Balkan Tunes for Concertina

[banjo2concertina]

Hi all, 

 

I am a beginner player of Anglo concertina (about one year in) and have so far learned mostly Irish tunes and some Old Time fiddle tunes I have arranged for concertina. In a few weeks I will be going on a trip to Serbia to visit friends, and am looking to bring my concertina with me. Does anybody have any suggestions for Balkan tunes they have heard/arranged for concertina I could learn before my trip? I know it's not popularly played in the traditional music there, but I am hoping to give it a try. 

 

Thank you all 

[Roger Hare]

8 hours ago, banjo2concertina said:

...Does anybody have any suggestions for Balkan tunes they have heard/arranged for concertina I could learn before my trip? I know it's not popularly played in the traditional music there, but I am hoping to give it a try...

I have little or no expertise/knowledge of Eastern European music, but here's a selection of tunes from my 'master tune book' which appear to have some claim to being 'Serbian'. I'll make no comment other than that to me, the origin attributions of some of these tunes sometimes seems a little dubious?

 

I've removed tunes in seriously weird keys and meters, and left in the source attributions so that you stand at least a chance of tracking down the originals if you are so inclined, because (warning!) I have edited all of these a little...

 

I've attached all the tunes as an ABC file, plus one tune as a PDF so you can see what it looks like. If you are not familiar with ABC, I will post a PDF of the complete selection. If you want simple tablature, I will post a PDF with (ABT) tabs.

 

MirkovoKolo.pdf

 

serbia.abc

Edited May 6 by Roger Hare

[banjo2concertina]

Thank you very much ! I will check them out and see what I can do in terms of learning them .. 

[Roger Hare]

38 minutes ago, banjo2concertina said:

Thank you very much ! I will check them out and see what I can do in terms of learning them .. 

My pleasure! It keeps me off the streets and out of the public houses, as they say. If you are ABC-savvy, you can always transpose some of the weirder key sigs. into concertina-friendly keys.....

 

Further down the road, I'll be interested to hear how you get on when you actually try this stuff out on an audience of Serbs. I haven't actually tried any of them myself...🙂

[RAc]

1 hour ago, banjo2concertina said:

Thank you very much ! I will check them out and see what I can do in terms of learning them .. 

In my book, Balkan dance music is fascinating and intriguing, but quite far away from the "western" listening habits... in particular the rhythmic patterns (such as 7/8 or 13/8 which are not uncommon) and the different scales tend to pose quite a challenge for us "ionian/dorian jig/reel nerds." ;-). Also be aware that "Balkan" is an umbrella term for a large geographical region that has very many different dance and music cultures, so your friends in Serbia may or may not be able to relate to pieces from Macedonia or the Ucraine. Sort of like someone from China visiting the UK with a collection of "the best of celtic folk" is the bag (incuding Breton/Irish/Galician...) 

[Roger Hare]

23 minutes ago, RAc said:

... in particular the rhythmic patterns (such as 7/8 or 13/8 which are not uncommon) and the different scales tend to pose quite a challenge for us "ionian/dorian jig/reel nerds." ;-). Also be aware that "Balkan" is an umbrella term for a large geographical region that has very many different dance and music cultures, so your friends in Serbia may or may not be able to relate to pieces from Macedonia or the Ucraine...

Yup! Apart from weeding out all dodgy rhythms and key sigs., I also ditched tunes from Ukraine, Macedonia, etc. from that small selection. 'Twould have been at least twice as large otherwise.

Edited May 6 by Roger Hare