minstrel: hello hello

[nickolas kaugon]

my last two e mails seem not to have made the minstrel list.

i was in grece for a month and came back with a lauta or lavta from the northern  pontic or constantanople tradition.  a four course seven string instrument with microtonal fretts. much to my sorprise there are local carvings and paintings of this family of inatruments from the second century, a thousand years before in western europe.

there are even statues from 320 bc of a related  instrument called the pandura. i had thought the turks brought these instruments with them but the greeks say they taught them to the turks.the turks likely brought new styles of playing and variations of the instruments but the saz and lavta seem to be greek in origion. perhaps evven egyptian(or khemite)going back to 2000 bc.

i got to see several minoan ruins on crete by the way, awe inspiring and fire to the imagination