Lesson 10 – First Tune on the Kaval

New to the instrument? Start with The Bulgarian Kaval: what it is, how it sounds and how it is made.

Download: Sednalo e Dzhore.pdf

So the time has finally come. This is where the fun starts. It’s time to learn the first song on the kaval. My suggestion is – “Sednalo e Dzhore” which is one of the most popular folk songs in Bulgaria. It is very melodic and easy to remember. That makes it a great choice for a first tune on the kaval. The time signature is 2/4. Which means that each measure contains 2 quarter notes or their equivalent. In the beginning of this lesson you heard the melody and it probably sounded way too advanced for you. Well that was because of the ornaments. In Bulgarian folk music we never play plain melodies. There’s usually plenty of ornaments and different embellishments. Of course, we’re not going to do all that now. We’ll take it step by step. Let’s start by learning the melody. Download the PDF notation of the tune by using the link below. Feel free to print it out if it’s going to be easier for you to follow along.

Learning the melody

Maybe some of you know the melody already. That’s definitely going to make things a lot easier. If you don’t know it, though, don’t worry. You’ll get there shortly. There are two ways of learning music. The first one is by reading it and the second – by listening to it (by ear). Folk music is generally an aural tradition and when my great grandparents sang those songs they had no idea of music notation nor theory. However, it is much faster if you can read music and a lot of different things can be explained easier, especially if you’re not Bulgarian and you don’t understand that tradition. Here’s a three step approach that I use with my students to learn new melodies:

1. Repeatedly listen to the melody until you memorize it as much as you can.

This step significantly speeds up the process and the results will come more quickly because we already know the melody in your head so you can easily find your way through even if your reading isn’t so good.

2. Focus on the rhythm

I’ve talked about rhythm in Lesson 7. Feel free to jump back and review the information there if needed. So, this is the most time consuming step and I’ll break it down for you:

• Start by completely ignoring the pitch (the vertical dimension of music notation) and only focus on the rhythm which is the horizontal dimension.
• Use a syllable like “tah” to be able to verbally reproduce the rhythm. Then simply go through the notes. I’ll get there in a bit.
• Start slowly and gradually speed up the tempo, but don’t speed up unless you feel very comfortable and confident in the current tempo.
• Use a metronome. The metronome is a device that helps you maintain a steady tempo when practicing. The way it does that is by producing a steady pulse that helps you to play in time. This pulse is measured in beats per minute (BPM). So a tempo of 60 bpm equals one beat per second. You don’t necessarily need the actual device. There are tons of apps out there that you can download on your smartphone for free and start using right away so I highly encourage you to do so.

3. Read the music and play the melody on the kaval

When you’re aware of the melody and the rhythm, take your kaval and start playing. You’ll see how easy it is to actually play the melody now, because your brain knows exactly what you’re looking for and you use your memory and your reading skills simultaneously. All you have to do now is transfer that information to the kaval.

Let’s go through the process together!