Secrets of the Master
January 28, 2000 | Ежедневные Новости | by Нонна Д-ГЮБЕК
How to make a Saz?
For this original instrument, they use the mulberry tree, which certainly grows in mountainous areas, because the roots of the tree are fed by mineral springs that flow from the ground. It is desirable that this tree does not bear fruit, because of this its sound will be louder.
If you have ever held a saz in your hands, you have probably noticed that it consists of several elements, pulled together with copper wire. Each part is prepared from processed wood and cleaned in hot water to soften it and make it pliable in the hands of the master, and then stretched onto a form and tightened. The age of the saz can be determined by its color: a young saz is much lighter. Due to the presence of iron and other metals in the mulberry tree, the saz darkens over time, like a bitten apple. But the most important thing is that the music it produces will be even more pleasant if a real musician plays it.
The works of our masters, although there are only four of them left, are known far abroad. For example, the famous Louvre houses the tar Usta (Master) - Balabay Balabayov, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the same as the one this master presented to our president for his 75th birthday.
A film crew came to Baku specifically to make a story about Azerbaijani masters. The uniqueness of these two tars was that it took two years of work to cultivate them, mother-of-pearl tar, or as it is called in Azerbaijani - "sadafli tar", requires mother-of-pearl obtained from pearl shells, and the dust from mother-of-pearl during its sharpening is fraught with tuberculosis and other pulmonary diseases.
Only one master Balabay is engaged in inlaying musical national instruments in Azerbaijan.
The inside of each shell has to be turned in water to avoid dust, but first it is necessary to find the shells themselves, and only then glue the instrument. The mother-of-pearl treatment not only serves as a decoration for the instruments, but also does not let moisture through, giving the instrument an unrivaled sound.
The French ambassador, who visited Balabayov's workshop together with a delegation from Paris, was horrified by the conditions of his work and the state of the workshop, saying that such work should be done in laboratory conditions. But for our masters, forgotten by the state and apparently unnecessary to the nation, this can only be a dream, since high-ranking officials, accepting an expensive gift from a master as a given, do not bother to inquire about the conditions in which they work.
At 33 years old, master Balabay developed asthma due to mother-of-pearl dust, since to process mother-of-pearl in water it is necessary to maintain a certain temperature, and there is no heating in the workshop itself, so the master made a device consisting of a dental drill and a fan, which ventilates part of the dust into a window.
Today, everyone thinks only about their daily bread, not about high cultural values. If we lose even the little that remains of the secrets of the ancient masters, then there will be nothing left to think about…