Culture & Arts National customs

Gusle – Serbian national musical instrument

Gusle---Serbian national-musical-instrument---Stock-photo--123-RF
Photo credits: 123rf.com

Gusle is a bowed string musical instrument, and the first Gusle was made in 9th century.
Gusle consists of 1/2 strings (made out of 30 horsehairs), a wooden body, covered with an animal skin, and nek with the carved head. The Gusle player is called Guslar. He plays by placing the instrument vertically between his knees, so that the long neck of the instrument is supported on one thigh.

The sound is then produced by pulling a bow (usually made of horsetail) over the string[s] with the left hand, which generates the dramatic and sharp sound.
A guslar does not only play the instrument, but also reproduces and composes poems (usually in the decasyllable meter) about heroes and historical events. Gusle is always accompanied by singing; the guslar himself or musical folklore sings epic poetry.

Gusle has had a significant role in the history of Serbian epic poetry because of its connection to the patriotic oral legacy. Good amount of the epics are about the era of the Ottoman occupation, and the struggle for the liberation from it. The first known Serbian guslar was Dimitrije Karaman.

You can hear how it sounds in this You Tube video of Miljan Miljanic. 

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