Varushka music

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The Music of Varushka

Style summary

A short description of the musical style we're encouraging.

Commonly known songs

Pick a few examples from the list below to specifically promote as well-known within that nation. Provide lyrics and score/chords. Preferably in a range of difficulties.

A musical tradition

Toasting is very common in Varushkan culture. Pretty much every major event - weddings, funerals, births, victories, defeats, change of leadership, ceremonies of adulthood - will lead to both spoken and sung toasts. A typical Varushkan toasting song has very few words: the old-fashioned songs use "mravalzhamier" meaning 'good health' although others are sung to similar sentiments, or sometimes the name of the person being toasted or simply "Varushka!". Toasting Songs often start slowly and speed up and can be sung in full harmony or led by one singer. Some examples: Mravalzhamiers and Raise up your glass to Varushka.

Further examples

Songs & Poems

• Marching song - medium difficulty
• Raise up your glass to Varushka - toasting song, hard difficulty, 3 parts.
• The Beast of Volgadurn
• Beneath the Skin
• The Walker of the Snow

Instrumentation and tunes

Violins, accordions, reeded woodwind, hammered dulcimer if you've got one! Music is drawn from Eastern European gypsy music, klezmer, or any fast tunes written in a klezmer scale. More info on klezmer scales.

Other performance traditions

• Dancing, set dances like ceilidh circle dances but typically dancers will come out of the line to do their own thing before rejoining the set moves.

How to adapt your repertoire

Suggestions of how someone could talk an existing song and make it fit the nation's style.

Our sources

Georgian, Serbian, Croatian, Czech, Moravian and Bulgarian folk as well as traditional Russian songs.