basetla

Basetla is the Polish folk stringed instrument that resembles the cello with its shape. Basetla was the part of instruments of folk bands together with a violin and a small drum. It was used by rural musicians to accompany violinists.

basetla

Basetla has from two to four strings and a characteristic low-scale sounds.
Basetla is also known under the names: basetnia, basses and maryna.

View the embedded image gallery online at:
http://www.instrumentyludowe.pl/en/basetla.html#sigProId4d78109004

basetla-legend
instrumenty

Instruments

The instruments recorded in the project come from museum of sound with more than 80 thousand object collections from the National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw. Together with museum staff we have chosen 23 instruments guided by the following principles – they should be definitely folk, unusual, derived from the old times, Polish and coming from different cultural backgrounds, also exotic like e.g. Asian.

Recording a full range of tone of 23 instruments - tonal and sonic scale lasted several days. Thanks to the recordings - sound banks were created and have been used in the project in two ways. The first way was based on motion-sensitive controllers which created new practical instrumentarium for use during the workshops and animation activities. The second way was placing recorded sounds on the website for promotion of the idea of the project and gathering a great number of recipients.

All instruments were also photographed and described which enabled creating of publicly accessible compendium of information about them.