Music of Serbia
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The Music of the Serbian people and Serbia presents a mixture of the traditional music, which is part of the wider Balkan tradition, with its own distinctive sound.
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[edit] History
The documented musical history of the Serbs can be traced back to the medieval era. At the time, the region now known as Serbia transformed from a Byzantine-influenced Serb-run principality or zhupa to an independent (though ultimately Romanized) kingdom and, at its pinnacle, a short-lived empire. Church music was performed throughout Serbia by choirs or individual singers, led by a conductor. The songs performed at the time were derived from the Osmoglasnik, a collection of religion songs dedicated to Jesus' resurrection. These songs were repeated over the course of eight weeks in a cyclical fashion. Composers from this era include Stefan Srbin, Isaija Srbin, and Nikola Srbin.
Aside from church music, the medieval era in Serbia included folk music, about which very little is known, and court music. During the Nemanjic dynasty, musicians played an important role in the royal court, and were known as sviralnici, glumci and praskavnici. Other rulers known for the musical patronage included Stefan Dušan, Stefan Lazarević, and Đurađ Branković.
Medieval musical instruments included horns, trumpets, lutes, psalteries, drums and cymbals. Traditional folk instruments include various kinds of bagpipes, flutes, diple,tamburitza and gusle, tapan, lijerica, and zurle, among others.
[edit] Classical music
Stevan Mokranjac was an important Serbian composer and musicologist, considered one of the most important founders of modern Serbian music [1]. Born in 1856, Mokranjac taught music, collected Serbian folk songs and did the first scholarly research on Serbian music. He was also the director of the first Serbian School of Music and one of the founders of the Union of Singing Societies. His most famous works are the Song Wreaths.
Just prior to Mokranjac's era, a musician named Josip Slezinger came to Serbia and founded the Prince's Band, composing music for the band based on folk songs. Around the same time came the first choiral societies, which mostly sung in German or Italian. Later, the first Serbian language works for choirs were written by Kornelije Stanković (1831 - 1865). Other famous Classical Serbian composers include Stevan Hristić, Isidor Bajić, Stanislav Binički, and Josif Marinković.
[edit] Traditional music
Traditional ethnic Serbian music include various kinds of bagpipes, flutes, horns, trumpets, lutes, psalteries, drums and cymbals such as:
Today this old Serbian music is less popular however it was used in the 2004 Eurovision entry of Serbia "Lane Moje" by Zeljko Joksimovic.
Balkanika, Balkanopolis, Dvig, Slobodan Trkulja, Belo Platno are famous Serbian bands that use the old Serbian traditional style together with modern music.
[edit] Kosovo
The words in the traditional Serbian songs of Kosovo are metaphors for the suffering and pain of the Kosovo Serbs in slavery under the Turks. The traditional Kosovo Serb music has minor Greek influences as well as Serb songs from Kosovo were an inspiration for 12th song wreath (sr. Руковет) by composer Stevan Mokranjac.
[edit] Serbian folk music/Serbian kolo
Today the Serbian folk music is both rural and urban (Starogradska muzika) and includes a two-beat dance called kolo, which is a circle dance with almost no movement above the waist, accompanied by instrumental music made most often with an accordion, but also with other instruments: frula (traditional kind of a recorder), tamburica, or harmonique. Modern accordionists include Mirko Kodić and Ljubiša Pavković.
The folk music in the Banat region is influenced by Vlach (Romanian) sounds and vice versa.
[edit] Epic poetry
Sung epic poetry has been an integral part of Serbs and Balkan music for centuries, but is now found mostly in Montenegro; see Serbian epic poetry. In Montenegro, these long poems are typically accompanied on a one-string fiddle called the gusle, and concern themselves with subjects such as the life under the Ottoman occupation or various battles such as the Battle of Kosovo against the Turks. In Croatia, The poems are about the life of the Serbs under Austro-Hungarian rule.
[edit] Balkan brass
Brass bands are extremely popular, especially in southern and central Serbia. This brass-band tradition is a specifically Serbian one, born of a culture that has spent almost its entire existence either at war or in subjugation. The music began in 1804, when the trumpet first came to Serbia during the Karageorge uprising, in which a Serbian patriot known as Black George led a revolt against the Turkish occupation of 400 years. Though it was a military instrument to wake and gather soldiers and announce battles, the trumpet took on the role of entertainment during downtime, as soldiers used it to transpose popular folk songs. When war ended and they returned to their hometowns, the music entered civilian life. Eventually, Gypsies adopted the tradition, adding more complicated rhythms and melodies and creating two schools: the more subtle and melodic west Serbian bands and the more complex and danceable Gypsy-blooded South Serbian orchestras.
The best known Serbian Brass musicians are; Fejat Sejdić, Bakija Bakić and Boban Marković and are also the biggest names in the world of modern brass band bandleaders. There is also a big festival in Guca every year with at least 300.000 of visitors from all over the world.
[edit] Čoček
Cocek is a musical genre and belly dance that emerged in the Balkans during the early 19th century. Čoček originated from Ottoman military bands, which at that time were scattered across the region, mostly throughout Bulgaria, Serbia, the Republic of Macedonia and Romania. That led to the eventual segmentation and wide range of ethnic sub-styles in čoček. The Serbian Cocek is very popular in southern Serbia and differs slightly to Bulgarian Cocek, with less oriental sound.
[edit] Turbofolk
- Further information: Turbo-folk
In the modern era, Serbia has been dominated by a succession of Yugoslav states until recently becoming independent as a part of Serbia and Montenegro. There was Yugoslav popular music which was well-known in Serbia, and abroad, and later, in the chaos of the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, turbo-folk became popular and associated with nationalist violence. Serbian rock also became popular in the 20th century.
Turbo-folk has its influences from the Ottoman Empire. Such as the ottomans bringing the Arabic style music to this part of the region. Occasionally in some songs you can hear the resemblance to Arabic music from the Pan Arabic region. Singers from neighbouring countries such as Bosnia and herzegovina also come in Serbia and perform, which is more influenced on Arabic style of music than in Serbia.
Ethnic Serbian emigrants have brought their musical traditions to countries like Canada and the United States. The Cleveland, Ohio area of the US has a large Serbian population, and a Serbian rock scene. Other manifestations of emigrant Serbian music include the Kolo ensemble from Canada, the Rastko ensemble from New York City and the Grachanitsa ensemble from Boston, Massachusetts.
Novokomponovana can be seen as a result of the urbanization of folk music. In its early times, it had a professional approach to performance, uses accordion and clarinet and typically includes love songs or other simple lyrics (though there have long been royalist, anti-Communist and democratic lyrical themes persisting underground). Many of the genre's best performers also play Bosnian sevdalinka music or other forms imported from even further abroad. These include Šaban Šaulić, Toma Zdravković, Predrag Gojković Cune, Miroslav Ilić and Lepa Lukić. At a later stage, the popular performers such as Vesna Zmijanac, Lepa Brena, Dragana Mirković were using more influences from pop music, oriental music, and other genres, which ultimatively led to explosion of turbo-folk.
The era of turbo-folk took place during the war and crisis of 1990s. Turbo-folk used Serbian folk and novokomponovana as the basis, and adding influences from rock and roll, soul, house and UK garage. Turbo-folk is aggressive and swift, and includes popular performers like Ceca and Jelena Karleuša.Some musicians used their music to protest against Milošević during the 1990s, such as the Rimtutituki project, while others were seen as having used music and cultural expression to incite extremist nationalist fervor.
[edit] Popular music
- Further information: Serbian rock and Serbian hip hop
There are many rock bands that exist since 1970s and 1980s. The first formidable Yugoslav rock bands were Smak, Time, YU-Grupa and Korni-Grupa. The "Golden age" of Yugoslav rock music occurred during 1980s when Belgrade's New Wave music bands, such as Idoli, Šarlo Akrobata and Električni orgazam, Disciplina Kičme, Ekatarina Velika,Oktobar 1864 and Partibrejkers, drew new frontiers in musical expression. Their music is listened to mainly by the young urban population. Today, the most famous mainstream performers include Riblja čorba, Bajaga i Instruktori and Van Gogh, while Rambo Amadeus and Darkwood Dub are the most prominent musicians of the "alternative" scene.
Pop music has been catching up with the popularity of folk in recent years. Newer artists that perform this kind of music include: Vlado Georgiev, Negative, Nataša Bekvalac, Tanja Savic, Ana Stanić, Night Shift, and Željko Joksimović who was runner-up in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 , along with old stars Đorđe Balašević and Zdravko Čolić. Marija Šerifović won the Eurovision Song Contest 2007; Serbia will be the host of the 2008 contest. One known Serbian songwriter is Dejan Tadic who lives in Chicago soon will be publishing his first autobiography which will be full of his songs in both Serbian and English. Tadic has won numerous awards around the globe for reality poems of life, hurt and love.
There are also numerous hip-hop bands and artists, mostly from Belgrade but other cities as well: GRU, 187, C-Ya, Beogradski Sindikat.
[edit] Heavy metal
As well as having a large mainstream music scene, there is also a large heavy metal scene of all genres in Serbia. To this day, it has the largest metal scene out of any of the nations in the former Yugoslavia. Many of these bands often incorporate Serbian and Slavic folklore into their music, and glorify their homeland by doing so. Along with Finland, Serbia has one of the largest "pagan metal" scenes in Europe. The most famous metal band to come out of Serbia is the black metal band The Stone, which has been critically acclaimed throughout not just eastern Europe, but Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland and France as well.
[edit] Industrial scene
Serbia never had the taste for the industrial sound although it had so many industrial elements in its political and everyday life surroundings. This sound never came to bigger interest because it included a lot of electronic equipment and a lot of industrial machines for making noises that people in Yugoslavia just couldn't afford in the mid 80's after communist leader Josip Broz Tito died and left the country in great dept. The spirit of industrial music continued to live in one-man project based computer acts. Although there were many artists that experimented with industrial in old Yugoslavia (like Sat Stoicizmo, Laibach, Borghesia) Serbian industrial/dark scene was small but well organized. Most important acts were: Autopsia (industrial experimental act from Ruma), Pure (industrial-rock band from Jagodina) Katarza (industrial-rock band from Novi Sad) Mindkiller (industrial act from Novi Sad), Vivisect (from Novi Sad), Overdose (from Belgrade). The latest bands that are still active and are still playing live industrial are dreDDup (from Novi Sad). C.I.H. (from Belgrade), Presovane Glave (Beograd), Pamba (from Kovacica), Youth A.D. (Srbobran), Third I (from Cuprija) and Figurative Theatre (from Nis). After the year 2005 a lot of bands started experimenting including the industrial elements in their non-industrial music genres.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Burton, Kim. "Balkan Beats". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 273-276. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
[edit] External links
- Music of Serbia at the Open Directory Project
- Project Rastko category (some text in English, RealAudio church choirs)
- The History Serbian Culture - Some facts about medieval Serbian music
- dssound.com - You can listen lot of songs (site in Serbian)
- Nostalgija.com - a heap of MP3s (site in Serbian)
- Pticice - a free MP3 album of native Serbian music
- Darkwood Dub
- Kiss Radio - Radio Station with Serbian music
- Serbian folk music and dance video repository
- Serbian metal portal
- Serbian music
- Serbian music MP3s
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