Raushan in action

I know there's been a pretty sad absence of music on my blog thus far -- mainly due to my unfortunate dependence on dial-up and internet cafe's for my blogification needs. But luckily there's YouTube to the rescue!
This clip is a performance by my kobyz teacher, Raushan. It comes from the CD I've mentioned before, which has a DVD component too. You can see that Raushan is wearing Kazakh national dress, complete with feathered hat (owl feathers are supposed to have protective qualities). Also, for some reason she always plays with her eyes closed -- I attribute it to the fact that she always emphasizes the spiritual aspects of the kobyz. You can really see how she approaches her playing as a form of meditation, which actually is very close to the original purpose of the instrument. It also reminds me of how she tells me in our lessons that even very simple pieces should be played with very deep feeling.