State Opera and Ballet Theatre 3

The other week, I arrived at the State Opera and Ballet Theatre to find a before-the-show performance of throat singing and traditional instruments (and free wine!).  Check out the morin khuur (pronounced 'moron whore', remember? check out my earlier post "A Moron Whore" for the whole spiel on pronunciation) and the badass horsehead contrabass!  Also, with regard to the weird circular dot in front of the morin khuur, I'm not sure what it is or how it got in the picture.  None of the pictures which I took either immediately before or immediately after this one (within seconds of taking this one) had the same dot on them, so I don't think I had anything on my lens.  The only other explanation I can think of is a ghosty... we all know that opera houses and old theatres are all haunted, anyway, so it's a likely story...

A Moron Whore

I developed a crush on Mongolia's national traditional instrument before I even knew what it looked like.  My older brother is a musician (did a two year jazz programme at a community college in Edmonton and got a degree in classical music from McGill), so I've got a little think about buying him cool, traditional instruments if I ever find something really unique in one of the countries I'm visiting.  He plays the double bass (contrabass, stand-up bass, whatever you want to call it), so I'm always on the lookout for interesting string instruments.  Naturally, when I read about the morin khuur, pronounced roughly like "moron whore" or "more in whore", but whichever way you choose to say it, you must pronounce the /h/ the way a Montrealais waitress would pronounce the /h/ on "eggs" when she asks you, "Ow do you like your hhhhhheggs?" (I'm not kidding-- I couldn't make this up!), I decided that I needed to buy one for my brother for Christmas (the porn is just an extra bonus).  So, when I arrived in UB, I went on a search for where I can buy really nice morin khuurs.  Lonely Planet (it's my bible and I have entire sections of it memorised) mentioned two stores where I could buy a morin khuur.  The first store I went to was astronomically expensive, about 200USD for their most simple, plain, unadorned morin khuur, plus an extra 200USD for a hardcase, but the man who works there sat down and started to play the morin khuur (my prospective morin khuur), and I was so taken, I nearly dropped the cash right then and there (which is amazing, because music doesn't usually move me like that).  I'm glad I didn't.  I went to the other music store LP listed, and I found that they had a much wider range of morin khuurs and, morin khuur importantly (if you think I'm punny, you should meet my dad), their morin khuurs were cheaper!  And so were their hardcases!  And I don't just mean cheaper by a bit.  Their morin khuurs are nicer, more ornate, and cheaper by quite a lot.  Also, in this music shop, I could hear someone practicing the morin khuur in one of the backrooms, so I asked the lady at the counter if they also gave lessons (good ol' LP only gives information about language, yoga, and meditation lessons, so I hadn't even considered learning how to play one of these horsey fiddles), and the lady said yes, they do.  I asked the price.  She told me it was 60,000 Tugrugs.  At first, I thought she meant 60,000 Tugrugs for one lesson.  I told her she was killing me.  Then we established that she meant 60,000 Tugrugs for eight lessons!  I told her I loved her.  I'm considering going back with my next paycheque and buying two morin khuurs, one for my bro for Christmas and one for me so I can learn how to play the damn thing, as well (out of me and my two brothers, I'm the only one who can't play an instrument).  Can't wait..