Varushka music
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====Songs & Poems==== | ====Songs & Poems==== | ||
* [[Marching song]] - medium difficulty | * [[Marching song]] - medium difficulty | ||
* [[Raise up your glass to Varushka]] - toasting | * [[Raise up your glass to Varushka]] - some toasting songs | ||
* [[The Beast of Volgadurn]] | * [[Mravalzhamier]] - some more toasting songs | ||
* [[The Beast of Volgadurn]] - poem about a monster | |||
* [[Beneath the Skin]] | * [[Beneath the Skin]] | ||
* [[The Walker of the Snow]] | * [[The Walker of the Snow]] | ||
* Gusta Mi Magla - TO DO | * Gusta Mi Magla - TO DO | ||
* Byla Cesta - TO DO | |||
====Instrumentation and tunes==== | ====Instrumentation and tunes==== | ||
Revision as of 14:21, 14 August 2012
The Music of Varushka
Style summary
Varushkan music is rich and full-bodied, following a long tradition of being used to keep both the cold and the the horrors outside at bay. Choral singing, accordions, violins and hurdy-gurdies all find their place with the Varushkan love of discords resolving into rich harmony; the normally stoic people find a outlet for grief, love and joy in their music that they would find hard to express in any other way. A vein of melancholy runs through their music - minor keys are more common than major.
Varushka draws on the real world traditions of Eastern European and Balkan music, in particular Georgian, Bulgarian and Russian songs and Yiddish or klezmer instrumental music.
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.
One for the kids
Further examples
Songs & Poems
- Marching song - medium difficulty
- Raise up your glass to Varushka - some toasting songs
- Mravalzhamier - some more toasting songs
- The Beast of Volgadurn - poem about a monster
- Beneath the Skin
- The Walker of the Snow
- Gusta Mi Magla - TO DO
- Byla Cesta - TO DO
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
- Avoid cliched Russian tunes like the Tetris theme music (good though it is!)
- Start very slow and speed up!
Our sources
Georgian, Serbian, Croatian, Czech, Moravian and Bulgarian folk as well as traditional Russian songs; Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir; Georgian Voices; Northern Harmony.