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The Music of the Serbs and Serbia presents a variety of traditional music, which is part of the wider Balkan tradition, with its own distinctive sound and characteristics.
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History
The documented musical history of the Serbs can be traced back to the medieval era. 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 religious songs dedicated to Jesus. 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 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.
With the Ottoman Empire came instruments that would further flourish the Serbian music.
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.
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.
Traditional music
Traditional ethnic Serbian music (Serbian Etno) include various kinds of bagpipes, flutes, horns, trumpets, lutes, psalteries, drums and cymbals such as:
With the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Yugoslavias, Serbian ethnic music became less practised, new instruments were introduced that paved away for new styles of music. Ethnic Serb music is very similar to ethnic Macedonian and Bulgarian music because of its use of the same instruments and melodies.
A good example of Serbian ethnic music was used in the 2004 Eurovision entry of Serbia "Lane Moje" by Zeljko Joksimovic.
Balkanika, Balkanopolis, Dvig, Slobodan Trkulja, Belo Platno are known Serbian musical groups that use old Serbian instruments and tradition.
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.
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. While someone plays the Tambura, the other person is keeping a good beat on the accordian. The Kolos usually last for about 5-13 minutes.
The folk music in the Banat region is influenced by Vlach (Romanian) sounds and vice versa.
Epic poetry
Sung epic poetry has been an integral part of Serbs and Balkan music for centuries. 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 (Serbian Krajina), the poems are about the life and feeling of the Serbs under Austro-Hungarian rule and oppression.
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.
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 more popular in south Serbia and differs slightly to Bulgarian Cocek, which has more oriental sound.
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.
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 used it in nationalistic manners.
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 was the host of the 2008 contest.
There are also numerous hip-hop bands and artists, mostly from the suburbs of Belgrade: GRU, 187, C-Ya, Beogradski Sindikat.
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.
Electronic, Industrial scene
There were many artists who experimented with the industrial style in old Yugoslavia (like Sat Stoicizmo, Laibach, Borghesia). The Serbian electronic scene was small but well organized. Most important acts were: Autopsia (industrial experimental act from Ruma), Rex Ilusivii (pioneer of electronic sound from Novi Sad), Pure (rock band from Jagodina) Katarza (rock band from Novi Sad) Mindkiller (industrial act from Novi Sad), VIVIsect (from Novi Sad), Overdose (from Belgrade), 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). More about Industrial and electronic music of Serbia at these sites and forums: CaoZdravo.com Dark:Scene Dark Scene blog
See also
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
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)
- Darkwood Dub
- Serbian folk music and dance video repository
- Serbian rock portal
- Serbian metal portal
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