When Khaysar Xabanbay interprets Kazak folk music with a classical guitar, he is contributing to both repertories.

The Dark-eyed Girl, Alkonger, Chestnut Trotter, all the songs that Khaysar used to play on the two-stringed Kazak instrument dombra, have been given a new sound on the six strings of the guitar. At the same time, these works bring to guitar music for the first time the melancholy character and variable beats of the Kazak people.

There are perhaps more differences than similarities between the dombra and guitar, but Khaysar has linked the two instruments with his creative work.

"When I practised the guitar sometimes, without noticing, I began to play tunes that I used to play on the dombra," says the guitarist from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. "Then I realized that I could interpret these tunes in another way."

Path of learning

Born a Kazak in Toli, a county that borders Kazakhstan, Khaysar did not see a guitar until he was 16 years old, but started playing the dombra in childhood. He never had formal training, but whenever guests visited his home, young Khaysar would ask them to teach him some dombra tunes.

Khaysar's family was a hospitable one, so the young lad never had a shortage of teachers. Gradually, Khaysar became familiar with the world of Kazak folk music and the stories behind it.

"Closely related to Kazak oral literature, Kazak folk music usually tells stories about love or heroes, and is often rather sad," says Khaysar.

One tune that Khaysar learnt in childhood was Bozingen (White Female Camel), which also tells a sad story: One day a baby camel was playing with his mother when he fell into a fast flowing river. Fraught with anxiety, the mother kept running along the river, but could not find her son. At last, the despairing mother suffocated herself by pressing her neck between the branches of a tree.

This tune, typical of the style of narration in Kazak music, left a deep impression on Khaysar. Years later, he would adapt Bozingen for a guitar work and still keep the spirit of Kazak music.

In 1979, Khaysar saw a guitar for the first time, when an old classmate brought one home from his school in the city of Tacheng. His friend had just learned a little about the guitar, but the expressiveness of the instrument attracted Khaysar.

"The Dombra is basically a melodic instrument, but the guitar is more harmonic," says Khaysar. "In addition, the guitar has a wider range, and one can play a melody at different positions on a guitar."

However, not having a guitar of his own, Khaysar could not practise regularly. Mostly, he continued playing the dombra, and sometimes the accordion.

The next year, Khaysar joined the Xinjiang Institute of Technology in Urumqi to study geology. There he also began to study classical guitar systematically, largely teaching himself.

Considered a foreign instrument, guitar was practically banned in China during the "cultural revolution"(1966-76). Only in the late 1970s and early 1980s did the instrument begin to gain popularity, and soon became one of the most loved instruments in China.

Khaysar studied with the help of a few guitar textbooks available then, like Bao Yuankai's Introduction to Guitar Playing.

After several years of practice, Khaysar picked up the techniques of classical guitar, but was not satisfied with playing only classical European pieces. He wanted to play his native music on the guitar.

His first attempt was The Dark-eyed Girl, whose motif was taken from a song by the great Kazak poet, philosopher and musician Abay Kunanbay (1845-1904).

Khaysar's guitar version of the song consists of an introduction, theme, and two variations. The plain melody, together with clear arpeggio and trill, depicts a beautiful and innocent girl.

The Dark-eyed Girl was very successful upon its premiere in Urumqi on March 24, 1987, at the traditional Nauruz festival of the Kazak people. At that time Khaysar was performing with the Birch Forest Troupe, founded by young Kazak artistes.

Nauruz is an important Kazak festival which declares the end of winter and welcomes spring and the new energy of life. There were many programmes at that day's performance, and Khaysar's guitar solo of The Dark-eyed Girl was one of the best received.

The Xinjiang TV Station filmed and televised the performance. After that, The Dark-eyed Girl became widely known, and Khaysar often received invitations to perform the work.

Greatly encouraged, Khaysar decided to play more Kazak music on the guitar. In the following years, he arranged about 30 Kazak tunes for the western instrument.

Chestnut Trotter is a classic dombra work composed by Kazak musician Axim Dongxe (1896-1962). Maintaining the melodic and rhythmic structures of the original work, Khaysar uses special guitar techniques such as golpe (tapping the table) and tambora (tapping parts of strings that are close to the bridge) to describe the various gestures of a fine horse.

For Wedding Prelude, another dombra work which was composed by Dyna Nurpes (1861-1955), a composer living in Kazakhstan of the former Soviet Union, Khaysar blends techniques of the dombra and guitar. The mixed beats of 2/3 and 3/4 contribute to the warm atmosphere of a Kazak wedding.

"Talking about Kazak music, most people would know the popular folk songs A Lovely Rose and Mayila, but they don't know much more," said Khaysar. "I hope I can do something to popularize Kazak music through my work."

For Khaysar, there are three principles in his work of adaptation: He usually selects works that are not very widely known, of strong ethnic character, and suitable for the guitar.

Xinjiang music

Besides Kazak music, Khaysar also arranges other folk music from Xinjiang, and tries to adopt appropriate guitar techniques to preserve their original style.

For example, he borrows the rhythmic pattern and rasgueado (a kind of rhythmically complex strumming) technique of flamenco guitar in Tzigane Girl. The song is said to have been created by nomadic gypsies and came to Xinjiang via Russia and Central Asia, so techniques of the flamenco render the gypsy nature of the song vividly.

In My Crescent Sickle, a folk song of the Tatar people, Khaysar starts with a quiet arpeggio, and then moves on to faster strumming, before finally reverting to a slower pace. The whole piece sounds like a story told through a set of oil paintings.

Khaysar once planned to pick tunes from all the 56 ethnic groups of China and adapt them for guitar solos, but later gave up the idea.

"I found that without understanding the cultural background of a people, I can't deliver the feeling of their music in my adaptation," said he. "I decided to focus on the folk music of Xinjiang, which is most familiar to me."

In 1988, Khaysar came third in Urumqi's classical guitar competition. Two years later, he won the second prize at the national classical guitar competition sponsored by the Guitar Friends Association and Shanghai Music Publishing House. His adaptation of Chestnut Trotter won the "award for adaptation of Chinese-style classical guitar work."

During this time, Khaysar was working at the Xinjiang Institute of Technology. After the institute merged into Xinjiang University in 2000, Khaysar became director of the office of discipline inspection at the university.

Meanwhile, Khaysar also became chairman of the Guitar Committee under Xinjiang Musicians' Association in 2003, and was invited to be a judge at the fifth National Guitar Competition held in Shanghai in 2004.

Khaysar's two roles may seem disconnected, but he keeps them in harmony. He spends most of his spare time practising the guitar.

"Most people know my name not because I'm a director of discipline inspection, but because I'm a guitarist," he says.

Even at Xinjiang University, he is better known among students as the teacher of two elective courses, Basic Knowledge and Training of Guitar and Appreciation of Chinese and Foreign Guitar Music, than as director of the office of discipline inspection.

The two courses are both very popular, and each class has over 100 students coming from various ethnic groups. After Khaysar introduces his own guitar works to the students, many of them ask for copies of the scores.

To help people who are interested in playing Xinjiang folk music on the guitar, Khaysar is editing a collection of his adapted works, and hopes to have it published soon.

Khaysar has already released a book in the Kazak language called Basics of Guitar Playing with the Xinjiang Youngsters' Publishing House, as well as a tape cassette of his guitar works with the Xinjiang Audio and Video Publishing House.

For Khaysar, there is still much to do. Having transcribed over 30 pieces of folk music for the guitar, he is now preparing for a new start in his musical career: composing his own works.

"Of course, my composition will still be based on Xinjiang folk music," he said.

(China Daily November 21, 2005)