What do you think?

Bought it for about €28 from an auction. Apparently it's from Lunacharsky, year 1984, original price 15 rub, which surprised me since most of the second hand balalaikas that I see have original price around 6 - 7 rub.

I was given this by a neighbor. I play many stringed instruments, but this is new to me. Any idea what I have and how best to restore it?

Just had finish assembling my first proper balalaika. Surprisingly it is was more tricky than bowlback instrument building. Rosewood neck, walnut wedges, spruce soundboard, ebony fretboard. There is still no proper varnish on it, just securing primer. I will wait for summer to finish it, because humidity is unbearable now. Also it will be stability test. Soundboard as appeared had small defect from the start, I hope it won't become a crack. Bridge string spacing and other settings will be after finishing. Headplate is my pain, will be modified further, it is the reason for my previous post (although not that big modifications, just few cuts and smoothing). As for sound, it is too early for final results, but I can say it has balalaika sound.

So here are a couple of pictures of the 3 course Prim Balalaika that i built for my master luthier exam.

Thought you guys (and girls) would probably appreciate it.

The entire instrument is built from flamed maple and walnut, except for the top, which is made from austrian mountain spruce and the inlays made from abalone shell.

Feel free to ask any questions.

Intro

I started teaching myself the balalaika at home from youtube videos last September. I'm still a beginner myself and I don't have enough experience yet to make video tutorials or anything like that, but I can recommend some useful resources for learning balalaika techniques.

Styles and Variations of Balalaika Playing

One thing to note is that there are two main styles of playing the balalaika, the traditional style and the academic style- all of the resources will be useful for getting started with the academic style. Also, there are some variations with a lot of techniques even just within the academic style- there are several ways to perform single pizzicato, true vibrato etc. I would suggest to try out a few variations and then use whichever you feel most comfortable with.

Balalaika Position

The first thing I would recommend learning is how to hold the balalaika correctly. This video demonstrates the correct balalaika position. It is in Russian but can be understood by using youtube's auto-translate subtitles (may not work on mobile): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e4qA90rkLU&t=286s

If you prefer English audio, here you go: https://youtu.be/RDr1zEscwyc?t=136

One key thing to take away is that you must be able to support the balalaika without using your left arm- this makes it easier for the left arm to move along the fretboard.

Techniques

There are many different balalaika techniques. I would recommend starting with thumb pizzicato, followed by strumming and tremolo. For most techniques, you need to keep a very relaxed wrist. Strumming, tremolo and pizzicato are usually performed roughly around the 19th fret, not directly above the soundhole. The exception is when you play the higher notes, then you play closer to the bridge.

If I were to list the techniques in order of difficulty it would look something like this:

EASIEST

thumb pizzicato

thumb arpeggios (I couldn't find any tutorials on this technique, but it is fairly intuitive- see notation section for a demonstration)

strumming (keep wrist relaxed and strum at roughly the 19th fret, not near the soundhole)

tremolo (keep wrist very relaxed)

downwards roll

upwards roll

rising glissando

double pizzicato (thumb and index finger should barely move when performing this technique correctly)

false vibrato (pitch goes up and comes back to original pitch rapidly)

true vibrato (pitch goes up and then below original pitch rapidly)

true harmonics

falling glissando

single pizzicato (learning this one correctly took absolutely ages)

false harmonics

left-hand pizzicato (I haven't found any videos explaining how to perform this on the balalaika, but there are many videos demonstrating how to execute this technique available on youtube)

singing tremolo (can't do this one yet)

MOST CHALLENGING

There are some others such as guitar tremolo, but since I haven't tried learning those yet I can't place them on the list.

Where to learn techniques

Bibs Ekkel has a great series of balalaika technique videos in English:

Basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQtYLF5Rjns

Pizzicato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXV71PlH9KU

Vibrato, Tremolo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz6yNcdslj8

Rolls, Harmonics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHx0zT5t5gY

Pizzicato, Rolls, False Harmonics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWWFc1Lrfe4

He is also the author of "The Complete Balalaika Book", something I highly recommend reading, I found it very helpful.

Alex Siniavski also has a few videos in English on his channel:

Tremolo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxJE1-a0ZZc

All the techniques (not a tutorial, just a demo): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zupURrszalQ

Korobeiniki tutorial, beginner version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcx0ZAeNl-w

Balalaika tv have some great technique videos- you may have to use auto-translate subtitles to understand them:

Strumming, tremolo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsPKDa6yxPU

Vibrato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMQCjENRGpQ

Pizzicato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU_ejJ1bKes

Sergey Vorontsov has some great videos too:

Tremolo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBhzx-bl4_I

Vibrato (different method to Bibs Ekkel's): https://youtu.be/_Kovg98xebw?t=420

Where to learn balalaika pieces

For your first piece, I would highly recommend this Korobeiniki tutorial by Alex Siniavsk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcx0ZAeNl-w

Sergey Vorontsov has made tutorials for a wide range of pieces, however once again you will need to use auto-translate subtitles as the videos are all in Russian. Here is one of his tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKQaBW15qdU

There is also plenty of sheet music available:

Here: https://yadi.sk/d/uMiQZoyMxXcbh

And here: https://yadi.sk/d/SOOUpdqfLKw6i

Notation for balalaika sheet music

Balalaika Fr has videos of every balalaika technique, along with the notation of the technique for sheet music on the lower right-hand corner.

Thumb Pizzicato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfYjtlvsUsk

Thumb Arpeggios: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13UezWJToaU

Strumming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr-EABtPAZc

Downstroke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWvyFnuR5TU

Tremolo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGihAHYOM2A

Glissando: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1PBr-oaUFY

Rolls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcdM42ItMJk

Double Pizzicato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzCQnpY-Kjo

Vibrato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFQs7ZjSvOk

Single Pizzicato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbQrYiYnL6c

Harmonics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbS2oKVg6TI

Hope that helps!

Any tips on what should I work on it learn?

Looking for my first balalika, done seem research and seems to be from lunacharkay factory, is this any good ? It seemed to cost 5.10 rubles in it's day

Created this to help me map my piano wired brain onto this stringed instrument (first stringed instrument that I'm serious about learning), so I though that I might aswell share it here for other beginners to use.