Serbian racenica
Krivo Drom, a band from New Orleans, plays a melody in the Bulgarian meter called racenica (7/8, 2+2+3) that members of the band learned from unnamed Serbian Rom musicians. A pretty little three-phrase melody that can cycle endlessly. We transposed the original up a fifth – play it in any key you like.
(This happens to be the 50th chart I’ve uploaded to this site.)
Serbian racenica
Video won’t embed, so just a link, sorry: youtube.com/watch?v=DxcZOTHBtJE
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Free sheet music for Balkan songs
Music transcribed by Michael Gordon
Dedicated to Tom Deering
Here are sheet music and lyrics for more than 50 songs from the southern Balkans that I’ve transcribed over the years. Most are from the repertoire of Balkanarama, the Seattle dance band I helped start in 1997. The charts are PDFs that include lyrics and translations, with links to hear the songs on YouTube. They are available to musicians anywhere for free. I’ll add more as time permits. Enjoy!
Read MorePhiravelman kalyi phuv
We like this recording by the Hungarian Rom band Romanyi Rota because its lyrics are a stark prayer to God for strength to be good in hard circumstances. We play it as a relaxed cocek.
The song is similar to, though not the same as, the Serbian brass band melody “Kako kolan da se videm,” with lyrics by R. Todorovic. Two songs for the price on one!
Phiravelman kalyi phuv
Phiravelman kalyi phuv lyrics
Kako kolan da se vijem
Kako kolan da se vijem lyrics
Phiravelman kalyi phuv, starting at 50:38:
Kako kolan da se videm, by Usnija Redzepova:
And by Zlatne Uste, from New York:
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Si la kale bal
A song by the legendary Serbian Rom singer Saban Bajramovic, recorded in 1980. It’s played in a Banat-style 7/8 meter (3+2+2, with stress on beats 1, 2, 4 and 6, not 1, 3, 4 and 6 as commonly heard in the Balkans). We play it for listening, though dancers sometimes do a Romanian dance to it. The instrumental melody is usually highly elaborated by a soloist; the transcription shows only a basic melody, so listen to lots of performances on YouTube and take it from there.
We’ve heard several versions of the lyrics and use those from the Galbeno Songbook here. These include “Si la” in the title and lyrics, not “Sila” as seen almost everywhere else for this song. Our compact Romany dictionary translates “Si la kale bal” word for word as “is her black hair” (“her hair is black”, “she has black hair”), whereas it has no entry for “sila.” Sounds the same either way.
Sila kale bal
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Sve se osim tuge deli
This folk-flavored popular song of lost love was a hit circa 2001 for Ljubisa Stojanovic, the Serbian singer better known as Louis. (He adopted his stage name at the age of 9, when he performed the songs of Louis Armstrong.) Jasmina Jaksic wrote the music, and Milenko Jaksic wrote the lyrics. We play it as a cocek.
Sve se osim tuge deli
Sve se osim tuge deli lyrics
Song video (it won’t embed, for some reason): https://youtu.be/0Dk_TARDpz4
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