The laboratory represents a research and educational subdivision of the conservatory. It was organized as a folk music hall in 1950-s. It has over 10,000 unique samples of folk music pieces that were collected by students and professors during music-ethnographic expeditions all over Kazakhstan as well as in Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan during 1958.
The main directions of the folk laboratory’s activities is storage and replenishment of folk music records, collection and recording of folk music samples in the period of field work, processing, systemization and creation of catalogues of folk music materials. The activities also include notation of records, composition and editing of collections, academic research on folk music and supervision of research work of post-graduate students and students’ thesis works, provision and support of researches with materials obtained during folk music expeditions. Students participate actively in expeditions conducted by the laboratory staff. The students receive skills of field work and unique experience of authentic form of traditional art.
Among the important tasks of the music folk laboratory are provision of audio aid for such classes as Music-Ethnographic Practice, History of Kazakh Music, Folk Music, Music of the East. For this activity, rich funds of music records have been collected. They include folk and traditional professional music of different ethnic groups, such as Kazakhs, Russians, Uighurs, Turkmens, Yakuts, Khakases, Tuvas, Turkish people, and others.
The laboratory is equipped with contemporary recording and computer facilities allowing to work with high professionalism.
Library and Media-Library
One of the quality assets of research and educational activity is a well-developed library infrastructure. It includes a library, reading hall, subscription ticket, research hall, fond of rarities, departments of inquiries and information processing.
The library is 408 sq.m big. It has 110 seats in its reading halls and 4 check-out points. The library funds have 579,038 items, including 3,684 items of academic literature in Kazakh, 11,465 in Russian, 271,519 items of notations, 77,905 manuals, 42,754 fiction items, and 171,711 items on humanities. There is a significant number of rare editions and manuscripts both in the form of notations and books.
A recently created media-library is equipped with contemporary facilities allowing to systemize, preserve, and renew music pieces at the necessary level. The media-library has audio materials on vinyl discs, CDs, and cassettes.
Various music pieces of different epochs, styles, genres, performance and composers schools, masterpieces of world classics are widely represented in the media-library. Library and media-library funds are regularly replenishes with contemporary notations and academic literature from the most known editions.
Experimental Music Workshop
The workshop was founded 1958 as a research center on studying and development of folk instruments. Its main tasks are as follows:
Development, repair and restoration of Kazakh folk instruments;
Research of Kazakh instruments’ acoustics and creation of new music instruments;
Research of music instruments created by old masters, their restoration and preservation;
Provision of the educational process at the faculty of folk instruments.
Masters have created more than 1,000 unique national music instruments. They created such imroved as bass kobyz, first kobyz, bass dombra and first dombra on the basis of kylkobyz and dombra. These new instruments are designed specially for orchestra performance. It is these improved instruments that make the basis of numerous Kazakh folk ethnographic music bands and orchestras of the republic.. The experimental music workshop is open for all students interested in the issues of organology, tuning, repair and restoration of music instruments.
NAVIGATION
