Der Jimi Hendrix des Bulgarischen Dudelsacks (Gaida)

An extraordinary Bulgarian bagpipe player was playing, twirling and stomping in the street outside the Mauerpark on Sunday, so after listening to him for a bit, I picked up a leaflet about the next concert he was giving. We went to the concert last night at the Haus der Sinne  (House of the Senses) in Pankow, a lovely, relaxed, candle-lit venue with comfy old sofas and armchairs, tables and chairs, a small stage with piano, a bar and a Bulgarian buffet of bread, sheeps cheese, dried tomatoes and a few other things (for the additional princely sum of 2 euros!).

The player, Peter Bonev, is a wiry, weathered-looking man who appears to have just stepped out of a Breugel painting. He has short, dark, receding hair cut high over his ears, brushed forward to a very short high fringe. His cheeks have deep, vertical wrinkles, and when he blows into his bagpipes these cheeks inflate like Satchmo’s, reminiscent of inflated bubblegum just before it pops. He is very skinny, and was wearing baggy clothes which hang loosely. He prefers to play in the streets, particularly under bridges, and busks around Europe.

There’s an excellent sharp photo of him on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomasz_kulczycki/4821796831/

His bagpipes might have come from the same Breugel painting. They resemble the original sheep or goat that they are made from than do pipes from western europe, and he looks a bit like a shepherd  carrying a dead sheep with poles sticking out of it under his left arm, when he has inflated the bag. The forelimbs have been replaced by a pipe to blow in and a long single drone, the head by the chanter which extends from a short length of horn. Four large bells of varying sizes hang round his waist at the front. The animal’s skin is still white and roughly scraped, and the rear of the bag just gathered up. He had it covered in a white shawl.

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From his apparently simple instrument that has been around for many centuries, he coaxes and forces extraordinary sounds. The music he makes comes from the bagpipes, gyrating his pelvis wildy to ring the bells, and tapping, jumping and stomping different rhythms in his sturdy shoes. His whole body moves to make the sound. No wonder he’s so slim. At times he bends over to ninety degrees, spins round and round at high speed for some sound effects, waves his fingers or whole hand over the chanter to vary the sound while playing it with his other hand, rests the end of the chanter on his thigh, varying the distance for yet other effects, and wanders around, concentrating intensely and often seemingly lost to the music. He moved to different surfaces to get varying sounds, such as against the hard front of the little stage and near the piano. The comparison with Jimi Hendrix is understandable. Sometimes he spun round in circles about fifteen times, and didn’t seem at all dizzy! Each set lasts about fifteen minutes, and he played about five or six sets. He apologised saying he was old (sixty two) and needed a rest, but his fitness and energy are remarkable.

The music contained all sorts of weird and wonderful rhythms, changing frequently (7/8, 15/8, 5/8). The pipes have a double reed and interesting tuning, so give a lovely dirty sound, and he had all sorts of ways of bending notes. Some music was evocative of a casbah. The dance music got my feet tapping. Notes popped out frantically, glided out smoothly, and everything in between.

As well as playing, he recited and sang (in Bulgarian, so I have no idea what he said!). His voice is beautiful, and he is clearly an actor who enjoys contact with his audience.

And all this for 8 euros!