How Eastern European Clarinet Tone Differs from Western tone...

It's Tomorrow!

Tomorrow I will present my research and perform my song. After really sitting with the song for a long time, I was able to map it out. It is roughly in the form of AABBCAABB. The "C" is a slightly improvisatory section which was extremely hard to transcribe, and I will therefore probably improvise during that time. I mostly transcribed out the main lines although I still am not sure what the meter is (I am starting to think that it's some sort of 2+2+2+3). The piece that I learned seems to be more syncopated than others that I have heard. According to my research, Kolo dances are traditionally two-beat music and can last for 5-13 minutes. The key of this Kolo is definitely C# harmonic minor, which happens to be a very fun key to play in on clarinet.

Serbian (all Balkan) music is largely influenced by the former Ottoman empire and the traveling Roma gypsies, and I think that that character comes out strongly in the music. In terms of clarinet playing, some of what I have heard has been very Western sounding and "classical" while other styles are strongly ethnic and players hold the clarinet further away from their body. I am trying to play with the latter more authentic tone.



I didn't even realize until tonight, after finding a great resource from National Geographic about world music that two great Balkan Brass Bands I admire are actually Serbian (and not Bulgarian as I had previously thought). Those two bands are the Boban Markovic Orkestar and the Kocani Orkestar. Both are phenomenal groups with stellar soloists. Here is a video of the Kocani Orkestar with indie sweetheart Zach Condon (the one man band behind Beirut--an ethnically rich musical project that makes accessible the music of the Balkans, France and Mexico to a younger audience). Condon even plays trumpet with the group. About halfway through they kick into one of my favorite Kocani songs, "Siki Siki Baba." It's amazing what you can find on the internet!

Serbian History (the cliffnotes)

Serbia is located in the Balkan region. It is flanked by Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Croatia and Bosnia/Herzegovina.

During it's long history, Serbia has been subject to Byzantine, Ottoman and Austrian rule. Because of conflicts during World War I, several Balkan nations were combined to form the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During World War II, most of the region that is modern-day Serbia was occupied by the Nazis. Serbs, along with Jews and Romas were targetting during the Holocaust, especially at the Jasenovic concentration camp. This genocide caused the loss of approximately 45,000 lives from Serbian cultural background alone. After World War II, power shifted in Yugoslavia and it was no longer ruled by Serbian monarchy. In the late 1980s, Slobodon Milosevic of the League of Communists of Serbia rose to power. All other nations seceeded. In 1990, multiparty democracy was introduced. Politically, a lot of tension remained between Serbia and other former Yugoslavian countries. In 2000, power was passed to the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, a broad anti-Milosevic group. Serbia retains its close ties with Montenegro, although they separated as nations in 2006.

The major religion in Serbia is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, except in Kosovo where it is Muslim.

Transcription

I am well under way in the transcription process. Because I play a transposing instrument, and because we are trying to be as authentic as possible, I am not using Finale on the computer. I am writing what I can muster down by hand. I am still pretty clueless about the metric breakdown of my piece, mostly because the clarinet and drum in the recording seem to be playing in different meters. I am mostly just noting pitches and will play it as accurately as possible rhythmically by ear.

My piece is just over a minute long and there is one melody that returns several times (notably at the beginning and end of the piece, leading me to believe that it's ABA). It sounds sort of harmonic minor, but it may be modal. I will figure that our for certain after the entire piece is transcribed.

Once I am done transcribing, I will actually run through it several times in the practice room to work on getting the timbre of the clarinetist as well as the embellishments.

Getting Down to the Wire

We're getting down to the wire and I am finally seeing how much more I should have been working on this along the way. Regardless, the Kolo track has been on loop on my iPod and I am familiarizing myself with it. It is in some sort of return form, so when I actually go to play it , I won't be playing 75 seconds of all unique material. There seems to be a ternary (ABA) feel to it, but I don't want to try to lump it in with Western music too much. The transcription of the solo and practicing it on the clarinet will actually begin later today, and I plan to get some research time in tonight or tomorrow..

The Dance

From my research so far, I have found that Kolo is a traditional dance in Slavic culture. Each country has its unique take.

In Serbia, Kolo is a dance done in a circle.

Here is a traditional folk group performing the dance:


Here is a more casual community group doing Kolo dancing. The source is Folk with Dunav, a great resource about Balkan music and dance:

The Task, The Song

This blog will be dedicated to things discovered during the course of a miniature research-learning project for Marsha Baxter's Global Music Education class. The task at hand is to learn a piece of traditional music from a country of our choice completely by ear. Along with musical learning, we are encouraged to find out how cultural insiders develop their musical skills. We were directed to www.smithsonianglobalsound.org to inform our decisions. It is a great resource—you can use the advanced search to use not only by country/region of origin, but also by cultural group and instrument types (aerophones, chordophones, etc).

Already strongly interested in Balkan music, I decided to find something that would suit my talents (playing clarinet) but still be traditionally rich. Much of Balkan music is in brass bands, so I was worried about finding something. Luckily, a Serbian song in the Kolo dance genre features just a clarinet and drum. The recording was made in the late 1950s. The performer is unknown. You can hear a sample here.

I anticipate several challenges during the course of this project. I predict that my desire to notate the music as I learn it will be overwhelming. I have never been comfortable playing music by ear or from memory. This is probably largely due to the musical tradition in which I was raised. Another challenge that I foresee is reproducing the characteristic tone that the musician is creating. It is very different from a "western" clarinet sound.

I look forward to doing some more research that will inform my learning of the song.