Last Stop Southern Serbia: Vranja

 Good Morning to Vranja !

Vranja is a town in Southern Serbia with a high Romany population. In Yugoslav times, folk ensembles repertoire included dance suites, which they called ‘Vranjansky Čoček’. These were inspired by Romany music and dance and are fantastic to both listen, and of course, dance to. Enjoy!

Sadly I have to say, that this type of Romany music was and is neither created and often not performed by Romany musicians. Nevertheless, it is enjoyable. So I hope you will also enjoy my arrangement of another Vranjansky Čoček, which has even another non-Romany middle man, or rather middle woman meddling with it. This is Tatcho Drom performing:

Towards the end of our Serbian cyber travel, I would like to teach you another piece of music: Nišava Kori Pani, a Serbian Romani Gypsy song, here as instrumental version. I love the ‘internal’ combination of Serbian music style with Ottoman influences in certain part, see, or rather learn for yourself:

In my own cyber travels on YouTube, I came across this one. Join me in a little time travel in Serbia: watch the piece you learned last time on a music video from 1993. Make sure you stand up to do so, so you can’t fall off your chair laughing…

I feel, I would like to leave Serbia in a more serious mode, by sharing a song full of old history: Vidovdan, translated to 'St Vitus Day'. This song refers to the battle of Kosovo in 1389. Read more here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidovdan_(song)

Travelling to the land of the Spirit and visiting a Serbian Music Legend

Ground breaking for Serbia's, or rather former Yugoslavia's music, and neck-breaking for many a TV show or concert organiser, the late Šaban Bajramović. Get to know the man, his full persona, including imprisonments, gambling and his amazing musical career in this publication – unfortunately this article misses each first letter of his name ’Š’, so add it in your mind in front of each ‘aban’….

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/aug/15/serbia

To make Šaban's musical acquaintance at the same time, you could listen to the video below whilst reading:

Šaban has hugely influenced the development of Serbian popular music. A Romany, loved and respected by both Romany and non-Romany, he was crowned 'King of Gypsy Music' in India by Indira Ghandi in the late 1980s, when the work 'Gypsy' was not yet politically incorrect... 

He composed and performed lots of Serbian songs, with lyrics and Serbian and Romany language back to back, thus influencing Serbian music slowly with Romany elements, which due to his huge popularity left large footprints on popular Serbian music of that time. Lets watch him live:

Time to travel to the Southern borders for today's Serbia, to a place with a high Romany population and great music, a music with much more Ottoman influence then in the rest of Serbia: Whilst travelling, lets listen to Đelem Đelem, the song considered as Romany Anthem:

The world of Emir Kustorica, fantastic phantasy cyber space

 Whilst in Serbia, one can not bypass the movie world of Emir Kustorica. A Yugoslav film maker, famous for his Balkan Romani-themed movies, creating un-imaginable worlds. As much as he seems to be ridiculing the culture at times, I actually have experienced plenty of scenes which could have been part of the movies, however, they occurred ion reality when researching and jamming music with Romany musicians in former Yugoslavian regions. 

Lets start our cyber explorations in the real village of Drvengrad, a village built by the famous Balkan Movie maker Emir Kustorica to function as scenery in his movies. It is such a beautiful place, I will first share my own snaps taken there on my visit in 2006:

Some more professional images, and some history about this lovely village you van read here:

http://www.serbia.com/visit-serbia/natural-beauties/ethno-village/drvengrad-an-enchanting-ethno-village-by-emir-kusturica/

The movies are full of fantastic music - as they gained fame around the western world, Balkan Romany music also became famous. It's high time you dive yourself a little into the Emir Kustorica's world. Lets start wit one bit of music, the Underground Tango from the movie Underground:

In my own concerts, I dive regularly underground, in as many meanings as the word offers. Here a little excerpt from a Tatcho Drom performance, a dance medley starting with a Serbian Rhumba BoCaCeZo, then we drop into our interpretation Kustino Oro, from the same movie as above:

Lets finish todays journey with another learning experience for yourself. This is Bizerka, a great cheerful waltz tune, I love the social dance for it at least as much as the tune....

Southern Serbian Brass Adventures

Today we cyber travel even further south in Serbia. Anybody who likes Balkan Brass Music and Balkan drinks (alcoholic ones apply here) will know this town: Guča, famous for its annual Brass Festival. The event started off as a Balkan Brass competition for insiders, but became over time an international event for many to enjoy - with all the good and bad things which Balkan parties with a lot of alcohol involved bring with them. Lets drop right into the middle of it:

BTW, currently it is Cyber August in Serbia, as this is when the real festival is usually taking place. 

We shall stay a little longer there, as, whilst you are, you need to meet father and son Boban and Marco Marković, probably the two most famous Romany trumpeters and band leaders in the Balkans. They won the competition at least 10 times in a row:

 A funny story related to Boban Markovic, who you met previously on our adventure. I was visiting my late friend Gordana, who was a concert organiser and behind many Balkan Band shows in London. She didn’t like that Boban’s sound was heading in a jazzy direction. So, after several glasses of Šlivovica in her sitting room in Kensal Rise, she rang Boban and caught him fishing in his local river… She told him off for playing his traditional music too jazzy, and he should rather listen to the London Gypsy Orchestra, the group I led at the time, who would play this music much better than him. This is not quite true, but form your own opinion:

We are going South, to areas of sunny Serbian music

Lets travel a little further south, towards central Serbia, more precisely to Čačak. And I think it is high time for your to get some hands-on experience. I shall teach you the music to Čačak, a Serbian dance. Here nobody is quite sure if the town was named after the dance or visa versa:

From there, we can travel 50km eastwards, to Kragujevac, In a funny way, Kragujevac seems to be the birthing place of talented accordionists, as during my own (real life) travels through Serbia, every accordionist that I came across would, when asked, told me that they originated from Kragujevac.

I was fortunate enough to play with Zika, alias Živorad Nikolić, in the time before social media and easy videoing.

Ha! On my voyage into the depth of my hard drives, I found a video from my time playing with Zika: Here we are performing a number of famous Serbian pieces, including Ederlezi, Tama Daleko and Ajde Jano and in the village hall of Wood Norton on the 21st March 2008:

I think we can fit in one more destination for today: Niš. I went there in 2008 to celebrate my late friend Gordana’s birthday. Having always had a great but perhaps hidden interest in the gothic, I particularly enjoyed seeing the Skull tower and the chandelier made of bullets:

When I travelled there in 2008, I had hoped to meet a great Serbian Fiddle player called Alexandar Šišić. Sadly, Alexandar died just a few weeks before I arrived, but I would love to celebrate him by sharing some of his great music for us all to enjoy:

Another happy discovery from digging through my old archives. In this video I'm performing a Kolo by Alexandar Šišić. The music is also accompanied by a slide show of me and my fiddle through the years. This recording is unedited as it is from the years before everyone could edit things on their own computer, so you either paid for an expensive studio, or you hoped to play well in the first place :-)

Trip to Vojvodina, Serbia's little Hungary...

 Lets start a tour around the country, starting in the north:

Vojvodina was a previously Hungarian occupied region. The Serbs call this music ‘Hungarian music’. This following dance is funny as well as interesting for me, as I can hear Hungarian elements as well as similarities to German folk music – with little twists of Romanian harmonic progressions at the end of phrases.

If you feel like a little tour of the area, check this out:

Whilst in Vojvodina, lets pop by Novi Sad, which will be Culture capital in 2021. We are first taking part in a little City Tour:

Whilst in the area, we definitely need to check out the local music. The Romani Band Earth-Wheel-Sky is based in Novi Sad. Their performance of Chaje Shukrarije is rather different from other interpretations:

Flying to Serbia

Today we set out on our big musical autumn cyber travel through Serbia. A place full of contradictions, which reflects in the music. We will explore and discover a highly enthusing dance music back to back with deeply emotional songs. Relaxing music, however, you won't find much in Serbia, at least I didn't, it all grips you, moves you, touches you....

Our online adventures will be mixed with past memories of my real physical travels there...

We will start in the capital city Belgrade, a beautiful city on the Danube. Its name translates to ‘White town’. Let me show you some of the interesting and romantic scenery starting at the Kale, the castle, through the centre, passing by the big Orthodox Cathedral, and finally arriving at the banks of the Danube. Lets go on a little sight seeing trip, and a memory tour from my travels in 2006. 

Whilst watching the pix, do listen to this lovely track from the Serbian Romani band Odjila: 

  

 

 

Time to find a good place to eat to replenish your energies. The Skadarska Ulica is the best place to eat yummy food whilst being showered with local music performer by Serbian Romani bands. Here you'll find out about the history and details of the area, and with the beautiful accompanying images, you can witness the beauty of it also: https://www.011info.com/en/it-happened-once-in-belgrade/belgrades-skadarlija-from-a-bohemian-quarter-to-an-ethnic-style-attraction

Here some music to accompany the images: Sekstet Skadarlija is a group who perform there regularly:

I myself also had a cracking time in the Skadarska Ulica in 2006, here a few pix of the cute interiors of some places:

Serbian people can definitely party, and nightlife here in Skadarlija is exciting:

Bye Bye Romania

 

We did very little reading on this journey. So, on our last day, lets catch up  with this article about Romany Gypsy musicians in Romania - they recommend this is a 7 min read:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/intelligent-travel/2014/03/04/great-read-roma-rhapsody/

Keep you learning hat on, and do get your instrument as I'm about to teach you one more Romanian traditional folk dance, which will be the last traditional item on our Romania discovery Journey: Promoroaca

Remember, to learn more Romanian pieces, there is a nice selection of Balkan sheet music available at 

www.magicmusicstore.org

If you are really interested in more details, then I may share the lecture I provided for a Turkish Culture organisation a little while ago:

One other type of music, in which you need to touch base with for a more comprehensive Romanian music exploration is Manele - loved by some, hated by others, but present at most modern weddings.

Lets start with the old manele, with the most famous Romany manele singers: Adrian Minune:

On my real Romanian travel in 2012, I travelled with a young girl in her old Trabbie up and down the country, listening loudly to Adrian, and it was fun...

Here some more modern manele, from a wedding - sounds/noises which you will hear every summer weekend from each corner in Bucharest, where a wedding is takes place:

And now lets conclude with a total corruption of everyone's taste, with this cheesy sample of manele:

Lets leave Romania in party-style. May I invite you to dance along to another of my all-time-favourite performance songs: Tutti Frutti, made famous by the Tony Gatlif movie Gadjo Dilo. Here performed with my band Tatcho Drom in Hartney Whitney:

Happy Dancing, Bye Bye Romania, and lets see where tomorrow's cyber travel will take us to...

Clejani and other favourite Romany songs

High time to go back to Central Romania. Today I will take you to Clejani, a small village outside Bucharest, and more precisely, to the Romany quarters. I remember when many years ago I visited this village to learn some more music from the Taraf De Haidouks fiddle player Caliu. You met this band a few days ago already.

The directions how to get to Clejani were something like the following: ‘Walk through the fields until you come to a brook, cross over and walk through more fields to the right…'

Anyway, A farmer found me walking round lost, and brought me to a road, where I was invited to jump on a Romany horse Carriage, who brought me to Caliu’s house…

Lets listen to Caliu, improvising around Romanian folk dances, whilst enjoying a little village tour of Clejani:

I think this is a good spot to contribute some of my own music to that journey: Kibori is a weel-known Gypsy song from Romanian regions, and one of my long-term-favourite performance pieces. Here we performed it with my group Tatcho Drom in the Chipping Norton Theatre:

In general I avoid those polished folk orchestra performances, but this following one I love, it’s really cute and driving: 

Lets indulge into another trade, which makes Romany in Romania special: Already in Harry Potter we heard of the Romanian witches. Here some insight into their magic and craft:

From witches to weddings, which actually will be the natural outcome of some couples brought together by love-potions brewed by the witches: Here a Romanian wedding song which touches my heart. It is not what one would expect to hear at a Romanian wedding. I’m glad I found this version with all those lovely images: 

Lets conclude today with some related learning for yourselves. I was taught this wedding dance by Caliu, who you heard above. However, my learning was not as smoothly presented as here in my tutorial:

Moldova, Bucovina and Banat - after a little learning session for yourself

As announced yesterday, today, before we go on a regional exploration, we shall start with a learning activity. So do get your instruments out, and here we go. This is a tutorial to Hora Nunzi, a wedding dance from Central Romania, one I learned from Taraf De Haidouks fiddle player Caliu: 

Time to take off on our regional trip Moldova, North-East Romania. Their traditional music fascinated me from the moment I heard it, it has the right mixture of heart-warming, quirky, intricate and driving, I love it..

It's in old music, where we find the least Western European touches, however, this following piece also hasn't too many Ottoman touches, mostly probably on the tonality, which very much includes micro tones:

We can’t actually leave Moldova, before visiting the Fanfare Ciacorlia. Before becoming world-famous, they started of in the small Romanian village Zece Prăjini. Here from one of their first publications:

We still have some more travelling in today, so lets stay North, and just move a tiny bit the the west, and we arrive in Bucovina. And if you were not aware of it yet, then it is now Monday, wherever and whenever you are, and you are about to go to the Market, as the following piece ‘I’d go on Monday to the Market’ implies:

For the last piece today we hop over Transylvania, to reach another 'B', from Bucovina to Banat. In this traditional dance you really can hear the vicinity to Transylvania:

To conclude the day, and to resolve some dizziness you may have from all the cyber-hopping, here a little map for your orientation:

Towards Central Romania

It is already August, Lockdown has lifted and we can do limited travelling again. However, I really do enjoy our cybertravel, and have for myself discovered a lot of new things. Soooo:

Good Morning in Romania !

Though we spend a few days in Transylvania already, we moved amongst former Hungarian regions. 
Lets tune in, with some typical village Gypsy Romani music from Central Romania: Cantec de dragoste ca la Roata

As in many places, in communist times, the country was cleansed of Gypsy Romani and from Ottoman Turkish influences. The heritage of everyone not Romanian was disregarded, and everyone was homogenised to fit into the communist dictatorship scheme. The folk music and dances were cleansed of any Gypsy Romani or Ottoman influences, but did they succeed? In any case, the Romanian folk music, which the national folk ensembles perform nowadays, does still sound lovely:

The following lovely music track portrays rural music and traditional dresses, and later also a variety of traditional dances:

After this mixture of Romanian musics, lets go back to the beginning of time, or rather as far back as YouTube allows us to go. This old Romanian piece from Wallachia, from the 18^th century Romania, certainly reflects their history of Ottoman occupation:

We travelled through a few hundred miles and a few hundred years, enough for one day. Lets finish the day 'in my garden', with the Hora From Oltenia/Romania, from a Tatcho Drom performance video of a Lockdown Festival:

Lets conclude travelling for today, as tomorrow early morning, you need a fresh head for some hand-on learning...

Transylvania - are the Vampires Hungarian or Romanian ?

This day is overwhelmed by my memories, when I arrived a few years ago in Magyarlapad, a village in the deep of Transylvania, which is more Hungarian than Budapest... well, the name says it all really. More on that time you can read in a previous blog:

Lets start the day by listening to some lovely music from that region, accompanied by a great gallery of traditional pictures:

Let me take you now for a 'walk' through the non-musical treasures of Transylvania. This article will lead you through a lot of magical places, including cute medieval towns and Count Dracula's castle:

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/romania/articles/cultural-guide-to-transylvania-bringing-a-legend-to-life/

Wikipedia is giving the fact about population and music:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Transylvania

Lets explore the Hungarian branches of Transylvania. A lovely mini music documentary features Hungarian music from Transylvania (how strange this sounds!) accompanied by another set of images from magical Transylvanian places:

The big link from our last days in Budapest and and our virtual today here in Transylvania is Tanchaz, the folk music movement, which is huge in Transylvanian regions with a large Hungarian population. Lets listen to Tcha Limberger again, whose Kalotaszeg Trio is dedicated to performing this music from the Kalotaszeg region in Transylvania:

One thing which can not be missed, when walking through rural Transylvania in summer months is a wedding. So let me invite you along to a wedding procession with lots of music and dance:

Before leaving Hungarian and ex-Hungarian regions, it's time for you to learn another tune. Minek a Szöke Énnékem – it means ‘What shall I do with a lond one?’Enjoy !

I would like to end our Transylvania visit with some of my own contributions:

I planned to show you some images of Count Drakula’s favourite places, which I took on my travels in 2012. However, when looking for them I remembered  tragic story:

After travelling back from Clejani, the village where the group Taraf de Haidouks live, I had lost my backpack in the train station (yes, I lost it, it was not stolen by Gypsies, as the station manager was convinced), and all my amazing images were lost - I had not cried that badly in a long time, when I realised. 

So here only a musical contribution, this is my arrangement of a Kalotaszeg Czardas and Sapora, which I learned from Tcha Limberger. Here performed with my group Tatcho Drom:

Budapest in a Time Machine

Jó reggelt kívánok (Good Morning). Today we will go back to Budapest, and explore the city in a today of the 1970s, the 1990s and around 2017. Lets start with another beautiful article, which travels us through the time zones of Hungarian Gypsy Romany and folk music. This is Songline's Rough Guide through Hungarian music:

https://www.songlines.co.uk/explore/guides-and-lists/the-rough-guide-to-world-music-hungary

If you manage to ready through the end, you will have started exploring the new Hungarian folk music revival in the 1970s: Tanchaz. It is a development from the Verbunk music.

Watch here some tanchaz in practice - interesting even if you don't understand Hungarian language:

Here we can visit the world of Tanchaz to the deep end: read about the development through the years, the meaningful musicians, including some lovely photographs:

http://folklife.hu/roots-to-revival/living-tradition/tanchaz-method/the-tanchaz-movement/

More fun though it is to watch, specially if practised in this less conventional way:

Before leaving Budapest, here some pictures of my own Budapest travels.

Here my favourites from my Budapest trip in 1992:

One can see that normal sightseeing is not my favourite activity, and this does certainly not improve with increasing age: Here my favourites from 2017:

Lets add some live music from Hungary, performed by a Romany musician, but does this make it into Hungarian Gypsy Music?

Before we leave Budapest, lets do 2 things:

We have a tiny detour to the Tanchaz scene in London:

http://hunique.co.uk/

This what you can expect there:

And we experience some more hands-on Hungarian music by learning another piece ourselves: 

Haragszom a Töködre (ask an Hungarian for the translation... or watch the video)

Jó estét and good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope you had some joy here today, and lets see where I take you tomorrow...

Entering another world of Hungarian Romany music

Entering another world of Hungarian Romany music

Today we shall wake up with this lively dance song by Romanyi Rota:

And with the music, we shall enter the world of Vlach or Vlashke Romany people, who are based around Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and around. You will right away hear the different style of music, more folky, less polished. The Vlach Romany people arrived in Hungary only at the end of the 19th century (remind yourself of their history in my article here).

The Rombase online encyclopedia again provides a really nice article on the music itself, and how it developed from purely vocal and body percussion into a band line up with plenty of instruments. Lots of listening samples and further reading advice:

http://rombase.uni-graz.at/cgi-bin/art.cgi?src=data/music/genres/vlach.en.xml

Romany people itself started only recently to write down their own history, so the best thing we can do to explore the music and culture is listening. Kalyi Yag (Black Fire) is another great band of this genre, here a little taster:

One of my own performances of the famous Vlach Gypsy song: Amarisi Amari:

The other way of exploring the culture is, learn yourself 😍 Here a succession of video tutorial to the Gypsy song: Muro Shavo:

Muro Shavo Chorus: https://youtu.be/J61-P5yVBOg

Muro Shavo Verse: https://youtu.be/W20H3AzI4_g

Muro Shavo vocal riffs and practice: https://youtu.be/TdKBgsRDvSU 

Sheet Music with lyrics: https://gundulagruen.wixsite.com/magicviolin/product-page/muro-shavo-sheet-music-with-lyrics

Yet another tribe, with a similar history, and a similar music style to Vlach Romany are Boyash Romany, here a sample of their music:

Lets finish our day in relaxing fashion with another lovely sample, here a slow Boyash Gypsy song, performed in the old ways without instrumental accompaniment:

Visiting Hungarian Romungro Romany

Today, lets start the day with some Verbunk music, which will gently wake us up with a slow dreamy rubato introduction, then get us moving with  a slower dance, and finally getting the day into full swing with a faster dance. Here performed by Tcha Limberger and his Budapest Gypsy Orchestra:

We read already extensively about the various Romany tribes, which have settled in Hungary, one of them being Romungro Roma, who were the earliest arrivals in the 15th century. Together with white local musicians, they developed a style called Verbunk. Back then, and to date it still is mostly performed by Romungro Romani musicians. It is the predecessor of Hungarian Czardas and the type of music which now is performed in Hungarian and Austrian restaurants:

https://www.romarchive.eu/en/music/classical-music/verbunkos/

One of the most famous Vebunk composers and musicians in the 18th century was Janos Bihari, 

This article will tell you more about this amazing man:

 http://rombase.uni-graz.at/cgi-bin/art.cgi?src=data/pers/bihari.en.xml

Here a listening sample of his music: Colonel Hadik's Favourite Song and Fast Dance:

In this extremely patriarchal world of Romany culture, I was very positively surprised to ffff, in other words, to find a female fronting the first Hungarian Gypsy music ensemble in a new line-up, a line-up which held out until today. Panna Czinka. This article tells her story very nicely:

https://www.romarchive.eu/en/collection/p/panna-czinka/ 

The leader and front person of Hungarian Verbunk-style Gypsy ensemble is called Primas – in Romany culture until today, the musical profession is a purely male domain, Female family members may be singers, but in traditional families this is only possible if a male member such as her husband or brother are also playing in the band to chaperone her. So it is amazing that in the 18th Century, when the Verbunk style of music and the typical Hungarian Romungro Gypsy ensemble developed, it was a woman leading, pushing forward the style and leading a band. Wiki gives the following tribute: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panna_Cinka

Some Images here:

Via the second image, I discovered another website, with more images, and a much more colourful picture of Panna Cinka's life. The really interesting discovery mentioned on there is a bibliographical movie, which has been produced by Dušan Rapoš. Will try to watch it and update here accordingly:

https://alchetron.com/Panna-Cinka#panna-cinka-82a0447a-41de-4ef3-8050-0d5969d6cbd-resize-750.jpg

Lets finish today's journey with a little live serenade in Verbunk style by myself, together with my group Tatcho Drom, a medley of Halljatok Ciganyok and Ando Drom:

First Stop Hungary

Today, we will catapult ourselves to Hungary, the start of our music and culture journey, which will go from there along the Danube in all kind of directions, up and down for us exotic scales and modes, moving across borders on various dance rhythm patterns and time signatures.

On this page, I would like to share with you various things about traditional Hungarian music. I’m fascinated by it, not just because it is a great music to play – soulful and beautiful, sometimes even heart-breaking slow pieces next to a lively and great fun dance music. Simple folk-type accompaniment chords can be found next to very complex and intricate harmonies and chords. Also, how the Romany music intermingles with local folk music, and drifts apart again through history in so many places. 

If you feel like learning some pieces the traditional way by ear, then scroll down to the end of each post, to find the relevant links. I also published a collection of Hungarian songs and pieces from both, Romany and folk tradition, also at the end of the page.

This article explores Hungarian Romany music, part of the Rombase online knowledge base published by the Uni Graz. It also mentions various Romany tribes, whose music we will explain later in more detail:

bit.ly/3af8fAd

This little mini docu includes lots of music and images, and will bring images and sounds to the above article. Some history, instruction of famous musicians and specific instruments will bring the story to life:

Lets have a look at some typical Hungarian folk music and dance, and hear a slight contrast:

On this journey, we also will come across some misconceptions: The question here: is this famous Monti Czardas, performed in every Hungarian Czarda (restaurant) actually a Czardas, or is it even Hungarian?

Lets first listen to it, being performed by the famous classical violinist Maxim Vengerov:

The answer is: NO. It is a classical composition by the Italian composer Vittorio Monti, but adapted by many Romani and included into their repertoire, as it is a great piece, very audience pleasing and therefore tip-inspiring.

This article will tell us, what a real traditional Hungarian Czardas is all about:

https://dailynewshungary.com/traditional-hungarian-folk-da…/

Also, learn about many other Hungarian folk dance styles, and watch some great videos 😊

Some more reading here, made more interesting by pictures and a video: This article explores the relationship between Hungarian Folk and Gypsy music, analysing the cross-influences with each other and aiming to dissect which music belongs to which category. A lot is being answered in m=interviews with various performing musicians:

 https://theculturetrip.com/europe/hungary/articles/hungarian-folk-and-gypsy-music-an-interview-with-k-lm-n-balogh/

I also wrote an article, in order to get to understand a different dilemma: I know so much Hungarian Roma music, which I all learned under the label of Hungarian Gypsy music. Yet, there a at least two distinct styles. I could sort out my confusion by doing some specific research:

http://s231840642.websitehome.co.uk/writings/HungarianGypsyMusic_GG.pdf

Too much reading, lets lighten up the spirits again by watching a video: This is a scene of a Romani wedding, it took place in Britain in 1938. You hear of interesting customs and hear all lovely Hungarian Gypsy music:

Lets get more scientific again: This article is on Verbunk, a music style primarily performed by Romungro Romany people (the Romany tribe which arrived in Europe in the 15th century), originally created by Romungro Romany musicians and Hungarian folk musicians together. It is the predecessor of the type of music which is nowadays performed in Hungarian and Austrian restaurants: 

https://www.romarchive.eu/en/music/classical-music/verbunkos/

Lets listen to some Verbunk music: Tcha Limberger is one of the most knowledgeable musicians in this area of music, and one of the best players of this type of music I know. Here with his Kalotaszeg Trio: 

Here, I'm myself performing a piece called Pushta, which has developed from the Verbunk tradition, in a slightly polished style suitable for performances for white people:  

Lets finish for today with a selection of pictures of the Pushta (a region of wide open plains, famous for horse breeding) and around, I took on one of my first trips to Hungary in 1992:

Kecskemét in September 1992: Town close to the Hungarian Pushta:

 Bugac, a village in the Pushta: 

I remember that this village was a really small one and I was completely oblivious to the fact that I arrived on a Saturday in the late afternoon, so nothing was open, apart from a dark pub, full with old men smoking – quite scary. Being really hungry, I went to the fields instead and stole some vegetables, as I had no food with me. Later in the evening, my landlady popped by and I got offered samples of homemade bakery things, involving a huge amount of flour, butter and creamy cheese. By the end of the day I was over-stuffed with delicious but really heavy food.

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Tutorials: 

Amalo - Hungarian instrumental:

Hungarian Sheet Music: 

https://gundulagruen.wixsite.com/magicviolin/shop/