Folk Musical Instruments in Bulgaria

The Bulgarian groups use instruments that are common which include;

1. The gaida which is a traditional goat skin bagpipe, there are two common kinds of gaida, the Thracian gaida is tuned either in D or in A, the rhodopi gaida that is also known as the kaba gaida, is larger and has a much deeper sound and can be tuned in F. 
2. The kaval, an end blown flute that is very close to the Turkish kaval, as well as the Arabic ney. 
3. The guadulka, a bowed string instrument that probably came from the rebec which is held vertically with melody and sympathetic strings. 
4. The tupan, a large drum worn over the shoulder by the player and hit with a beater (kayak) on one side and a thin stick (osier) on the other. It is different from the Greek buzouki. 
5. The tarabuka or the dumbek which is an hourglass shaped finger drum is very similar to the Turkish and North African darbooka and the Greek touberleki.

  

source of picture: www.passiondiscs.co.uk

The new professional musicians of the folk Bulgarian instruments soon reached the new heights of the new idea, expanding the capacities of the gaida (Kpstadin Varimezov and Nikoola Atanasov), gadulka (Mihail Marinov, Atanas Vulchev) and kaval (Stpyan Chobanov, Nikola Ganchev, Stoyan Velichkov), and other factory musical instrument that have arrived in the Bulgaria in the 19^th century, which include the accordion. The Bulgarian accordion music was defined by Boris Karlov and later Gypsy musician which include Kosta Kolev abd Ibro Lolov. In the year 1956, the Ministry of the Culture established the Koprivshtitsa National Music Festival which has become a significant event, it is held once every five years, and it showcase the Bulgarian music, singing and dance and the last festival was in August 2010.