BULGARIAN GADULKA / rebec of special make, new mechanism

This is a professional gadulka instrument handmade by the best Bulgarian string instruments master. The gadulka is of perfect make and is intended for professional musicians. The instrument is UNIQUE, entirely handcrafted. There is a very special mechanism for the main strings, that facilitates instrument tuning. This mechanism is made in Germany and represents a big innovation by the string instruments. The entire instrument is of a skillful craftsmanship resulting from master's hard work, creativity and rich professional experience. The wood material used is 15 years old, dried and processed via special traditional technology. The maker of the gadulka we offer you is known for his talent on a national and Balkan region level. He is a third-generation master: both his father and grand father were into the string instruments making.
The instrument's quality is guaranteed with a certificate issued by Shop Bulgaria ltd. and the master himself.

The instruments of this series distinguish with their bigger, wider and deeper body, therefore it received a deeper and powerful sound, compared to the normal size instruments. They are rarely made because they require a bigger piece of wood that is solid and of special characteristics. What makes this gadulca special is the finer and longer neck, the special made strings and the tunning mechanism.. It is varnished in warm reddish color and has light - colored tailpiece made of horn.
The concept behind this gadulka can be defined as “the water drop”. It can be explained in the following way: the gadulka resonator’s form follows the shape of a water drop that is going to fall to the ground. In fact, “Maestro Ice Winter” is characterized by the greatest possible depth for a gadulka. If this depth had been surpassed, the tones produced would have been muffled.
The instrument’s body is made of solid but light acacia, whereas for the upper part was used spruce. This excellent instrument is characterized by a strong and consistent tone of the whole range, which is quite uncommon for a gadulka. Also, the three main strings of the instrument are covered by metal material and are made by master Kazasyan himself. The ground coat and coloring of the instrument are like the ones used by the great Italian masters of past times.

This instrument was made to carry out a new type of ideology in terms of gadulka making. The goal behind this unique model is to raise the traditional instrument of gadulka to the level of a classical instrument possessing a lot of qualities.

A lot of talented musicians have devoted themselves to playing the gadulka and teaching this instrument to students. Moreover, the tradition of playing this instrument is centuries-old and gadulka is one of the instruments that has contributed to spreading the word about Bulgarian folklore and its uniqueness all over the world. Many songs, horo dances and instrumental pieces has reached the heart of the listener thanks to gadulka’s voice.

That is why this instrument deserves a special treatment and processing to preserve its life longer. Usually, gadulka is NOT to be colored or varnished, which doesn’t allow the instrument to survive a long time. Coloring and varnishing would help to preserve the instrument much longer but this is easier said than done. Wood should be processed in such a way that the instrument looks beautiful and plays well. Simple varnishing can only worsen the qualities of the instrument in terms of sound and timbre.

That is why master Nikolay Stefanov has devised his own way of processing the wood material for gadulka and its varnishing. For that purpose, he has used both the knowledge of the violin masters from Kremona and what he has learnt while studying Chemistry at university. Nikolay uses a combination of natural pigments and resins, animal’s products, natural coloring substances, bee’s products etc. It is exactly those substances that preserve wood for centuries on end and contribute to the sound qualities improving as time goes by. The technology the master uses takes a lot of time and efforts and is rather primitive, but the results achieved are more than excellent.

The gadulka we offer have the following characteristics:
It has 3 main strings and 11 sympathetic ones.
It consists of:
- neck and top part of the neck of the instrument is made of Acacia-tree
- corpus consisting of thick resonant top plate, made of spruce tree and back, base part of acacia tree as well (the block of wood hollowed out, not made of separate parts that have been glued together (skafto)) Everything is handmade via old traditional master technology.
- at the bottom is the black, horn-made plate to which the strings are attached
- 11 resonant metal strings ("podglasnici"). They are placed further down and the bow does not touch them . They only produce sound when affected by the sound vibration of the three main strings placed over them.
- 3 main metal strings where the bow glides on. They are pitched in A-E-A (la-mi-la) - this is typical of Bulgarian Trakia Gadulka. The strings are lifted over the resonant plate by the bridge, called "donkey".
- a bow with sheaf of fibers
- wooden key for easily pitching the different strings
- a certificate, stamped by the National Association of the Craftsmen.

PLAY a GADULKA sample (29 sec.)