Folk Music from the Slovak Mountains

from the Library of Congress in Washington DC welcome and please find your seats we've got a really full program and I'm sure most of you have been at the some of the program this morning I'm Peggy Bolger I'm director of the American Folklife Center here at the library and on behalf of the entire Center staff I want to welcome you to the Library of Congress and this special presentation in the Folklife centers Benjamin Botkin Folklife lecture series in addition to the members of the public who have joined us today I know many of you I want to recognize and welcome the members of the American musical instrument Society please give them a hand those of you in the society may not know it but a lot of the general public is joining us for this program for the next few days I know that this international scholarly body is holding their 39th annual meeting here at the library and the Folklife Center is very proud to join our colleagues at the music division in co-sponsoring this event the Botkin series provides us here at the library with a platform for professional folklorists and ethnographers and ethnomusicologists working both in the academy and the public sector to present their findings from ongoing research and this series allows us to interact with cutting-edge scholarship and musicians and performers and this entire program will be videotaped for our collections for the permanent collections so this would be a good time if you do have a cell phone or a pager be good if you turned it off now and in this way it allows us to actually gather together the very best of music dance and scholarship for the generations to come who will be using the Library of Congress and the American Folklife Center archive today and recognition of the American musical instrument society's presence were featuring a lecture demonstration on one of the world's most remarkable instruments the Slovakian fou Yara and I have the honor of introducing to you Bob right click who is a leading advocate maker teacher and performer of what they call the queen of the flutes oh and I wanted to say that we do have the Ambassador here and I want to recognize him circ which is that's just that's just wonderful I'm sure that this program will bring you bring you back I know that Nancy grouse of our staff actually met Bob at the Embassy when we had the embassy week and just was so enthralled by this music we had to bring Bob here to demonstrate this music Bob rice lick was born in Czechoslovakia and he is a multi-instrumentalist his love of American guitar and banjo styles was already deeply rooted before he moved to America in 1984 in 1999 a friend's gift of a yarra reawakened his interest in Czech and Slovak traditional culture and it led to an in-depth research and experimentation with this instrument he's also organized the first American Foo yarra workshop in 2006 and later Foo Yara workshops in Slovakia and Czech and the Czech Republic's where he taught his new playing methods Bob became the first foreign member of the exclusive for URI see for your see a guild in Slovakia and recorded his first CD ideas with Vieira and was featured on Czech TV and also on Czech and Slovak radio his love for American acoustic blues and Slovak overtone flutes intersected when he discovered that he could play the blues on the instruments and he became a member of the archie edwards blues heritage foundation he's working on an english-language method book were the Foo Yara and he composes works for the Fuji era guitar and keyboard so please join me in welcoming Bob Reich good evening everybody first I would like to thank the Library of Congress for his tremendous opportunity to be part of the bodkin lecture series and I would like to welcome all members of American music instrument society his Excellency ambassador of Slovak Republic Peter Bryan and all my friends all my fans my family and everybody else who came to this event my name is Bob reclick as as you heard already and I will introduce to you a little-known class of instruments from Slovakia which belong into class of overtone flutes and especially the largest one of them queen of flutes few era ago briefly talk about history of where about its roots then ever play selected examples of music of we era console fika and sizzle flute then I would like to move to the current use of we are and at the end I would like to introduce to you a new kind of overtone flute of my design then there will be some time left for questions and answers you will do the question part and I will do answer or hopefully maybe it may be the other way around because there are so many experts here who might know much more about the method than I do but enough talking it's time to call before era to the mic and ask her to introduce herself and speak for herself my friends this is Ferrara you hey fire aah fire aah Buddha bespoke aa Jessie mod a nazi dark tsumuji abyss kala docks mutiny is kala hey vets Anton apoyo pots Calif dureena Jeb is me peace kala Nazi progeny Vinod seafood Eugenia Oh let's look at a history it's hard to believe but Ferrara actually goes back to 12th and 13th century to this little tiny overtone flute from Middle Ages which was called and played with a stovepipe and was played together with drum sometimes it is the string drum called table or pipe and table or the other way around like this I would play you a short example of this instrument it was played both parts by one player widget big advantage not to musician to musicians just one position so you only had to buy one beer that's why it was very popular it was popular like a rock music is today for about 400 years up to 15th century and it is still being played in some parts of Europe today especially in the Basque region and in England this piece is a little dance Maurice tune which is called balance the straw the musicologists are telling us that around 15 century some foreign troops brought pipe and table or to Slovakia and left one maybe more of them there but of course the Slovaks started to play on it their own music they would have killed me because of my girlfriend but I run away from them and hidden in a deep body bully be mas EE bread was Nokia rainy hey LS own in Ooty a KO doho bouquet doll in me hey I was so mean Mooji echo the whole bouquet doll in the Hoboken daleney Yoho Bucky Hoyer COO hey bully be Massa Barry pray to Moya fryer COO hey Bali be Massa Barry pray to Moya fryer COO thank you as you can see the first part I played on it on a medieval pipe with three holes two on top and one on one on bottom the second part I've played already on Slovak six whole fluid which on which for this piece I kept the top three holes closed and I only use the bottom three holes it is a method of playing called Virginia like a no triple play which employed the same same way which you know the original pipe was using and then the last part I have played on another amazing Slovak instrument which is called Khan Chaka Khan soft Cominco nets its end so let's conserve Cummings like and flute all the tones are generated by by by overtones the overtone scale which is similar for example to bugle or other instruments in wind family so conserve can play anything what bugle can can play all the signals military signals or other signals like I don't know because at Preakness you know like this is like signal for a for a dry but conserve go has another advantage besides this basic overtone scale it has another scale when you get that scale even close the end that's what is concurrence of car and flute when you close the end that tone comes down so you get sort of a scale being to combine all those stones together which is actually scale in a Lydian mode the Lydian mode for those who don't know it's like regular scale but the fourth step is raised half-step up so it's like Pro later so Co Dubonnet Oppo sod new Navi Atrisco Zara now Stronach goo rose vessel Ovechkin oil I also wash of chair I also wash off er/ir van pasta beam su Hey horikoshi r su ke horikoshi odd Ferreira is the largest of the Overton family and in case you wonder a white why is this so large you know from this small float how it became so much bigger well there are several theories on that one is that of course as the tools very very becoming larger and larger you could drill larger and larger holes also the lower longer the longer the lower voice right so the lower voice is maybe more pleasant to the human ears than the that is real high high high overtones and but my might my Tory is this you know that saying my Ferrara is bigger than your Ferrara know what's getting big no no no mine is bigger than yours you know and so it was growing and growing and at certain point you need to reach the holes so you know what do you do if you make it bigger you you can reach the holes so Slovak and unity a created additional additional tube which is also hollow so you blow into that tube it carries the air up and then it is another hollow tube which which carries the air inside the main main chamber then you can flow here and still reach the holes so now the size only is depending on your taste on the size of drills and that's all problem solved you know there is a lot of songs about about ya know chic in Slovakia yeah no she was folk hero yeah no she means Little John folk hero like Robin Hood or even maybe Jesse James in this country was taking from the rich and giving to the poor sometimes giving taking from poor and rich and giving to himself but what but we decided and of course he was he was zero and this song says ya know she we sought from a high mountain and yes he had a girlfriend in a deep body hey sloppy Scalia no she zappy Scalia no she nah Scala this okay hey now Scala this okay I also promise that we'll talk about six whole foods which again Slovak six whole fruits a little bit different from six whole fruits of other countries because the members are of American music instrument Society will know about this there is a some thing which is called aspect ratio which is length divided by the by the bore and they the aspect ratio is is a larger so they still have the the fundamental octaves but they are also able to play in several overtone registers I would like to demonstrate it in two examples in first one I will play little piece which mostly uses the fundamental octave and the second one uses a lot of the of the overtone registers hey will Havel Harbach nice dog a Volvo hop Eknath dog near top seniors the pretest of Europe seniors the pretest ah and of course there's also double flute and again differentiating differentiating from double fruits of other countries this one also has much larger range in the in the overtone register so you can this on this drone part other fruits from other countries only play one tone but this one because it is it also can play several tones so I will play something for you I would like to tell you that Ferrara is really not giving being given the recognition which which it should have because this instrument is capable of more than two octaves of the atomic scale and almost chromatic fully chromatic except one tone which for the experts this is a G for FS o for the G for era this tone which is not there is C sharp all other tones you can play and it can be played besides its its basic key which would be the fundamental key of the of the few era which is determined by the by its length it could be played in several other keys major and minor which I do very often I found one rare example of slack folk song which also uses one different key most of them are indeed in the basic cleavages this is the easiest to play but this one starts in G of G and then it goes into C and it's a sad song about those who were caught those those highwayman you know and it says whose are those sheep walking up there up up hill or these they belong to John the one they are going to hang and as they were taking him across the barren field his girlfriend calls after him come back my love how can I come back when I'm all tied up the executioner's are waiting for me under the gallows you know biology JIAJIA toave cheeky horik runo me do giotto of etske agronomy do at Oh Sooyoung Cova itazu unique oval oughta sue Yanukovych over shabu do the sound is you to to to to to her it when it sounds at the beginning it has several reasons for it well besides calling the attention right one of the reasons is that when you sit to piano you can see the keys and you can start the play you know you know which know you want to start on guitar you have string your frets on Ferrara you control the tones by your breath so you first have to orient yourself on the scale so you come from topaz okay here I'm so here I start you know also there is a reason you use sort of test that's the instrument how much breath does it take maybe even heat up a little bit the air column and this so called Ross fook or scatter are how they are translating now into English it's being used on Ferrara and also on con softe but sometimes even on the signal signal flute I would play a little piece with just very happy melody and very sad lyrics which is usually the case in in Slovak songs it says I have I've been grazing my sheep on green mountain but they all died because they could drank water if it was too cold Hey Pass awesome / cheeky in the hole easily nay I should give me paw Kapali your body stood as as you could hear the Slovak songs the foyer repertoire at least about the very hard life above the effects of life and you know life is hard so songs are said melancholic somebody even can say depressing but they also also somehow magically relaxing it is also one exception to that I found one one fork song which is a rather dynamic you could even call it this this traditional style sing Copic and again the even when the melody is sort of cheerful the dino lyrics say that the lyrics are about the first military service people who didn't have money they had to go it was like six years or more and there was people who could pay they just paid paid it off right so it says when they were taking me from the headquarters or marching me from the headquarters the guards were pouring me some wine and I said don't pour me don't pour me pour yourself you already saved me a drink of my bitter tears hey Edna she Cavalli at Panera Katara hey Edna she Cavalli ozpin eric tarr hey lavalla me dravidan Kodaka Hara Hara Valley meet Robbie ring Kodaka Hara a knight generally carry piteous Islam in regional a curvy pts Asami gets Jay monopoly or kami so Sami gets Jay monopoly herky me so Sami you the second part which I've added to the song was was something else but I wanted to show you demonstrate another effect the mystical para fook it's actually over bloah when you blow the tone all the way up to the to the harmonics and you can actually hear several tones together at this point right and the pre folk I've used before but in this one song it is being used a different way rhythmically you know you know after after each each node at the section is like over ground so it's I thought it was interesting for you to hear let's go back to cons of car cons of Kiev has cousins in some other countries well if we are is only Slavic you know heritage it doesn't exist anywhere else in the world Kanaka das in several other countries but they look a little bit different there is a there's a cousin in the Scandinavian countries which is called Surya Floyd made from from below three sorry floaty means actually actually below three yak villo you know fluid sorry and it also has a football like this one but there is also open end fluid overtone flute in Russia which is rim or in brown which is called Carioca and there's also similar open open and blown flute in Romania account called called till Inca I'd like to play for you on one one last example of the of the cons of car use was the time okay time is time is running out in in traditional music this this one is from northern part of Slovakia it is it is little combination of of three songs from Laura Slovakia thank you what I've played so far were examples or echoes of life a long time ago maybe hundred years or more and both the music and lyrics reflected that that time but but you know what about today in current in current age there are actually two different approaches associates to how to play this instrument one is to preserve the and emulate or copy the old songs and recordings and interpret them in a very similar way to the original this is very this is very common to go to do but you know can free up a plate current way this is a big discussion going on about that if it should be or should not and people are doing it anyway right unfortunately the second group which is playing the fuera the current way is I don't know how to say that it's it's a noisy group of amateurs who either by the we are from Slovakia or in most cases make approximation of where a from PVC PVC tubes which is nothing wrong with that if they would play it right but they just the learn a couple of effects and couple tones and then then they videotape themselves and go on go on YouTube and say this is how where it is being played then everybody who wants to find out something about Ferreira goes to internet and finds this kindness i oh well it was this you know I don't want to play this instrument so this is not really helpful I am promoting where as a melodic instrument and I want would like it to be recognized as through musical instrument for its capabilities to play into in modern to octaves at the atomic scale almost chromatic in many piece piece of major and minor tuning what to play on Ferrara well you cannot play everything what you can actually play is not suitable to instrument like you cannot play everything on sitar or you know every instrument as its its character so I will show you what I think it's it's appropriate for foyer or which I like the sound of it on Ferrara let's go to baroque period of a plyo little little medley of three pieces I'm sure you will recognize the last one thank you it's hard to believe but if a some classical music could be played on Ferrara I very like I like very much Czech composer Antonin Dvorak especially is opera rusalka I'm going to play a little piece from that for you moon on the white sky you when it brought my first further from Slovakia and was playing all the traditional songs my wife told me those are so said so so you know melancholic wondered what why don't you play something cheerful on Ferrara and said well they're not really too many cheerful songs in Slavic music and I was like thinking what else could be played and this that this possibly think to that started my quest what to play on Ferrara no thanks to her no well I couldn't find anything suitable so I to make up my my own my own music I will play with two short examples from my first CD called ideas with Ferrara and the first is called Mount Airy sunrise because it came to me when I was getting up in in my house in Mount Airy and Sun was rising okay the second song is it's very short it's a it's called the merry-go-round because it goes round and round like a carousel for children all right I hope I will have chance to introduce to you this new kind of overtone flute which I've asked my friend rushan holding in Slovakia to make for me first I wanted to have it having longer but of course same problem so I've asked him to make me another of those extensions for the for the con soft car not for the Fuhrer but also I've asked him to make me one hole right here so it's it's no longer without any hole this hole can raise the pitch at several overtone levels one full step which usually expands the range of this instrument of console car now finally I can play on it many many other songs and melodies almost almost anything so I like to only very shortly show you alright maybe maybe not enough time for it okay I guess now you know I wanted to show you how you can play very easily children song with this little visit it's just this one hole but maybe yes yeah right you like that some children's song just for you too okay how many how many can you can you recognise okay I play this sorry okay already plated that okay and you could look at planes also other stuff on it for example very short example even if the next song Amazing Grace everybody knows that one you can already played with these videos one side whole but still I would like to show you what's the difference it makes if you also make the vocalization at the end okay I will play a couple couple measures it just decide all and then I go at the right hand okay like either a lot of stuff to play for you on this on this new instrument but let me let me finish with the with the short medley of three traditional songs American songs the first one Austria from different background for this ocean and oh very well-known song all song second is a gospel swing low Sweet Chariot into which I'm gonna probably add some blues blues blues notes and the last is a bluegrass piece or joke rock I used to play on Benjy but you know let's play on this thank you I have to go because time is time is running out but I have to tell you that I just read something on the Internet of course and it said everything in the universe is made of tiny vibrating strands of energy called strings each is vibrating at its own fundamental frequency representing the mass charge and spin of known element Airy particles and have its own overtones in early universe the sound waves oscillate it in the hot plasma density of region was oscillate overtones have fractions of fundamental wavelength causing smaller region of space to reach maximum displacement that's how the unit the whole universe was made from elementary particles to to the whole universe I think that we can safely say that all universe just one big few era thank you very much for your attention you've been axon audience you ah Bob village thank you this has been a presentation of the Library of Congress visit us at loc.gov

Channel: Library of Congress

Views: 95,858

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Keywords: library, congress, music

Id: 5Y5fonktBzQ

Length: 63min 6sec (3786 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2010