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:
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:
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:
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
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...
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:
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:
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 18th 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...
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:
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:
