Monday, 12 October 2009

20. Bulgarian Bagpipes

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The legendary Valia Balkanska sings "Излел е Дельо Хайдутин" ("Izlel e delio haidutin"), a song from the Rhodopian mountains in Bulgaria. This song was included on the golden record which was launched into space on board the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft in 1977.
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Valia Balkanska was born in a hamlet near the village of Arda in the province of Smolyan in Bulgaria in 1942, and has been singing Rhodopean folk songs since childhood. She has been working with the Rodopa State Ensemble for Folk Songs and Dances in her native Smolyan since 1960, and in 2002 was awarded the "Stara Planina Orden", the highest Bulgarian award, for her work.
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Here is another tune for bagpipe from the Rhodopean mountains, played by renowned musician Stefan Zahmanov:
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Tuesday, 1 September 2009

19. Aurelia Shrenker sings 'Lale'

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18. Pontic Greek Music

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Until their deportation in 1923 under the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne - treaty which called for a population exchange between Greece and Turkey - hundreds of thousands of Greeks had been living along the Black Sea shores of north-eastern Turkey for millennia.

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Traditional Pontic Greek music is a mixture of native Greek, Turkish, and Kartvelian (Laz), as were many other aspects of Pontic Greek culture (dance, food, dress, &c.).

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Here are some videos from YouTube, mostly recordings of documentary programmes which were shown on Greek television in the 1980s:

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Lizeta Nikolaou sings
Forty Red Apples
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Famous Greek actor Nikos Xanthopoulos sings
Tsambasin. This video, which was part of a film called Odysseia enos xerizomenou (1969), is in two parts: Following Xanthopoulos' song, there is a remarkable Pontic Greek dance.
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A recreation of a "traditional Pontian wedding"

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A dance called "tik", to the strains of a
tulum bagpipe
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Saturday, 8 August 2009

17. Mahmoud Ahmed sings for the DERG

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Not "traditional" Ethiopian music - strictly-speaking - but a good song and a remarkable music video! (Watch out for the soldier "playing air guitar" on his AK-47!)

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Mahmoud Ahmed is one of Ethiopia's most famous singers, and it is a shame to see him in this video.
(Apologies for not embedding this video, but the ever-more-fickle YouTube tells me that "embedding [was] disabled by request"...)
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UPDATE FEBRUARY 2012
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Alas, the entire video has now disappeared - apparently due to copyright infringement(?!)...
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So here is a concert given by the Eritrean singer Wedi Tkabo for frontline troops. Not as funky as the Mahmoud Ahmed original, but more traditional and still a strange sight to behold:
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16. Kabard Music


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These two songs were found in the "Music" section of www.kabardins.com
The Kabards live in the north-western Caucasus. Many emigrated to the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century, following the Russian invasion of the Caucasus.
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Song 1 (solo accordion and solo male voice)
Song 2 (solo accordion)
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Monday, 3 August 2009

15. Feyzoye Rizo

The opening scene of an Armenian/Kurdish film called "Vodka Lemon" (directed by Hiner Saleem, 2003) features a remarkable performance by a Kurdish singer called Feyzoye Rizo (whose song is accompanied by Egide Cimo on the duduk):
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Sunday, 2 August 2009

14. A Chechen 'zikr'

A zikr or dikhr is a religious ceremony practiced by certain Sufi Moslems around the world. Its most famous manifestation is probably the ceremony carried out by the so-called "whirling dervishes" in Turkey - a major tourist attraction in Istanbul and in Konya. Like their fellow zikr-practitioners, these Chechens aim to enter a trance-like state through mental and physical exhaustion, a state which will bring them closer to God. The powerful, fast rhythm, combined with the repetitive chanting and strong breathing, and with the spinning, circular movement, are particularly propitious. This is not "music", strictly speaking, but it bears all its hallmarks, and the result is amazing!
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Two other interesting examples:
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Wednesday, 11 February 2009

13. Nizipli Deli Mehmet

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"Mad" Mehmet from Nizip, a town close to Urfa in southern Anatolia, singing "Gitti kish, geldi bahar", "Winter is going, Spring is coming", as recorded in the 1920s or -30s.
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Tuesday, 3 February 2009

12. Cekic Ali

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Çekiç Ali was a renowned Turkish singer and bağlama player. Here are some of his songs:
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Doğar yaz ayları
"Summer months are born"
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Kızılırmak
"Red stream"
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Sarı yazma
"Yellow scarf"
[thanks to Ahmet Toprak of turkradio.us for correcting the original, faulty translation]
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The excellent Turkish music label Kalan Müzik released a CD and an audio cassette of his folk songs in 1999 (Kalan 152).
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Monday, 2 February 2009

11. Chitrali Music

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Two pieces - similar, yet different - interpreted by Fateh Uddin, Durdana Khan, and Shuja ul-Haq. The songs were perhaps originally released on a 60-minute audio cassette, and were found on the excellent Shandur.com website - a 'site "dedicated to providing information about shandur polo festival and other tourist spot in the Northern Areas including Chitral". (Yasinvalley.com is another excellent source for music from Yasen, Chitral, Hunza, Shin, Wakhan, the Pamirs, Chilas, and Baltistan.)
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Song 1
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Song 2
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(The opening instrumental solo of the second song ranks among the finest and most soulful entrées I know; and although the voice in both pieces is a little harsh to my ears, I find that "it grows on one". This is remarkable music, and I know of no other like it!)
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And from our friends on YouTube: A short documentary film on Chitral, which mostly deals with music and song. Well worth watching!
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Part 1
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"Chitral has a rich diverse cultural heritage.See the complete series of this movie and you ill find out pleasent and melody voice of various singers.....see the Baarwazi style dance and listen to Aamir Gul."
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Part 2
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"Aamir Gul the famous poet and baba of Sithar....listen to him carefully .he is nt plain Sithaar ..He Speaks."
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Part 3
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"The Romeo & Juliet Of Chitral. Muhammad Siyaar & Youman Hammeem. Listen the story and Siyaar poetry."

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Part 4
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"Listen to the melodious voice of Mir Wali Khan Master of Koragh.He is singing of Siyaar's poetry."

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Part 5
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"Here you can view old traditional dances and songes.The people of Chapali are very famous in dances. See the introduction of Sufism and Garba."
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