia by Evgeniya Linyova, but they came to us later, such that we did not have time to record older masters such as Kurmangazy or Kazangap. But we managed to record their students. Dina Nurpeisova, for example. Dina is absolutely traditional. She is even recorded on video. When Zhubanov called her, she was about 70 years old."

Dina Nurpeisova performs the kui "Науысқы" (Nauskyy)

I asked almost all of my guests what they thought about the predominant auditory nature of Qazaq culture. Yermek responded by telling me about the term "қоңыр" (qonyr), a very important word and concept – the brown colour of the soil:

"The influence of sound on Qazaq traditional culture is enormous. We have such a phenomenon, it's called 'қоңыр' (qonyr). It's the colour brown. It's about a deep spiritual experience. The sound qonyr conveys the inner state of a person. And it is such a philosophical state, very full. In Turkic musical culture, sound, its qualities, its beauty, fullness, timbre, acoustics, are considered to be of great importance. It is not just a sequence of notes, each note has a very big meaning.

This traditional term qonyr speaks of many things simultaneously. It is a big subject. There are kuis with a qonyr sound, they are so rich, dense. Qonyr is something so dense, not flat, not something that sparkles, or somehow sharply beats. It's about density. It's something cosmogonic. It's just that such terms are very hard to translate."

This is where we closed the subject with qonyr, because it is quite difficult to elaborate on or explain this concept. Nevertheless, I would like to supplement our conversation with a few excerpts from the article "Қоңырға оралу. Қоңыр күпі, қоңыр дала, қоңыр үн" (Qoñırğa oralw. Qoñır küpi, qoñır dala, qoñır ün). The Russian version of the article can be translated as a slightly comical "Fifty Shades of Brown" by the Qazaq poet Tilek Yrysbek. The article states:

"...In many languages of the world and among many cultures, the colour brown takes its name from some specific, tangible, and often olfactory object. Like cinnamon in Russian or coffee in Turkish. In many languages the name of a colour and its shades (for example, brown) is borrowed from others, sometimes from ancient languages. In Qazaq, however, brown (qonyr) is a bit metaphysical – it is not the colour of an object, but the colour of love and free thoughts...

...If I were to conceive of writing a new book on Qazaq philosophy, I would start it precisely with the word qonyr, which is saturated with great symbolism, has many direct and figurative meanings and, most importantly, great poetic power. And the study of Qazaq philosophy should begin with 'қоңыр сарын' (qonyr saryn, meaning brown chant), in the velvet melodies of the kui "Қоңыр," smoothly flowing out of the 10th century songwriter and storyteller Korkut's kobyz...

... In the Explanatory Dictionary of the Qazaq language, the definition of the word brown is accompanied by word combinations that are rather incomprehensible for non-Qazaq ears, such as 'brown wind' ('қоңыр жел', qonyr jel), 'brown voice' ('қоңыр дауыс', qonyr dauys) or 'brown shadow' ('қоңыр көлеңке', qonyr kölenke), and everywhere this colour is associated with tranquility, silence, and serene life. There are also quite metaphysical combinations of this word, such as 'brown mood' ('қоңыр күй', qonyr küi) or 'brown conversation' ('қоңыр әңгіме', qonyr әngіme). But most of all, of course, this colour is associated with Qazaq kuis..."

An example of the qonyr sound and state, Әbiken Khasenov performs the kui "Қоңыр"

Continuing the conversation, Yermek expressed his objection to the prevalent audiality of Qazaq culture and said that the space for text within it. Even if not written, is more than significant: "There is a proverb 'Өнер алды — қызыл тіл' (Öner aldy - kyzyl til), meaning 'The word is highest of all arts.'"

I also could not avoid the question of the diversity of musical tradition, which varies according to territory, landscape, and conditions in the vast and therefore very diverse steppe. Yermek had much to share on this topic:

"If it is a question of schools, we have two big traditions, very distinct from each other. These are the Western Qazaqstani and the Eastern Qazaqstani performing traditions. The west is close to Oghuz music, and the east to Kipchak music. This is a rather rough distinction, of course. It is worth mentioning that we are now talking about all traditional music: songs, kuis, zhyrs, epic tales, aitys, and so on. The amazing thing is that with such a vast territory, we all speak the same language, we have no dialect. But the music is different. This is due to the geographical situation, it is a huge country, after all, the ninth biggest in the world. Let's take Western Qazaqstani music, its representatives are Kurmangazy Sagyrbayuly, Abyl Tileuuly, Esbay Balustauly, Kulsh Baktybayuly, Dina Nurpeisova, Turkesh Kalkauly, Seitek Orazauly, Kazangap Tilepbergenuly, Dauletkerey Shygayuly… we can continue for a while.

Western Qazaqstani music is distinguished by dombyra music, which in turn has several different schools – the Kurmangazy school, Adai school, Dauletkerey school – the latter which is also known as "Төре мектеп" (Töre mektep – the Tөre school, where "tөre" is a clan that does not belong to the Jüzs, its genealogy can be traced directly from the eldest son of Genghis Khan, Jochi). Then we have the school of Dina Nurpeisova, and the school of the Syr Eli region. The Syr Eli school is found across the modern Kyzylorda region and is further divided into smaller regions – Aral, Kazaly, Karmakshy, Shieli. In general, there are even more divisions within these, it is like branches of a tree.

Instruments were called the same everywhere, dombyra, kobyz, shankobyz, sybyzgy, jetigen, and so on. But technologically they were produced differently depending on the region. I will mainly talk about dombyra music. The dombyras differed in their ergonomic and morphological structure, what wood they were made of, what shape they were, how they were played. Simply speaking, the Western Qazaqstani dombyra is in the 'қозықұйрық' (kozykuiryk, literally 'kurdyuk (tail fat) of lamb') shape – a drop-shaped dombyra. And the Eastern Qazaqstan dombyra, in the regions of Arka, Altai, Tarbagatai, is a trapezoidal dombyra. It looks like a bottle. There are also triangular dombyras, which were widespread both in the east and in the west, and a pear-shaped dombyra in Zhetisu. A special group of instruments are sherters – three-stringed dombyras, which have a slightly different production technology.

(left): Trapezoidal dombyra exhibited in the Amangeldy Imanov Museum in the auyl of Amangeldy Imanov, Kostanay region, © Yermek Kazmuhambetov

(middle): A drop-shaped dombyra that belonged to Amangeldy Imanov, one of the leaders of the 1916 Central Asian uprising against the imperial authorities in Kazakhstan. Exhibited in the Amangeldy Imanov Museum in the auyl of Amangeldy Imanov, Kostanay region. , © Yermek Kazmuhambetov

(right): The back side of Amangeldy Imanov’s dombyra, © Yermek Kazmuhambetov

In general, dombyras were made from regional materials. For example, if birch trees grow in a region, they are made mostly of birch. It was believed that the wood had a strong influence on the specifics of the sound – whether it would be 'қоңыр' (qonyr), which means deep, or 'шіңкілдек' (shіnкіldek) meaning sonority, which is high-pitched. The quality of the sound varies with the wood.

An experienced ear could tell what region a performer and their sound were from. The dombyra may be western, but the style of playing may be from another region. The form is also important – the compositional structure of the performed piece itself. Each region has its own compositional structure, and its own methods of playing.

For example, 'төкпе' (tökpe) is when two fingers on two strings are played in a sweeping way, and 'шертпе' (shertpe) is when you play with four fingers or one finger over the strings like an arpeggio. There are different touch characteristics that are unique to a certain region. That's what makes them different.

Regional acoustic and performance properties of the dombyra have been very poorly researched. That is why it is difficult for us to speak more precisely. But as a performer, I can now easily distinguish by ear which region a musician is from, and if the musician is traditional. However, nowadays, even among them, very few follow the traditions of their own region. Everything goes towards generalisation – a person who lives in the east can safely play western Qazaqstan music. It happens like this: a person enrolls in a music college or in a specialised music school or conservatory, and there he learns the kuis of the west, north, the south, and east – in general, of all schools. We get a hybrid dombyrist who plays all these things, but without any unique peculiarity of their own. In other words, we are slowly losing the uniqueness of each region. So the very 'қоңыр үн' (qonyr ün) we were talking about at the beginning becomes, sort of, standardised. Everyone starts to play the same way. One sound. Because the peculiarity of traditional culture is that you stand out among others precisely because of your nature, who you are, which is transmitted through sound."

Despite all these complexities and the problematic nature of the Western approach to traditional music, for Yermek the question of traditional versus academic approaches to music is equally ambivalent:

"One cannot reject the significance and value of the methodology of ethnomusicology – the European approach to the study of traditional music. If Zatayevich had not existed, we would not have his collections of musical notations of our songs and kuis. These collections are a hundred years old, and still relevant. He recorded more than two thousand examples of traditional music. A unique work. You can't say it's a bad thing, right? If he hadn't done it, we'd have lost a lot of things today. The same is true of August Aichhorn and Sergei Rybakov.

Imagine if we were to go to some African village and record their traditional music, which is absolutely unfamiliar to us. This is similar to Zatayevich’s recordings in Qazazstan. But he handled it well. Although Zatayevich lived quite poorly, he found joy in his work. He recorded mainly in Orenburg. The Qazaq intelligentsia helped him. He addresses us very emotionally in his work: 'To you, my dear friends-jigits, I dedicate, and to you I give back this work, created together with you in the year of hunger, cold, and epidemics. You know that ... it is not me who collects your beautiful folk songs, but you yourselves accumulate them through me, in order to protect this national treasure from oblivion and distortion. ... Keep, study, and multiply your national spiritual riches, develop and decorate them with the achievements of the highest universal culture...' What a message."

Of course, one is tempted to think here that if it were not for colonialism, Zatayevich would not have come here in the first place. But more importantly, we might not have had such a problem as preserving musical heritage, and musical notation would really not have been necessary. Yermek shares his thoughts:

"Colonialism has greatly affected traditional music in its natural environment by destroying nomadic ways of life. Perhaps, if all this had not happened, we would be sitting somewhere in the south now, celebrating the new year Nauryz, putting a yurt in the steppe, drinking kumis instead of americanos, sitting without macbooks and not thinking about the problems of traditional music, because there would be no problems.

But today, there are problems everywhere. There are a lot of under-researched topics in our ethnomusicology. Everywhere you look, there is a question to be addressed. Our musicology is a relatively young science, but now a trend of 'musical Turkology' is being formed – the study of not only Qazaq music, but also the study of Qazaq music in the context of the Turkic musical group.

Once again, a lot of archival data is stored in Russia. I have made requests, of course, but it is very difficult to access. This issue should be resolved at the state level. But whether our top officials are interested in this is a big question.

My friend Aset Zhumabaev is engaged in ethno-organology, the issues of instrumentology. He went to St. Petersburg, where he photographed and measured a lot of dombyras. So many of them were taken there. There is so much work to be done with the archives in Russia, which we have also not yet accomplished here in Qazaqstan. There are many things in the archives, but no proper attention is paid to preserving them. There is a lot of work and not enough staff.

There are also personal archives, and those archives that are somewhere in the university faculties and so on. These can be forgotten or thrown away at any moment. There is the National Library and the radio fund. I myself work in the folklore research laboratory at the Kurmangazy Qazaq National Conservatory. There we have preserved folklore and oral-professional recordings of kui, zhyrs, aitys, 'терме' (terme), 'ғұрып-салт әндері (güryp-salt әnderi – ritual songs), 'беташар' (betashar), 'жарапазан' (jarapazan), 'жоқтау' (joktau) and so on. These archives were all created during the Soviet Union in the 1960s – 1980s, and then in the post-Soviet 1990s.

At that time, money was provided for this. A folklore group of teachers and students, experts and collectors of folk music, would gather and travel to some region, for example, to Mangystau. The purpose of these expeditions was to record the carriers of traditions. And there are carriers to this day, which should be recorded. If a carrier has no successors, then their traditional knowledge dies. So in order for a tradition to exist, it needs a successor to carry it forward. European classical music culture is written down in musical notes. If someone dies, it's okay, someone else will pick it up. But it doesn't work that way for us. It's unique."

(left): The kobyz of hereditary kobyzist Kazybek Әbenov, grandson of Baubek Baqsy, © Yermek Kazmuhambetov

(right): A kobyz belonging to a baqsy who lived in the 18th–19th centuries, using it to cure infertility. © Yermek Kazmuhambetov

And it's fragile. I think this fragility is why many traditional musicians or simply listeners are so vociferous in their defense of authenticity and canon, especially when it comes to experimental music that interacts with tradition in some way. I know that Mamer is periodically attacked with this kind of criticism, as is also my favourite Inuit singer, Tanya Tagaq, who brings to the stage solo Innuit throat singing, which is traditionally sung between two women. There are many such examples.

But in the course of my conversation with Yermek, I realised the other side of the issue. Firstly, the taboo nature of some elements of culture highlights the spirituality of this culture, and secondly, this fragility and frontier in which Qazaq traditional musical culture now resides really requires the utmost sensitivity. According to Yermek:

"In Qazaq traditional culture, not only in music, taboo is very strongly expressed. It is connected with spiritual culture, the spiritual mindset of people. It is simply impossible to avoid 'бақсылық' (baqsylyk – shamanism) from this issue. There are a lot of 'ырым' (yrym – superstitions) and prohibitions, the violation of which can undermine your energy. The main thing is that the spirits can be unhappy about it. Everyone has their own spirit or 'кие' (kie – protector). It is something that is not grasped rationally, but rather sensed. That is our identity.

I have been against the integration, the fusion of traditional music with something else, for many years, because it is already in a dying state. But only part of me thinks this. Qazaq music is very flexible. It can be presented in different ways. But you can't joke with some genres, for example 'жоқтау' (joktau – lament or elegy), a requiem for the deceased. We had musicologists who dealt with this genre, collected it. In their lives, things ended very badly – someone ended up hanging himself, someone got a disease. Joktau is an area of the sacred, a connection with the other world. If you study it, you become an accomplice, you become closer to the spirits and to death. You draw that energy onto yourself. And misfortune happens to you. For example, Bolat Sarybayev was one of the first organologists in the history of Qazaqstan, who worked with the kobyz. He was looking for one kobyz, went to some auyl, he was warned not to take it, he took it, then got sick and died."

One can relate to such things in various ways, but the point that spirituality is an integral part of Qazaq culture is a fact. It is known that the kobyz instrument in general entered the musical scene only in the second half of the 20th century, and entered the professional musical culture beginning with the composer and kobyzist kuishi Ykylas Dukenuly and his school of kobyz. Before that it was exclusively a baqsy (mystic) instrument, a sacral instrument used for healing diseases, communicating with spirits and other practices.

Intersections with Contemporary Music: Tokzhan Karatai

After this conversation, I wanted to talk to Tokzhan Karatai, who graduated from the Kulyash Bayseitova Music School for talented children in Almaty, before moving to Turkey to study composition. Tokzhan is currently Teaching Assistant for the Music and Culture class at Bilkent University in Ankara. One could say that Tokzhan is a hereditary kobyzist; her mother, Raushan Orazbayeva, is a famous and respected traditional kobyzist. At the same time, Tokzhan is a person who is not afraid to lead this sacred musical instrument into experimentation. She joined the remote pandemic edition of the MusicMakers Hacklab at CTM Festival in 2021, and is exploring expanded techniques for playing the instrument. This is what Tokzhan says about herself:

"At the moment I'm more focused on academia. Research, writing, and composition.

I started playing kobyz at school, and graduated from the Bayseitova Music School in the department of folk art and folk music. Later I got to know American and European musicians. I discovered the world of contemporary academic music, which I felt could expand the space for the kobyz. Until then I played only traditional music on kobyz, which always felt like somewhat of a cliché. So I decided to get involved in experimentation as well, and today I position myself as a composer, performer, and improviser. I write compositions for different instruments and ensembles, but in all of this I am inspired by Central Asian art."

I was interested in her experiments and the possible distance from tradition that might arise, especially when working in the context of contemporary academic music. To this Tokzhan replied:

"I don't think I distance myself from traditional music, it always goes hand in hand with experimentation. And traditional music often sounds very contemporary, while anything contemporary can sound very outdated. I probably pay most attention to timbre and colour when I work. And it doesn't matter which kind of compositions I write, which nowadays are most often created for European instruments – my sound will always be modified, and the timbre and undertones will always be similar to Central Asian instruments. Most often to the kobyz. There are times when I take some kuis or melodic motifs as a reference. If it's program music, it might contain some context related to nomads or Tengrianism. As a performer, I have participated in the most unexpected and experimental formats. Recently I started to improvise more with electronics. Sometimes we do performances here in Ankara. So in that sense I started with Ableton Live, recently I've learned Max MSP, and now I've discovered Reaper."

Through her story, it became clear that in some cases, experimental music does not disturb, but even helps traditional music become "emancipated," and despite this, pressures and misunderstandings can deeply affect the trajectories of artists' lives. Also, sometimes traditional music isn't what it seems. Tokzhan shared:

"The last thing I worked on was an ambisonic project. I reconnected a lot of instruments there, recordings of Qazaq traditional instruments. The idea was to emancipate their original sound; we intentionally didn't tune them, as we wanted to hear the instruments sound very far from European standards.

I guess I haven't encountered any judgment of what I do in an open sense. What I am going to say now may sound provocative, but I think I have the right to speak because I studied and graduated in the traditional faculty. This judgment is one of the reasons why I went completely into composition and left Qazaqstan, although I had a chance to enter the conservatory at the same faculty back home. The thing is that everyone says that traditional music is kuis, performing, and so on. But it's not. At some point, I think we distorted its meaning. Because all these 'folk' orchestras, in the name of Kurmangazy and Sazgen Sazy, are in fact European standardised orchestras. They were created during the Soviet Union, not only in Qazaqstan, but all over Central Asia, and also include the Russian 'folk' orchestras.

When I was in high school, I had a state examination with a piece called "Capriccio," which is originally written for cellists. Imagine, we were in tune with the piano, we were playing along. And the kobyz is a natural instrument, it reacts to temperature, to attitude, to your mood. If you are very nervous, it can make things worse and ruin your performance. You have to be friends with it. At such moments we were always told that we should be equal to string players, that is, to cellists, violin players, violists, etc. Well, I don't think that this education was built on traditional art, I don't think I was in contact with traditional art there at all.

Naturally, I was drawn to make a leap towards the contemporary, when you do a jam session with some random street musicians from New York, when you go on stage and you don't know which musician is going to sit with you, when you use extended techniques, when you experiment and use an instrument in a way that it's never been used before. For me it's an act of emancipation, so it's a leap back to the roots, to the past, to shamanism, just through a contemporary method.

One of the earliest kobyz recordings, Nyshan Saryn II

Let me give you an example from my quest for that 'authentic' kobyz. I found a kobyz record, possibly the very first one ever made, in very bad condition. The recording was of a certain blind baqsy (mystic), that is, he was not even a kobyzshi. You could hear in his playing that it was improvisation, that it was more about the sounds of the horsehair itself, melodically everything was built from 'сарын' (saryn) – these are small musical fragments. And of course the instrument was not tuned the way it is tuned today. The sound was different, it was not as tempered as it is now. And I guess that's what attracted me to experimental and contemporary music, because there's no pure intonation, no pure sound. So for me it was like jumping back to the past, where the instrument has no limits, it's free, and I don't have to think about how well it's tuned during the performance.

So I'm trying to distance myself not from tradition, but from this European standard that was once imposed on us by the Soviet Union. In general you have to agree that the kobyz on conservatory stages is a bit strange. Yes, there was criticism in my direction, also because I participated in the contemporary music ensemble EEGERU. I was the first person to play a traditional instrument – the kobyz – in the ensemble. That was the uniqueness of this ensemble. But we did not play traditional music – we played only modern music, modern composers, there were European composers, but we tried mainly to support our Qazaqstani composers. And yes, people from the folk department came in and listened and didn't understand what we were doing.

The kobyz tradition is very close to me. I really like to listen to the old, almost the first, records that were made. I often re-listen to them. It's something native, I grew up on it.

And then, if we're talking about tradition, about the original property of the instrument itself, in my case the kobyz, and its original physical form, this has long disappeared. Even my mother was taught not traditionally, but with musical notation. There was no tradition there, precisely in the sense of the 'ұстаз-шәкірт' (ustaz-shakirt) system. And again, what repertoire did they learn? Maybe it's better now, but in my time everyone was obsessive about transposing things from the cellists' repertoire and trying to prove that we can do it too.

Traditionally, every new performer has always added some of their own style, consciously or not, and contributed to the development of musical works. Take the school I went to: my mom and I studied with the same teacher, he was a perfectionist, and he wanted us all to play the same piece at the same time, and build up from there, adding our own ideas to an existing piece. His approach was prolific, he trained a lot of successful kobyzists. Every time there were modified versions, something was improved. Take for example the kui "Аққу" (Akku – Swan), whose methods and techniques are absolutely unique, and greatly expand the possibilities of the kobyz as an instrument – it was all from kobyzists who added something of their own. My mother contributed greatly to the way this kui sounds today, because she has been playing it for a very long time.

But now the opposite process is taking place. For example, at the Shabyt Academy in Astana, they want students to listen to Dәulet Myktybaev and to play like him exactly. Myktybaev had his own unique style of performance with a lot of microtonal sounds. This is what distinguishes him from others of his generation. And now they teach students to play his record exactly. If you do not play exactly, you are not allowed to take the exam, your scores are reduced. So today it's as if this culture of passing on something of your own to the next generation, which improves the existing one, and of developing the nature of an improviser in yourself is no longer needed.

Raushan Orazbaeva performing the kui "Akku"

As for the instrument itself, originally the kobyz was not a concert instrument at all. The dombyra, yes, you could hear it at a wedding, but the kobyz was not. It was a sacred instrument with a very high status, people were even frightened to touch it, as it was a taboo instrument.

Since the kobyz has already been included in the professional school of kobyzshi, that are not shamans any longer but professional performers, it makes sense to use it and show it in other styles. I often now see that covers are made on the kobyz, it is even used in modern pop. People support it, everyone is interested, because it's a kind of propaganda of their art. The younger generation finds it fresh and interesting, and it's also praising their tradition, so why not."

Speaking of the physical form of the kobyz, it is impossible not to mention the prima-kobyz adapted for the orchestra:

"Perhaps it's not right to speak so sharply, but this is again a modification of the instrument. Why did they do that? Because violins are needed in an orchestra. A standard European orchestra. All of them have their own functions. A kobyz doesn't sound like a violin, even though it's a stringed instrument. That's why they invented the prima-kobyz. I intentionally call my instrument kobyz and not 'қыл-қобыз' (kyl-kobyz – a kobyz with strings made of kyl – horsehair) as it is common nowadays, because the name kyl-kobyz appeared only with the invention of prima-kobyz to make a distinction between them. For me, the kobyz is the original and only instrument."

Even though we have already covered the topic above, I could not avoid asking Tokzhan about the term "қоңыр" (qonyr). Which contemporary composers and works relate to this concept? In Tokzhan's opinion:

"It is very difficult to translate this term, qonyr. This is the sound that I hear in the kobyz. Qonyr implies something philosophical and deep, perhaps connected with some sadness, with the consciousness of a certain reality. It is in the timbre of the kobyz that all this is present, and when extended playing techniques are applied to these strings, the timbre of the kobyz becomes quite different, it expands. For me, that's what kobyz is. This is the sound I look for in other instruments. Any composition that I have written for, it could be string quartets, or here I was last writing for accordion and clarinet – even there I found this sound and tried to reproduce it. It's probably some kind of a beacon that I always strive for, no matter what direction I work in or who I write for.

In my opinion, Qazaq composers work with this sound: for example, Jamilia Jazylbekova. I really like this deep context that she uses, she always has motives and the very sounds of Qazaq art. I once even performed her piece 'Түн салмағы' (Tün salmagy –The Heaviness of the Night). She also has a piece called 'Ұшар' (Üshar – Apex). Even these titles of hers are a direct association with kobyz's kuis. Even if I heard this timbre, which she often uses, these extended playing techniques, rhythm, without knowing that this is her work, I would realise that this person has something to do with Qazaq culture. Same with Sanzhar Baiterekov, whose timbre and colouring, even without open reference or Qazaq instruments, are still Qazaq. It is recognisable."

Before we move on to the next person, with whom we will be talking about the spiritual aspect of Qazaq music, I would like to share Tokzhan's story of how she relates to the kobyz and its spiritual, healing origins, and what interesting things are happening in this sense today:

"I am now teaching a Music and Culture course here at the university in Ankara, and we are talking about Qazaq culture, shamanism, 'бақсылық' (baqsylyk) and of course about the kobyz in a non Qazaq context, to people who are not from the culture. I don't talk about the sound qualities of the instrument, or what it's made of, I don't talk about the repertoire, or what I'm doing today, no, I start with the shamanic function of the kobyz. The kobyz was not considered musical, it was a sacred, powerful instrument, a portal. I have such a respectful attitude to the instrument, I treat it as something alive.

Regarding what I do with it, how far I can go in experiments with this instrument, I think it is only beneficial that I have found a kind of liberation for it in these experiments. In addition to that, I am currently working on an article with a musicologist from the US. She traveled and presented it in January, in New Zealand at a musicology conference. We're working on an article on how the kobyz in general can be used in a therapeutic way. While searching for material, we came across a hospital in Qazaqstan where a psychologist (not a baqsy) is using the kobyz in the treatment of depression. It's interesting how everything comes back in a slightly different form."

Hearing this, I remembered a legend told to me by Yermek about the origin of the kui "Табалдырық" (Tabaldyryk – Threshold), the author of which is considered to be the composer Tattimbet Qazangapuly. There was one person whose child died, he fell into a long period of grief, did not leave the yurt and wanted to die, and nothing helped him. Then they allegedly called a young man Tattimbet, who sat on the threshold of the yurt and began to play music. After some time the man came out of the yurt and was healed, and the desire to live appeared in him again. Thus kui can both grasp and transmit a state of mind. The word kui literally translates as a state of mind and being.

Kui, a Qazaq Worldview: Saida Yelemanova

My conversation with Saida Yelemanova, an ethnomusicologist whose contribution to Qazaq musicology is fundamental and vast, kept coming back to spirituality, and to the fact that it is pointless to consider Qazaq music in isolation from it. Qazaq ethnomusicology is in the state it is today thanks to Saida. She has devoted her entire life to its preservation and popularisation, travelling around her native country and collecting material in musical and ethnographic expeditions. It was she who once illuminated Qazaq oral tradition as a professional tradition; we have not perceived it otherwise since. Saida sees the kui not just as music, but as philosophy, and she puts the sacredness and ritualistic nature of the sound at the forefront of her approach to traditional practices:

"Kui is a philosophy, it is a worldview, abstract and at the same time very important for the material and mental world. Kui is a manifestation of the mental world of the Qazaq. Music making begins with sound, which opens the way there, to that world. The sound and the word opens during the ritual. The poet and theologian Abai said:

Туғанда дүние есігін ашады өлең,
Өлеңмен жер қойнына кірер денең.

(Tuğanda dunie esigin ashady öleñ,
Öleñmen jer qoinyna kirer deneñ)

I translate: When you are born, a song opens the doors of the world to you. With a song, the land opens its embrace, and your body goes there.

He's talking like a cultural scholar. The doors of the world are a transitional rite – a person has been born or has died, a person should pass into that world, a person should be accompanied there. The doors of the world are open at that moment. What does that mean? It means that it is very dangerous that the doors are open. From here we have our customs at about three, seven, and 40 days after birth or death. Mourning ends only after a year. And of the three birthing rites – 1. giving birth (or dying), 2. the transitional period of 40 days (since the birth or death) and passing those 40 days ('қырқынан' шығару (kyrkynan shygaru)), and 3. 'Тұсау кесу' (Tüsau kesu) celebrating one year since the birth) – we have preserved only the last one, tüsau kesu (cutting of ties). In some cultures, the woman in labour was placed in a separate room or yurt, and no one went there to see her. In the Caucasus, there are some cultures where it was customary to place a woman in a pit and serve her food on a shovel, so that she would not come into contact with the other world while the transition was not yet complete.

Musical culture is multi-layered, its foundation is ritual – a moment of transition – hence the value of sound, is that sound points to another world. And that sound goes between worlds, so it is not for entertainment. First of all in birth and death. Qazaq culture is anthropocentric and rituals are very important here. There are special people who conduct giving birth, wedding, and funeral rites. These are actually the three things that a person has in life. The whole Qazaq culture is saturated by interactions with another world, we look at spirits all the time, we take into account their presence. Since sound is connected with the transition between the worlds, it is originally sacred. Therefore, music is a sign of discovery of another world, it is sacred – 'қасиетті' (kasietti) or 'киелі' (kieli). It is a kind of ambivalence, because another world contains not only blessed and good, light, joy, sunshine, but there are also the elements, death, disease, pandemics, and anything else. There's also the lower world. And it turns out that the first professionals in music are baqsy (mystics), the strongest of whom can move freely between the worlds.

Sacrality is a key concept for me, and it's one of the topics of my dissertation. This is a sacrifice, it is just from ritual. This world and another world exchange something, and sacrifice is the component without which the exchange doesn't work. But this sacredness is so only because the carriers of traditional culture think so. I ask my students sometimes, how do you feel when you hear traditional music, like throat singing? Often I hear the answer 'peace, harmony.' And that's the point, you know? To establish this vertical as a world tree and the harmony of the world and to feel yourself in this space, that's all.

I would like to cite here a quote from the book Sign and Ritual by Sagalaev and Oktyabrskaya: 'Succumbing to the music and rhythm charms, and being unable to rationally explain their power, people looked for answers in the context of familiar micropoetic constructions. Music, singing, 'кай' (kai – throat singing) in their interpretation were elevated to the level of sacred forces capable of mastering all living things on earth.'

Once upon a time music was powerful and could do everything. That time is now coming to an end because our heads no longer have these notions of the frontiers of worlds, of sacredness, of death and life. We've moved away from that. Traditional music contains that, but all other music does not."

The Traditional? Art of Sampling: SAMRATTAMA

But does this sacredness work today? Do all of today's minds "lack these notions of the worlds' frontiers, of sacredness...?" From the very beginning of the conversation with Samrat Irzhasov, it becomes clear that this is not quite the case. SAMRATTAMA is his stage pseudonym, encapsulating his name and clan – tama. Already at this level it is clear how important the word and its meaning are for him, and how they form the basis of his view of the world. His latest works are striking in their power of frankness and fragility, courage and vulnerability. I was very interested to talk to him about his practices and where he draws this strength. Samrat began by telling me how the path "opened up" for him:

"You know, I would like to start with the concept of the 'closed road.' That's what they often say, the baqsy – the road is closed. And it was like my road was closed until I started to study our mythology, to be interested in our culture. As soon as I started to do that, everything started happening. And I just manage to exist in it."

Samrat and I often discuss what rights and liberties we can take in traditional culture, in folk songs and compositions, and what we shouldn’t simply feel entitled to. I wanted him to share more about his songwriting processes. In this article we have already touched on issues of protecting authenticity, and on the benefits and harms of experimentation with the traditional. Recently Samrat started to learn to play the dombyra with Yermek Kazmukhambetov, whom we first heard from. It seems to me that Samrat, immersing himself gradually into our culture not as an ethnomusicologist, but as a musician and an ordinary person, is trying to show the treasures he has found to the world. Not through experimental music, which, let's face it, is still intended for a rather narrow circle of people, but through pop music. He strives to reach the widest (and often young, which is important) circle of listeners and remind them of their culture:

"I only recently found out what I could sample and what I couldn't. I noticed that I only sample what I genuinely love, and I try to convey that feeling through my story. Yes, this kui will be played or understood in a new way. Yes, it may be different from the kui I took. Let me give you an example, 'Аққу' (Aqqu – Swan) is one of my favorite kuis. It inspires me because it is very happy – and I want to live, to be happy. It's about two swans who were having fun on the lake. And then a hunter shot one of them. But before that shot, the music describes the swans' moment of happiness. On the one hand I was thinking of this story, and on the other I was thinking of my girlfriend, Adele, a very kind person, playful. One day it came to me that there should be a song named after her social media nickname – savage qyz (savage girl). I had those two narratives in my head.

One day I got to the studio and realised I wanted to write a savage qyz song. I started looking for samples, and I wrote a fun 160 bpm beat. But something was missing. I needed some kind of kui, kobyz. I immediately googled the kui 'Аққу' (Aqqu), and heard the right fragment to sample. I downloaded it and googled whose kui it was – Yqylas of the Tama clan (my clan). It was written in the second half of the 19th century. I suddenly realised that I couldn’t sample it before asking for permission. I was in the studio, I sat there, prayed, recited the Quran, and started bowing and asking Yqylas to give me permission to sample this kui. After that, having asked for permission, I went to boldly sample this kui. Surprisingly it just fit in perfectly. Today no one recognizes this kui inside the song, but everyone feels this happiness that is embedded in the kui. That is thanks, also, to the sound of the kobyz. This incident is important to me because of what I tried to preserve from the story: there is a moment where the swan was shot, and that's it, the sad story begins. Yet I only fossilised the moment of happiness of the swans before the tragedy.

SAMRATTAMA’s "savage qyz" track

The second kui that I sampled is 'Кісен ашқан' (Kisen ashkan – free yourself from shackles). It's a kui by Kurmangazy, written after being freed from the shackles of the Orenburg prison. It is also the first kui that Yermek taught me, so that I could come to understand the timbre of the dombyra, its 'қоңыр' (qonyr) sound. He showed me two versions: Kali Zhantileuov's and Yermek Kaziev's. As soon as I learned it, began to play it constantly, to pass it through myself, I decided to sample it. I took Yermek Kaziev's version, because he has a very 'қоңыр дыбыс' (qonyr dybys – brown sound). Next, I realised that I needed voices. I remembered a TikTok video with Afghan children singing the following words: 'My God, our children's clothes are the colour of blood. Our homes, our land is the colour of blood. God, why do we suffer so much? Why do we deserve this? Our enemies are the Communists and the Americans. Our enemies are Russian Communists and Americans.' So I take this voice and Yermek Kaziev's dombyra from 'Кісен ашқан' (Kisen ashkan) and sample them together. And it turns out to be a third story altogether.

I was afraid to show it to Yermek, my teacher, who stands for the authenticity of stories, but I showed it to him recently, and he was shocked. He liked it very much and asked me to play it a few more times. He sat and listened to the dombyra sample and said that it was not like 'Кісен ашқан' (Kisen ashkan), but that he felt its mood. It turns out that my song kept the thought of the kui itself, while combined with modern narration, my own."

Yermek Kaziev’s version of the kui "Кісен ашқан" (Kisen ashkan)

In my opinion Samrat is one of the most honest artists working with the theme of identity. Not because it is fashionable nowadays, but because he really digs towards understanding himself, his beginnings and roots. He is genuinely interested in it, and without this search his creativity is simply impossible:

"It's clear to me why I do this and that, never super cool, and never the best. Nobody will say, this is Samrat, an outstanding musician, or an outstanding dombyrist, or an outstanding actor, or an outstanding poet. No one will ever say such a thing about me. But everyone will say that Samrat is a special artist. Because I am a symbiosis of these small details.

Today, time allows us to experiment and exist this way, and I am grateful for that. I have never been able to call myself anything in particular. And today I realise, when I read books about Qazaq music and the carriers of 'қасиет' (qasiet – a dignity, a special feature or property of a person, often a gift: musical, poetic, healing, visionary and so on), that the same 'сал' (sal – one can say a poet, singer and composer in one person), or 'сері' (seri – also a creative person, but from the rank of knights), could write poems and songs, could dance and even juggle, do tricks. So they too were a symbiosis of a kind of theatrical and artistic skill set. They shaped themselves with a variety of elements. And so it became clear to me who I was and what my heritage is. Yes, I don't speak Qazaq, but Qazaq culture is in me. I am passing my way through it today. And then I think that I will create some, perhaps, very rhythmic music. Maybe I will move into some techno. I am interested in that. We do not know yet what a dancing dombyra sounds like. We have not heard it. For us the dombyra is not danceable.

When I sampled the kui 'Кісен ашқан' (Kisen ashkan), I took this kui and sampled it, and then there is a long musical note, which I shortened. I did not speed it up, I shortened it. I cut the tail, I added a rhythm, and that is my dance rhythm. It immediately reminded me of my favourite Nicolas Jaar tracks. He has a very minimalistic everything, neat sounds like that, not bright. It's very danceable and deep. I also want to create narratives along the lines of Stromae, who sings about very tragic stories, but people get high from it.

And yes, I repeat, maybe I will never be able to fully learn Qazaq. But these are the things that can be understood without language, that are in me anyway, that I want to develop and examine in myself, and show the world. They even say 'нағыз қазақ — қазақ емес, нағыз қазақ — домбыра' (nagyz qazaq - qazaq emes, nagyz qazaq - dombyra), meaning 'a real Qazaq is not a Qazaq, a real Qazaq is a dombyra.' I like that expression. If I can learn to play the dombyra properly, and transmit what every Qazaq feels when they play, it will be more cool for me than if I learn a language, to be honest.

If I can preserve some heritage, transform it, if someone recognises this (traditional) music through my samples and takes interest – what it is, where is it from – a whole other world will open up for them to immerse themselves into. But there is a minor detail. At first I thought that I would just take a dombyra and sample it all, but it turns out that without a complete immersion in the essence of the kui and in the sound of it, you can't carry the story forward. So you have to learn it yourself first, you have to learn how to do it yourself. There is a line from the poet Yehuda Amichai:

To live is to build a ship and a harbour
at the same time. And to complete the harbour
long after the ship was drowned.

I like to think that I am transforming our traditional culture. If kui is a state of mind, it doesn't matter what language you translate it into, the main thing is that the state of mind should remain."

The Traditional and The Abstract: Medina Bazarğali

My soul is happy when I hear all this and realise that Qazaq popular music is in the good hands of a person who is sincerely interested in our culture and aims to open the way, step by step. I felt the same way about contemporary academic music in my conversation with Tokzhan. But what is happening in the experimental scene?

I've been familiar with Medina Bazarğali's work for a long time, and she has always strived for new approaches. First she was mainly a multimedia artist working with video, programming, and other technologies. She is always rooting for her homeland and is very sensitive to injustice, which seems to be happening more and more often. Her art has always had the political dimension of a person who cares and is courageous. Traditional music, as she says, "has always been around" also thanks to her grandmother, Saida Yelemanova, which we heard from above. Today Medina is taking a determined turn towards sound in her practices. I was interested to learn about the reasons behind this turn:

"Sound is an incredible invisible force, like the internet. The perfect container for expression, withstanding emotional meaning and impact. Traditional music has always been around in one way or another. I have always been a humble witness but never a performer/actor. I used to not even allow myself to think that way because my family told me I had no hearing, so it was better not to even try so as not to make anyone laugh.

Then when I grew up to about 16-17 years old I started to approach sound through experiments with data sonification collected through arduino and different sensors (warm, light, soil moisture). I know that it is super basic, but I was just having fun, I was collecting patches on puredata. I didn't take it seriously at all. I created some seven-channel experiments at a residency in Astana in 2019. Then later in the residency I met Stas (Shärifullá) and he showed me different microphones, which I experimented with too. Then I started DJing, and somehow got interested in live coding. And now I want to stop DJing and fully commit to live coding and producing."

Listening to Medina, I couldn’t help but wonder how much of her interest in traditional music was due to her grandmother Saida. Why does she bring her up in the same breath as live coding? Medina replied:

"Because the foundation of sound's meaning and form for me was established by the Qazaq musical tradition, which my grandmother researched. But it was also her form of education, through her stories of the brave and sharp-tongued, quick-witted improvisers of the steppe aqyns and seri, like Suyunbai Aronuly and Akan Seri. They were my superheroes while growing up. I’d like to share a poem by Suynubai Aronuly:

Халыққа қиянат қылған төрені,
Мен мақтамаймын, сөгіп өлемін,

(Halykka kiyanat kylgan töreni,
Men maktamaymyn, sögip ölemin,)

This loosely translates to: those rulers who do evil to my people, I will not praise, but I will die condemning them.

Of course I would like to be like them: talented, charismatic, free artists with a keen sense of justice for their people. But for now I am just a nerd with a chaotic post soviet qazaq background, like 'оянған бірақ орыстілді отбасынан шыққан' (oyangan birak orystildi otbasynan shykkan, someone from a Russian-speaking family that has now awakened). I'm inspired by them and I want to be a true artist. I'm looking for freedom and truth, and find comfort in computers and experiments and improvisations through the laptop. ('Олардан шабыт алып, нағыз artistsтей болуға тырысамын. Еркіндікті, шындықты іздеп жүрмін.' (Olardan shabyt alyp, nagyz artistststey boluga tarysamyn. Erkindikti, shındyqty izdep jürmin.)"

As Medina participated in a lab on Resynthesising the Traditional at CTM Festival this year, I wondered if she managed to approach some kind of resynthesis in her practice. Medina explained:

"As soon as I got there I dug out my old pure data patch from 2018, the 'kui maker,' and started to work on it. It's a generative audio system that creates electronic kui using pure synthesis and structural algorithms. It lives as a generative being. It uses LFO and random walk generators with bias (leaning) towards certain tones/emotions. For example, if the kui is about suffering, the generator is biased towards minor interval ratios, slow attacks, unstable rhythms. About the patch, the main thing is that there are two modes inside: one is more random, where different notes and rhythms are played; the other is ornament, where I manually prescribed dombyra phases with fast transitions, like 'шертіс' (shertis) or 'қағыс' (qagys)."

It turns out that tradition has influenced and permeated both Samrat's and Medina's music, who are so far apart in their practices, and yet see tradition as the basis of their search and a source of endless inspiration. Speaking of their different approaches to creativity, I asked Medina about the political dimension of her work. I wondered if Medina saw a place for her civil activism within her creativity, and especially in her live coding practice. Can live coding offer a form of creativity that raises political issues, or is it just an escape through abstract art, unburdened by contexts?

"In general, for me art is not just a statement, but a form of survival and presence. Nowadays I don't always speak directly, but I work with what hurts. I think I am perfectly intimidated or I just do not want to be eaten alive by this system. I want to survive, I do not want to be killed at a protest or go crazy in prison. Sometimes I want to escape into pure form: into patterns and cycles, noise, disembodied structures.

'Abstract' for me is almost never out of context. I guess I want to be like the aqyns and seri, because in their improvisation there was both poetry and mockery, and a direct challenge to authority with beauty, style, charisma. Live coding is like a form of aitys with a machine. Code becomes verse and error becomes sarcasm. A space of resistance. But this is all such a pretentious conceptualisation, of course. One could just do exactly the same thing quietly in silence."

Coming to the end, I still don't know where this text has led me, but I can say for sure that some new road has opened up – that traditional knowledge is not completely lost, despite centuries of colonisation, decades of terror, despite all man-made cataclysms, famine, wars – it is still here, seeping through the sensitive ears and skillful hands of modern musicians, both those who continue the tradition and those who experiment, giving rise to new and previously unseen sprouts. It reminds me of my journey to Barsakelmes Island in 2021, which is in fact a former island now, just a hill in the middle of the uber-new Aralkum Desert. I drove to the bottom of the Aral Sea with the scant knowledge I had – that it was an ecological disaster and a tragedy. But when I got there, I realised that instead of the sea there was a desert, which was not dead. I met birds, lizards, snakes, insects, traces of different animals (apparently nocturnal, who did not see fit to see me), mixed with shells – signs of old life – rubbed into shining dust. While approaching the "island," even a goitered gazelle swept past, swift as time. I realised that new forms of life, adapted to the new conditions, appeared there and that life continues, that it does not know how to stop. That its meaning is to continue on the path, to move forwards and into the depths. Instead of gloomy thoughts, I came back from an inspiring experience and with an unbending hope for the future.

In this same way the road opened in front of my eyes thanks to all the wonderful conversations with the artists in this article, who are full of creative adventures and fruitful musical pursuits. I want to thank all the people involved in this article for giving me the opportunity to talk about something that has recently become increasingly important to me because of my work and the projects I am involved in – Qazaq music, both traditional and contemporary. I am also grateful to all my conversational partners, whom I felt as my teachers while working on this text.

In Qazaq tradition there is a concept of "бата" (bata) – a blessing, an admonition, a spiritual permission to do something or an instruction, which can be taken both from living people and from the dead. I have been talking all this time with the living, and we have been remembering a lot of people who have passed away, but who managed to leave us an invaluable heritage. And I hope that by doing so, I have gained a bata from them all. In a world where one stronghold after another is crumbling, such bata is a source of peace and determination.

As a farewell, I'd like to share an excerpt of our conversation with Tokzhan Karatai that I have saved for the finale:

"If you had the opportunity to take a bata from anyone, who would you take it from?"

"Probably from those who were not involved in the formation of the modern music school."

Glossary

Aitys: improvised competitions between two aqyns (poets), a form of oral folk song poetry. Performed with accompaniment on folk stringed instruments.

Auyl: a traditional rural settlement, camp, community of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, the Volga region, and the Caucasus.

Baqsy: is a person who is able to communicate with the mysterious world, has special qualities of tawdry, witchcraft, divination, etc.

Dombyra: a long-necked musical string instrument used by the Kazakhs, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Nogais, Bashkirs, and Tatars in their traditional folk musics.

Kobyz: an ancient Turkic bowed string instrument, particularly prevalent in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and other parts of Central Asia.

Kui / Kuishi: Kui is the name of a traditional Kazakh, Nogai, Tatar, and Kyrgyz instrumental piece. It is performed on komuz (kobyz), dombyra, sybyzgy or other folk musical instruments. Those who perform kuis are called kuishi.

Zhyr: In a broad sense, the general name of poetic works. The word yir in the ancient Turkic language was also used in the meaning of the modern term "poetry". This name is still used in this sense in modern Karakalpak, Kyrgyz, Nogai, Karachay, Balkar, Bashkir, Tatar, and other Turkic languages; in a narrow sense – the size of a 7 to 8-syllable poem in Kazakh folk poetry, the genre of a poetic work. In the Kazakh oral literature, batyr’s (hero’s, warrior’s) zhyrs, historical zhyrs, Lyro-epic zhyrs, lamentations, zhyrau poetry, tolgau, termes, etc. are built on the model of poetry in this dimension.

Bio

Anuar Duisenbinov is a Qazaq poet and creative producer. He writes in Russian and Qazaq, creating multilingual poetry that illustrates the linguistic and thematic context of Qazaqstan’s emerging new literature. His first collection of poems, "Рухани кенгуру" (Spiritual Kangaroo), was published in Almaty in 2022. He is co-author of the spoken-word project "Балхаш снится" (Lake Balkhash comes to my dreams), with which he creates multidisciplinary performances as part of the qazaq indie supergroup.

Translated from the Russian by Denis Esakov.

This text was commissioned as part of CTM 2025.