Balalaika

WHEN I WAS YOUNG, we used to have a book called Trubloff ~ The Mouse Who Wanted to Play the Balalaika by the wonderful John Burningham, and I loved the story very much indeed. John Burningham's illustrations have a fabulous scratchy folky quality that embodies great heart. This is the amazon synopsis of the story:

Trubloff the mouse lives with his family in the village inn but dreams of becoming the greatest balalaika player in the whole country. So one night, when everyone is asleep, he runs away to join a band of gypsy musicians who promise to teach him to play. Trubloff's poor family are overcome with worry, but in the end, it's Trubloff's gift for music that saves them all.

I have always loved Russian music, in fact anything from the Eastern European folk tradition and most especially Jewish Klezmer music. This music moves me in a way I cannot explain, I think I might have inherited this love of oom-pah from my mum ... but as far as we know there is no Jewish blood in our family tree.



I try to play the accordion, as I have mentioned before.. specifically the Russian B-System Bayan :) ... there is something about the sound of accordion and clarinet together that really gets me. I often paint musical instruments, I like the shapes of them and I find that I can hear the paintings playing if I listen to a recording whilst making the image.


Anyhow, back to balalaikas... those triangular stringed instruments that can be seen not only in the arms of mice but also played in whole ensembles with instruments ranging from tiny tinkling things to great bass balalaikas.
As you know, our grand clear out is including the odd original painting sale and I have decided to sell my Balalaika watercolour for an extremely reasonable £80 :) ... it's a smallish little thing (7.5" x 5"), which I painted in 2005 and I'm selling it unframed. There it is in the fireplace with my first green accordion; a funny little man on the back of a wheeled reindeer, playing the balalaika in a snowy onion-domed Slavic forest. And here it is in my etsy shop if you should wish to own it. [Edit... the painting is sold!]


And if you'd like to hear a balalaika playing whilst you look at the painting, here's well known Polish/English balalaika player Bibs Ekkel in 1978 with Ensemble Tsiganka playing Papirosen, a Russian/Yiddish song about cigarettes. That's them over there leaning against the Gypsy vardo :)
Hoi!

NB - all images except those of my painting and accordion are nicked from the internet :)

Squeezing Boxes

WELL TODAY I WOULD LIKE YOU TO MEET four friends of mine. They are an odd breed and they sing with a voice that I love. Um-pah um-pah they chatter to each other in the corner of the room.
I first played an accordion a couple of years ago and knew that it was my instrument. My mum played one too as a small girl in New Zealand.
Accordions are not an old instrument, they have been around only since the early nineteenth century and became an excellent means of making a piano transportable in order to accompany small musical groups.
My first friend, this green fellow below was sold to me by a man who'd had it in his attic for years, and had found it years before amongst melons for sale on a market stall in a Ukrainian village where he was delivering medical supplies. The stall holder told him that it had belonged to a soldier who had died. I learned by ear tunes that moved me and it was not long before I felt brave enough to play on street corners to others. Once I had crossed the hurdle of two-hands- doing-different-things-at-once, like patting your head and rubbing your belly, I bounced along and loved to play it very much.
And a little squeezeboxgeekery for you: I play a B-System chromatic button accordion (also known as a bayan). This is the system of button arrangement favoured in Russia and the Balkans, and so these are harder to find over here. My first accordion has a deep and gutsy sound and three rows of buttons.
The second and third characters in this troupe I have acquired along the way because I like accordions, the second, and most beautiful of the lot (despite some missing teeth) and sadly least playable, from my friend Gretel.
Finally, the magnificent Bugari, with its five lovely rows of buttons, I bought with my own hard earned pennies from Mr Allodi, and it is a joy to play.