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/

Travel Blog around the Block of Woodcock

Travel Blog around the Block of Woodcock

This is a travel blog of different nature - Due to our current Corona Crisis, I have to stay put, the only travel is cycling around Brent. However, we have been a little naughty a few times, cycling further afield, discovering exotic things such as ducks flirting on the Grand Union Canal, canals which are flowing over a bridge above a motorway and swans 'swimming' on the road close to the riverbank, which is flooded by high tide...

 

... chasing ducks by bicycle was also rather dazzling...

And whilst cycling around the block of Woodcock, this blog shall follow another voyage, one which is taking place in the parallel universe of the WorldWideWeb, a cyberspace, where one can beam her/himself into a different culture with one finger snip of a click...