Friday, November 29, 2019

25. World Music: Gypsy music in Eastern Europe, ACJ Music Academy



How are you?

Following the last week, I am going to start my 25th lecture.

I had conducted music lectures at Art Collage JANG in Seoul, South Korea every Saturday from March 2015 to December 2017.

I am going to introduce some of the music in the lecture with a brief overview of the lecture by the lecture’s order every Saturday.

Please refer to the following link for my previous lectures.


The 25th lecture for today is "World Music: Gypsy music in Eastern Europe".

This lecture was the 25th lecture of “ACJ Music Academy”, which was held on 17 October 2015.

The word “Gypsy” often appears when talking about popular music in the Middle East and Europe.

The Gypsies are vagabonds wandering around, rather than settling in one area, and their musical tastes also show wandering.

But they did not only absorb local music, but also had an extraordinary musical talent making their own music based on the local music of the settled area.

The reason why Gypsies, settled in many European countries, were able to play a leading role in the development of folk music in their settlements is because they had the natural talent to borrow and develop music.

The Gypsies also had a natural talent for playing musical instruments such as guitars and violins.

The Gypsies are famous for flamenco guitars in Spain, violins in Hungary, vocal music in Russia, and brass bands in the Balkans.

The Balkans, living about half of the Gypsies in Europe, are known as the world's most populated areas of the Gypsies.

The musical characteristics of the Gypsies are the same throughout Eastern Europe.

The Gypsy musicians throughout Eastern Europe have played an important role in the folk music traditions of the countries where they settled, and indeed, most of the music considered as Eastern European folk music was played by the Gypsies.

However, critics have also criticized the destruction or dilution of traditional music due to the characteristics of the Gypsies, who had great talent in borrowing and transforming local folk music.

Looking at Gypsy music by European countries, the basic music of Albanian Gypsies is "Kumpaneia" music consisting of clarinet, violin, accordion or lute.

In Macedonia, the music which is called “Calgia” is a modern electric sound, mostly played by Gypsies.

In Serbia, ‘Brass band’ music is mainstream.

Hungary is famous for the birth of the word “Gypsy Violin”.

In Russia, the Gypsies performed prominently on the vocal area.

Today, I will introduce 3 Gipsy music as follows:

1. Ahaj Devla-Ando Drom (Hungary)
2. Czardas-Roby Lakatos (Hungary)
3. Caje sukarije- Esma Redzepova (Macedonia)


You can listen to all the songs from following YouTube link.


Next week, I will lecture "World Music: Hungary/Romania" as my 26th lecture.

Thank you.



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