Art of playing the zhetigen and making zhetigen
Zhetygen is a multistring stringed instrument of the Kazakh people. The overall stand is made oblong, box-shaped. The surface is covered with a lid from a thin board with grooves that give tone.Zhetygen is a very complex instrument, both in its creation and in the way it is played. In the past, the bowels of the ancient zhetygen, preserved among the country, were made of horsehair, and instead of a tiek, asyks were used. The ear position of the instrument is given by moving these Since the string numbers are seven, the instrument is named Zhetygen.
The ancientzhetygen had no ears. Asyk is placed under the strings from both sides. The instrument was to be tuned by moving these asyks. To raise its sound, asyks were brought closer from the beginning to the middle of the strings and when they were moved back and separated between them, the sound decreased. Each string twist is guided by the melody of the song being performed. As we can see, there is some similarity in the method of tuning zhetygen and dombra. There are still dombras in which the strings are twisted in the same way. In such a dombra, the ear will be alone. The upper string is tensed by hand and tied to the head of the instrument. The second string is attached to the ear and twisted, bringing it to the sound of the upper string. After many hundreds of years, zhetygen remained in the same simple state. The number of strings is seven.
