Yesterday (tuesday), I met with Gagik Malkhasyan, a professional duduk player, who also teaches people how to play the duduk. The first thing that Gagik told me when he saw my duduk that I bought from the vernissage was "vat e" (it's of low quality), both the duduk and the reed are of low quality. A good reed makes it much easier to blow into it, and with a good duduk, it doesnt take special effort to play in tune. So, he ordered a new duduk for me from Yerevan, which will be here on Friday, and he arranged for lessons for today and for Friday. He said it would take me only one or two months training with him to reach professional level. Also, it costs 10000 dram, (about 30$) for each 1 hour lesson, and we would begin the next day. Throughout the entire conversation, my friend Shoghik from BR was translating between me and Gagik. I asked her if she would come and translate for him again for the next day's lesson, but she said she wouldnt make it.
Today I met up with Gagik again, this time to start lessons. It turns out he does know a little bit more English than I had thought he did, more cognitive than conjugative though. And with the amount of Armenian that I know, i was able to understand most of what he said without a translator with me. He showed me his own duduk (made of real dziran wood, and not cheap wood from idk what type of tree), and showed me the difference between his and mine. The dziran wood is black (rather than brown) and more dense than the other wood (this he demonstrated by having me hold my duduk in one hand and his duduk in the other hand and feel the difference in weight). Also, a good reed makes it actually sound like a real duduk, and not like a cheap saxophone.
He told me to bring 10k dram next time for the lesson, 20k dram for the new duduk, and 5k dram for the new reed. 35k dram (about a hundred dollars USA). Gosh, this is expensive. But fortunately, everything else is inexpensive here (100 dram (~ 30 cents) for a bus to anywhere, and for food, lunch rarely costs more than 1000 dram (about 3 dollars)).
As for the duduk I currently have, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. I'm probably going to give it to a friend as a souvenir, but I'm not sure yet who to give it to. Souvenir duduk? anyone?
Today I met up with Gagik again, this time to start lessons. It turns out he does know a little bit more English than I had thought he did, more cognitive than conjugative though. And with the amount of Armenian that I know, i was able to understand most of what he said without a translator with me. He showed me his own duduk (made of real dziran wood, and not cheap wood from idk what type of tree), and showed me the difference between his and mine. The dziran wood is black (rather than brown) and more dense than the other wood (this he demonstrated by having me hold my duduk in one hand and his duduk in the other hand and feel the difference in weight). Also, a good reed makes it actually sound like a real duduk, and not like a cheap saxophone.
He told me to bring 10k dram next time for the lesson, 20k dram for the new duduk, and 5k dram for the new reed. 35k dram (about a hundred dollars USA). Gosh, this is expensive. But fortunately, everything else is inexpensive here (100 dram (~ 30 cents) for a bus to anywhere, and for food, lunch rarely costs more than 1000 dram (about 3 dollars)).
As for the duduk I currently have, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. I'm probably going to give it to a friend as a souvenir, but I'm not sure yet who to give it to. Souvenir duduk? anyone?
cool man, soon you'll be able to play the duduk solo on that song!!!!! (don't publicly reveal yet what the song is)
ReplyDeleteoh, and another sidenote on this encounter. Google translate doesnt have the word for "ocarina" in Armenian. Gagik told me the word is "Okren" when i asked him what it is.
ReplyDelete