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Written in fRoots issue 270, 2005
 

BOOK
Some Aspects Of The Alboka
Manu Gojenola Onaindia
Herri Musika, ISBN 84-8917-13-9 (2005)

The alboka, a small double horn-pipe, is the high shrill reedy sound of Basque traditional music. Between two cow-horns – one to blow down, one at the opposite end - it has two short parallel tubes, both supported by a semicircular wooden cradle. One has five holes, the other three, and each has a single reed. Though nowadays it’s to some extent an iconic instrument, with the number of players growing, even in Euskal Herria it was nearly forgotten during the second half of the twentieth century. Manu Onaindia’s book is the first to deal with it in English.
      The first part covers alboka history, talking about players and makers and incidentally giving a sidelight on the social context of Basque folk music in general, while the second comprises biographies of the key players. The original text, interspersed with a few b/w photos, is in Euskara; following it are translations into Spanish and English. Well… the words are English, but the result isn’t really English yet; the author did his own translation, and while it’s just about intelligible he, or the publisher, would have been better advised to let a native writer check and rewrite it. The book is a significant and useful work nevertheless.
www.herrimusika.org


© 2005 Andrew Cronshaw



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