The Intonational Nature of Kazakh Instrumental Folk Music in Samples

Abstract

The authors examine the “intonational-complex” sample (ICS) from the point of view
of its possibilities for preserving traditional musical culture and the adaptation of the proposed
terminology to the field of digital art. Analysis is carried out of possible methods of digitalization of
Kazakh traditional instrumental music, as well as application of methods of sampling for the sake
of subjecting specimens of the art of folk music to transformation. The article provides analysis
of contemporary theoretical developments in the sphere of modeling and experimental attempts of
creating a digital format of the virtual model of instruments, and also a classification of samples
is offered. The authors divide the samples into three basic types: the organic (a maximally natural
sound of the instrument in digital format), the synthetic (a distorted sound, compared with the
primary source), and the intonational-complex sample (ICS). The latter is acknowledged to be the
most significant for the recreation, dissemination and preservation of folk music, since it carries out
the function of notation, replication and preservation of authentic sound. One of the relevant and
most complicated goals in the angle of research is seen to be the creation of samples which replicate
the sound of folk music in the conditions of thin mountain air, rolling over of grains of sand in the
desert, as well as the expanses of steppes, where the song or the kuyi of the performer of Kazakh
music can be heard for many kilometers. Singled out as a separate problem is the lack of samples
of timbres of Kazakh folk instruments, with the exception of the dombra, whose manufacturers are
such companies situated outside of Kazakhsan as Impact Soundworks and Wavelet Audi.

Keywords: Kazakh music and digital art, sampler, sound synthesis, authentic sound and musical
instruments, kuyi, dombra