Most Popular Balkan Dances on Zoom: Part Five

Pop music is a difficult term to define. I think about good music and bad music. Good music is good music whatever origin it comes from.

Nina Persson

This month's post is fifth in a series based on Balkan dances popular on Zoom. I'm not too crazy about the first two, modern choreographies done to pop songs, however, in the interest of research and open mindedness, have featured them here. So many people like this stuff, so there must be a reason why it's so popular.  I prefer to dance to more traditional music.

Video #1 is Cine are Noroc are, a Roma dance from Romania.  The singer is Nicolae Guță, who, according to Wikipedia, has had quite a wild life. The music style is manele, a pop folk style widespread in Romania, created primarily for dancing.  According to the article many of the lyrics of these songs are "questionable" and not family friendly.  The music takes up residence in your head without paying rent.

I found the lyrics for the song.  It's about a man born to be lucky.  Some of it did not make sense (lost in translation, maybe?)  Maybe it's popular these days because there's a pandemic going on and staying well (until we get vaccinated) is part being careful and part luck.  There are some elderly people, despite the odds, who have recovered from the virus.

 

Video #2 is Mashala, a modern pop tune from the Pirin region of Bulgaria. It was described on YouTube as a "Pirin Style Dance."  Ira Weisbund is the choreographer.

The singer's is Rayna (she goes by her first name), and she was born in Sandanski, Bulgaria in 1981. She does both pop and traditional folk songs. (She does a really good job with the more traditional music.  I have seen several of her videos and they are actually quite good.)

From what I was able to garner from listening to the lyrics the song is about a wedding celebration. The original YouTube video shows people dancing horo.

 

Pop-folk in Bulgaria is also known as chalga.  It's one of those things people either love or hate. Chalga, like its Romanian counterpart, manele, features songs of questionable quality, sometimes with nonsense lyrics and sexual content.  These songs also tend to be earworms and live on in your head for hours, if not days. 

Here is a suggestion on how to get rid of an earworm.

I could not find the lyrics nor the dance notes for Mashala. From what I found "mashala" is a word derived from Arabic that has made its way into the Bulgarian language.

Video #3 is the dance Tervelska Raka from the Bulgarian folklore region of Dobrudja.  There is a song that goes along with it about a girl, Marinka, who captivates the young men in the neighborhood with her beautiful voice.

 

This is a traditional song and melody. It's a pleasure to listen to, and the dance is often requested on Zoom.  (Fortunately there are some traditionalists out there).

If you enjoyed this you may also like the series Most Popular Balkan Dances on Zoom (parts 1-4).  Somebody remarked at a Zoom dance the other day that Zek Zek Dadumle was one of the most popular dances in 2020.  It's in Part One.

 

 

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The Alien Diaries Best of the "Worst": Earworms from the Balkans

There are, of course, inherent tendencies to repetition in music itself. Our poetry, our ballads, our songs are full of repetition; nursery rhymes and the little chants and songs we use to teach young children have choruses and refrains. We are attracted to repetition, even as adults; we want the stimulus and the reward again and again, and in music we get it. Perhaps, therefore, we should not be surprised, should not complain if the balance sometimes shifts too far and our musical sensitivity becomes a vulnerability.
― Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

In previous posts I have written about songs called "earworms." They take up residence in your head for hours and refuse to move out. Today's post features earworms from five Balkan countries.

Video #1 is Valle Kosovare/Shqiptare from Albania.  The group is Valle Tona from Worcester, Massachusetts. This song rang in my head for hours the first time I heard it.  You can find the lyrics here, in Albanian and in English translation if you'd like to sing along.



The song in Video #2 is by Maria Tanase, a Romanian singer who passed away in 1963 at age 49. During her relatively short life she gave performances around the world, and also had parts in movies and in a musical by Ralph Benatsky.  Her most famous song, Ciuliandra, is very popular at folk dances.

Ciuleandra  is not as much of an earworm as Bun ii vinu'ghiurhiulul.  You will definitely need more than a glass of wine to remove this song from your head.  You may even need an entire bottle!

Notice the 7/16 rhythm and repetitive refrain. It is the rhythm for the dance Geampara in Romania and Rachenitsa in Bulgaria.



Earworms tend to have an element of repetition; a distinct rhythm and catchy lyrics, which is why they tend to stay in memory for a long time.They can even drive you crazy as you find ways to purge them from your head.

There is a science to this which is explained in Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain, by Oliver Sachs, M.D. I borrowed the book from the library to check out his take on music.  His research is primarily focused on neurology and experience with stroke, Parkinson's and dementia patients, musical savants, and classical composers.

There is an entire chapter devoted to rhythm and another devoted to what he calls "brainworms".  I saw nothing on Balkan music and its asymmetric rhythms, nor does he mention folk instruments like the gaida and zurna. (If you want to read about how the Ottoman Turks used the zurna to intimate their enemies, see the list at the end of this post).

The song in Video #3 is from Croatia. For some reason, Croatian songs tend to stay in the brain forever.  It's the repetitive lyrics and the tamburitza music that accompanies them.

U Selu Pokraj Dunava (In a village near the Danube) is about a man in love with the young woman who lives in the village. You can find the lyrics here, but no English translation.



One of the best sites for folk song lyrics in the original language, English and German is the Songbook for Nearsighted People, so named because because the lady who compiled typed the lyrics in a large font so they could be seen in places with poor lighting. It is also good for those who are visually challenged.

You can find the lyrics and sing along to Oj Shope Shope in the Songbook. It has a German translation for the song which is about a young man from the Shope region of Bulgaria who thinks he's God's gift to the world. This is a song that refuses to be evicted from the brain. Last year it was part of a gala concert featuring several Bulgarian women's groups.  It  kept me awake that night.



Video #5 is a song from Macedonia, Dedo Mili Dedo,   It tells the story of a day in the life of an elderly couple who still love each other after all the years they've been together. This song has that earworm quality: repetitive lyrics and a catchy rhythm.  There is also a dance that goes with the music.



If you enjoyed this you may also like:

Some Famous and Not So Famous Folk Songs from Romania

The River of Many Names Part Six: The Danube in Croatian Folk Songs

Age is an Issue of Mind Over Matter: Old People in Balkan Folk Songs 

The Zurna in Bulgarian Folk Music 


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License