A closer look into the past with the aim of extracting lessons from it for the future is a characteristic feature of the social sciences of our time. Therefore, interest in the musical culture does not stop. This time, on the one hand, is characterized by urbanization motives, on the other - the idea of ​​continuity through a new vision of images and expressive means of folklore, ways of its rethinking in the context of new aesthetic views.

The special role of folk music in the life of Kazakhs is reflected in numerous ancient myths and legends, which confirms the profound historical importance of this layer of culture. Few things can compare in depth and beauty with these myths and legends in Kazakh folklore. Ancient tribes and peoples who took part in the ethnogenesis of the Kazakhs, who in turn multiplied the rich cultural traditions of their ancestors, which created them. Musical myths and legends, which are an integral part of the traditional religious system, put the musical instrument on the highest stage of the universe as the creator and carrier of the cosmic order, the conductor of pure energies that unite the Cosmos, Nature and Man into a harmonious whole. Somewhat archaic examples of instrumental music of the people emerged later - kuy - which has also been performed at the stage of their occurrence magical functions.

The origin of both traditions - epic and instrumental - was connected in the people's consciousness and traditions with the name of the legendary saint -Korkyt - the first zhyrau and the shaman, the "father of the kyus" and the creator of the musical instrument - qyl-kobyz. Along with the kobyz, the structure and the names of the parts of which embodied the 3-level model of the universe (upper, middle and lower worlds), peculiar to shamanistic representations, Korkyt left to descendants a great legacy - kobyz kyu "Korkyt", "Zhelmaya" (The name of the sacred camel") , "Targil Tana", "Elim ai" ("Oh, my homeland"), Ushardyn Uluy (Voi Ushara), etc. Some of them had an onomatopoeic character and transmitted voices of wildlife, part - was a philosophical reflection on the meaning of life, life and death. But in all the writings lay down the sounds that go from one kyu to another and repeatedly recurring musical motifs are heard as if the words of ancient prayer, the commandments, spells addressed to God, spirits, supernatural forces come alive in the sounds of the kobyz.

In the depths of centuries, the history of the development of dombyra and sybyzgy instrumental traditions also extends. Evidence of the ancient origin of dombyra music was archaeological discoveries: during the excavations of the ancient city of Khorezm, terracotta figurines of musicians playing plucked two-strings were found. Scientists note that the Khorezmian two-stringed pipes, which existed no less than two thousand years ago, have a typological similarity with the Kazakh dombyra and were one of the most common tools of the early nomads who lived in Kazakhstan.

The most archaic examples of dombra and sybyzgy music include kuy-legends with the names of birds and animals - Aqqu (Swan), Qaz (Gus), Nar (Camel), kyu of lame creatures and unhappy hunting "Aqsaq qyz" ("Lame Girl"), "Aqsaq Qulan" ("Lame Qulan"), cue-weeping about drowned children and young animals - "Jorga ayu" ("The Bear-Pacer"), "Zarlau" ("Lament"), "Zhetym qyz" ("The orphan girl"), etc. All of them have preserved echoes of ancient forms of religion, cults and totem representations of the people and still bear in themselves a living history of a thousand years.

In ancient times, one Old Man had seven sons. Once, during the famine, death took them all. After the death of the first son, the Old Man, pulling a string on a piece of a hollowed tree, plays the kyu-crying "Qaragym"  ("My own one"), after the death of the second father, pulling the second string, plays kyu "Baqyt koshty" - "Happiness is gone," "Kun tutyldy" - "The sun is eclipsed," "Ai qurydy" - "The moon disappeared," after the death of the seventh son, the Old Man pulls the seventh string and there is a weeping for all the sons "Zheti balamnan ayrylyp, qusa boldym". And the legend of the oldest musical instrument zhetygen, the creation of which is connected with a global catastrophe, when the close ones go, the bipolarity of the world disappears, the fire of life disappears, the earthly happiness disappears, the Sun and the Moon disappear, and the Cosmos becomes blind and unmanifested, lifeless, overcoming grief and despair, shedding tears of purification, create a tool with seven strings (seven is a symbol of life), the vibrations of which will give impetus to the birth of a new cycle of Life.

The balance between the grandiose streams of Life and Death on earth is regulated by playing the kobyz, which is reflected in the legend of the first-timers of Korkyt. When Korkyt was 20 years old, a man in white clothes appeared in his dream and said that Korkyt would not last long, only 40 years. Korkyt decided to seek immortality. He sat on the fast, like the wind, and set off on a long journey. On the way he met people who were digging something. When Korkyt asked what they were doing, they said that it was a grave for Korkyt. Knowing that those places were disastrous for him, he went on. So he traveled all four corners of the world, but everywhere he was waiting for a dug grave. Korkyt returned to the center of the earth, to the shores of his native Syrdarya, and, having made the first kobyz, wrapped it with the skin, sacrificed to Zhelmaya. He spread out the carpet on the waters of the river and, sitting on it, began playing day and night on the kobyz. Korkyt's performance attracted all the terrestrial creatures - flying birds, running animals, tried to go through the sands and people. Everyone in whom there was a life, sat ashore and listened to kobyz. The death approached, too, to take the soul of Korkyt, but he continued to play. And while he was singing kobyz, Death was powerless, and it did not have the strength to take someone from this world. But once Korkyt, tired, still fell asleep, that's when death, taking the form of a snake, stung him. But he did not die at all, but neither alive nor dead became the Lord of the lower waters, and helps all shamans to do good to people. Kobyz protects nature, animals and people from death. He is the bearer of immortality and eternal life. A musical instrument as a conductor of life-giving energy reveals all the blood vessels, veins, energy channels that are in the body of a pet or a person, according to Kazakh folk medicine.

In the Kazakh mythology, the Camel is a symbol of the cosmos, and a camel, whose milk depends on the life of people. In these legends, the motives for violating and restoring the world order are obvious, but at the same time they reflect the real rituals and therapeutic practice of the Kazakhs. Kazakhs, like all nomads, subtly felt the psychology of animals, understood the emotional experiences of their breadwinners and assistants. And Kazakh shamans until the middle of the 20th century used to play animals music on various musical instruments.

In the Kazakh traditional society, each clan had a corresponding set of musical instruments and genres, a repertoire and performing forms. Children were entertained by playing on clay wind instruments - saz cheese, tastauke, a scraping, which "at hand" the master or the child acquired the bizarre forms of animals, birds, fish, many-headed horses, brightly painted and covered with glittering glaze. Through the performance of children's songs and music, the mother's lullaby and the songs of the teachings of grown men (the deer is swaying), the children learned about the surrounding world and became full members of their sociocultural community.

Further independent life gave new artistic knowledge and experience through participation in youth games and entertainments with compulsory participation of music - kaiym-aitysah, tartysah, dialogical singing of domestic songs of karen. The repertoire of the "young years" was enriched with love lyrics and various songs and rituals of a multi-color Kazakh wedding with mourning farewell farewells to brides and cheerful youth heat-fires, a signal fight of shock - dabyla, dauylpaza, or shyndauyla during hunting for a beast or during a military campaign. In this respect, "maturity", bearing balance and experience, was called upon to accomplish great state and public affairs, to protect the interests of the clan in intergenerational song and poetry competitions and to send people's rituals and ceremonies as a jarsya, the organizer and performer of the ritual. And the "old age" and "wisdom" were accompanied by musical and poetic instruction by the young, the singing of philosophical thought songs about the meaning of life and irretrievably gone youth, about the sweet and quickly past you when your age is only twenty-five. Such was the eternal musical life cycle of the nomadic Kazakh, invariably reproduced from year to year, from generation to generation, providing the full-blooded functioning of various folk musical traditions and giving rise to the famous lines of the great Abay:

"The doors to the world opened a song for you." The song escorts the dust to the ground, grieving. "The song is the eternal companion of the joys of the earth, So listen to her sensitively and appreciate, loving!"

All the spiritual heritage of the nation developed until the beginning of the twentieth century in an undocumented form and was transmitted word-of-mouth from father to son, from teacher to student, from the past to the future. The nomadic and semi-nomadic type of management predetermined the uniqueness of folk instruments and musical traditions, their "built-in" into the life and life of Kazakh society and the inseparability from other forms of artistic creativity, verbal and poetic.

At an early stage of development, music was wholly subordinated to servicing the utilitarian needs of the ancient nomadic society and accompanied the most important religious and everyday ceremonies. The large epic legends, zhyr, that appeared during the formation of the Kazakh ethnos were performed by zhyrau (carriers of the epic tradition), and were associated initially with the administration of rituals of military magic and the cult of ancestors. In the national memory, there are more than a hundred legends, in each of which - thousands of poetic lines, performed accompanied by kyl-kobyz-a musical instrument with two hair strings or a plucked instrument - dombra. Being one of the most beloved genres of folk art, the heroic and lyrical everyday epics of Kobland, Alpamys, Er-Targin, Kambar, Kyz Zhibek, Kozy-Korpesh and Bayan-sulu, Enlik and Kebek "and many, many others brought to the descendants in the legendary, mythological form the real historical events of the Proof and Kazakh history.

The Kazakh people are also rich in songs. The songs of the Kazakh people reflected all of his centuries-old history, his thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams, grief and joy. This explains the unusually large range of Kazakh song art. This vast amount of ​​expressive melodies, stunned with the beauty, diversity of subjects and genres. "Kazakh folk music will eventually turn into a professional great art; it contains a rich foundation that waits only for its birthday and blossoming in all genres. "

Thanks to the wide distribution of the song in the everyday life of the people, many of the songs penetrated into instrumental music, influenced the structure and character of the kuev tunes for dombra.

The song sounded everywhere: in the endless Kazakh steppe, at noisy fairs and bazaars, in smoked shacks, mazankas and yurts, at will and in a dungeon. The life of the Kazakh people was unthinkable without a song. By a bell, a jubilant jigit was singing the song, the song was singing, girls and young men were singing songs at the evening games for the village, the song was celebrated for the birth of a child, they accompanied the man on their last journey with a song. Giving up the girl in marriage, they sang the wedding "Zhar-Zhar", in the days of Muslim festivals, there was a sound of jarapazan behind every yurt, songwriters and Kazakh sorcerers-dawns, ventriloquists, spellcasters-bakhs, walked around the villages. "It seems to me that the whole Kazakh steppe is singing," said G. Potanin, a friend of Chokan Valikhanov, a great connoisseur of Kazakh culture.

Only by the 19th century, Kazakh music was freed from the chains of religion and ritual and began to develop as a self-valuable artistic creation. This period has become a truly spiritual renaissance of the nation, which gave the flourishing of the basic musical traditions of the people - instrumental, song, and akyn. On the vast territory of Kazakhstan, various local professional composer and performing schools are formed, with each region offering a kind of "specialization" in the development of specific traditions. Thus, the territory of Western Kazakhstan became the central zone in the development of dombra kyu tokpe, and the area of ​​Saryarka (Central Kazakhstan) - the epicenter of professional song, the south-western region (Karmakchi district) preserved and developed the richest traditions of epic tales, and Zhetysu - the traditions of aitys - akynov-improvisers. The names of Kurmangazy, Dauletkerei, Tattimbet, Kazangap, Dina, Birzhan, Akhan, Zhaiau Musa, Estay, Ibrai, Nartay, Madi, Mukhit, Abay, Kenen Azerbaev entered the history of not only the Kazakh but also the world musical culture. Their work, distinguished by a bright individuality of style, a characteristic imagery and a circle of musical expressive means, is pride, a classic of Kazakh musical culture. Creating high art and introducing ordinary people to the "divine mystery" - music, they enjoyed great love and respect in society during their lifetime and were always at the center of universal attention and attraction. The best of the best people appropriated high ranks - salah and sulfur. The creative activity of professional musicians of the 19th century, as a rule, was not limited only to the performing or compositional sphere, but included the whole variety of artistic forms-poetic improvisation, oratorical art, honed vocal technique, masterful possession of a musical instrument, elements of theatrical and circus performances, which has brought Kazakh steppe artists closer to the medieval musicians of Western Europe - jugglers, troubadours, truers, maester and minni-zinger.

In the 20th century the Kazakh musical culture is enriched with new forms of music making and genres. For a small time span in history, the republic has mastered the multi-voice and the entire genre arsenal of classical European music - opera, symphony, ballet, instrumental concerto, cantata, oratorio, ensemble, orchestral and choral singing forms, created a new professionally-compositional school based on the written type of creativity. On the basis of the organic synthesis of the national content and European forms in the 30-40s of the 20th century, classical works of Kazakh opera art - "Kyz Zhibek" E. Brusilovsky, "Abai" A. Zhubanov, L. Hamidi, "Birzhan and Sarah" M. Tulebaeva. Their dramatic and musical basis was the inexhaustible wealth of Kazakh folklore and oral professional music. The stage of the opera theater became an arena where, before the eyes of the modern spectator, an ancient wedding ceremony and an incendiary aitys between the akyns of the 19th century Birzhan and Sarah, where you can hear the song of the hero of the 19 th century people's liberation uprising, poet and kyushi Makhambet and the mournful funeral-memorial the song of lamentation of Joktau. In the 60-70's. in the republic one of the most complex genres of European instrumental music, symphonic, is flourishing, in the framework of which compositions similar in form to the classical symphonies of G. Zhubanov and K. Kuzhamyarov are created, and a new genre synthesis, symphonic kuy, is emerging.

The original musical art of Kazakhstan, whose origins lie in the deepest antiquity, is an integral part of the multinational culture of our country. His successes and achievements at the present stage are the result of colossal cultural and social transformations in the life of the Kazakh people. From folk songs and kyu to opera and symphonies, from singing to a polyphonic sounding choir, from home music making to a philharmonic hall, from oral tradition to modern science, such is the path that has passed in a historically short period of Kazakh professional music. But the main thing that characterizes it is the revival in the new social conditions of the forms and traditions of the rich folk musical heritage.

The songs, dances, fairy tales, works of decorative and applied art and architecture, created by the people, reveal the specific features of the life of each people and have a great cognitive and artistic interest, testify to the material and spiritual culture that he created. Artistic works created by the people for their own taste and aesthetic requirements expressed democratic ideology, which is based on humanistic ideals. In the works of folk art created for themselves or their environment, the thoughts and feelings of the people, the peculiarities of their way of life and the natural environment in which the people lived and worked were directly expressed.

Folk poetry, music, dances and artistic works of arts and crafts of folk artists who decorate and make up life are imbued with the peculiarity peculiar to the artistic creativity of this or that ethnos. The peculiarity of the art of each people is determined by the socio-economic conditions of their labor and life, as well as by the peculiarities of the natural conditions in which they live. Communication between peoples and trade and economic ties between them cause interaction between the artistic cultures of different peoples. However, despite these interactions, the specific features of the art of each people have always remained and remain in force and distinguish its art from the art of other peoples.

Art, reflecting the daily life and ideals of man, was one of the most important factors influencing the development of democratic professional art. Outstanding masters of all kinds of art always proceeded in their work from the foundations of folk art. Exploring the Kazakh folk art as a sphere of the aesthetic culture of society, it is necessary to explore the artistic and creative process as an image of national life and thinking that ensures the functioning of folklore; its aesthetic and cultural value, manifested in its sociocultural functions.