Aspects of Bulgarian Musical Thought

Aspects of Bulgarian Musical ThoughtAuthor(s): Timothy RiceSource: Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council, Vol. 12 (1980), pp. 43-66Published by: International Council for Traditional MusicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/767653 .Accessed: 13/07/2011 01:29

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ASPECTS OF BULGARIAN MUSICAL THOUGHT

by Timothy Rice

Folk musicians are generally assumed to make music but not to think very much about it. Yet recent studies by Zemp (1978, 1979) and others demonstrate the existence of elaborate conceptual systems related to music in cultures without a written tradition. If the comparison between Western and a particular non-Western music theory seems invidious, it is partly because the West has a tradition of discourse about music (musica theoretica) that has existed for over 2000 years quite apart from practical music making (musica practica).

Were it not for this humanistic tradition of music theory as an aspect of general philosophy and science, the musicians of the West might not be very successful verbalizers about music. Even today when most of the West's trained musicians are squeezed reluctantly through a conserva- tory program of music history and theory, they often emerge virtually untouched by the influence of this verbal tradition. In a culture where music per se has never been the proper object of lengthy speech discourse, it should not be surprising to find less music theory than in the West. The comparison seems invidious only because it involves the pro- verbial apples and oranges: another culture's musicians with the West's philosopher-scientist. Seen in this light, comparison, especially value- laden comparison, is clearly fruitless and culture-serving.

My purpose, then, is to delineate the folk taxonomies, terms, and behaviors relevant to a study of Bulgarian musical thought, gathered in the last few years from Bulgarian folk singers and instrumentalists. Specifically the report deals with how they talked and behaved with respect to musical sound per se. Material can be collected from them on the origins of music, on how the songs are passed on and learned, on the meaning of the texts, and on the uses and importance of music in everyday life. But this discussion focuses on musical sounds and their structures and the way Bulgarian villagers think about them.

Three kinds of behavioral evidence advance the argument: verbal, physical, and musical. By assuming that the way people talk about something reflects how they think about it, a verbal expression can be linked to an idea. Epistemologically this is extremely tricky, however, because knowledge of a label does not imply knowledge of the folk category or domain to which it refers (Conklin 1969: 96). To overcome problems of translating labels and categories from one language and culture to another, cognitive anthropologists have developed formal semantic pro- cedures that help to uncover the extent and structure of these domains (Black 1969).

In this study less formal, and hence presumably less replicable, pro- cedures were used which combined more or less simultaneous obser-


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44 / 1980 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL 44 / 1980 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL 44 / 1980 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL 44 / 1980 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL 44 / 1980 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL 44 / 1980 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL 44 / 1980 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL 44 / 1980 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL

vation of verbal, physical, and musical behavior. These observations were then informally cross-correlated in an attempt to understand Bulgarian cognition with respect to music. For example, physical behaviors such as the position of performers and musical behavior such as pitch manipulation are occasionally used to infer the ideas that lie behind them. Sometimes such behaviors are used to confirm or deny the existence of categories already held by the investigator. However, their best and most typical use here is to corroborate or validate verbal evidence given by Bulgarian villagers.

The discussion begins with an examination of the range of Bulgarian behaviors labelled "musical" in English, and it is demonstrated that the structure of this domain in Bulgarian is different from the English domain. The segregate (Frake 1969: 31) labelled 'song' in Bulgarian is then examined and a folk taxonomy of song textures is proposed. Finally, the ideas that Bulgarians have about the musical structure of one sub- category of song texture are examined in detail.

Music and Non-music The boundary between music and non-music, "one of the most impor-

tant . . . concepts" according to Merriam (1964: 63), is extremely diffi- cult to determine with precision in any culture. For an outsider beginning a period of ethnomusicological field work, the problem often seems to involve finding labels that correspond to 'musical' behaviors. There are cultures, for example, without a label for the range of behaviors called 'musical' in English, and other cultures with a label that seems to include nearly the same range of behaviors as our word 'music.' The labels, however, are only the beginning of the problem; the ethnomusicologist must also understand the extent and the structure of the domains in question (see Kay 1969 for a summary of some basic structural types).

The problems of labelling and categorization are usually encountered early in any field-work experience. In Bulgarian-English dictionaries, for example, the words muzika and muzikant are glossed simply, but somewhat misleadingly, as 'music' and 'musician,' respectively. Using these words in conversations with villagers, however, led to unexpected behavior on their part-a sure sign that the investigator's categories do not match those of the culture. Expressing an interest in these two labels invariably led to players of Western instruments such as clarinet and trumpet. There may have been players of indigenous instruments around, but questions about 'musicians' was not getting me to them. Finally the adjective 'traditional' (bitov) was added to 'music' and this led to players of kaval, gudulka, tambura, and gajda.1

Singers turned up only by accident and my interest in them was greeted with, "we didn't know you were interested in singers." How could they not understand that someone interested in musicians would also be interested in singers? The misunderstanding was finally resolved through another line of questioning. When describing rituals or customs no longer performed or that occurred at a different time of year, people would frequently say, "there is no music (muzika) for this ritual, only











































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songs (pesni)." Taken together, this statement, repeated by many people, plus the previous misunderstanding demonstrates that, for Bulgarian villagers, singer (pevitsa) and musician (musikant) must be contrasting categories, whereas from a Western or at least ethnomusicological perspective it is possible to include singers within the category of musician. The labels 'music' and 'musician' must map onto different conceptual categories in Bulgaria than they do in America. Until this was understood, however, confusion reigned and field work covering the range of behaviors defined as 'musical' in the West was considerably hampered. 'Music' in Bulgarian is not an overarching category that includes both vocal and instrumental performances. Muzika in Bulgarian denotes 'instrumental music' in English, and additionally 'musical instrument' and especially 'Western musical instrument.'

The word muzika remained a problem, however. In borrowing it from the Greek, where it once referred to nine arts and sciences, the Bulgarians had applied it even more narrowly than Westerners had to instrumental performance alone. If this were a distinct category of Bulgarian musical thought, then a Slavic word must mean or have meant the same thing. Conversations with instrumentalists eventually confirmed this hypo- thesis. Svirnya is the Slavic word they use to mean instrumental music or instrumental tune and svirach means musician or instrumentalist. They had equated the borrowed Greek word, muzika, to svirnya (instrumental tune), not to some larger art of combining tones.

Eventually other words associated with the domain of 'musical' behaviors emerged,2 and it became clear that Bulgarians use at least five separate verbs to describe activities potentially related to the Western concept of music: plays (sviri), sings (pee), laments (tuguva), beats (tupa), and dances (igrae). (All the verbs are given in the present tense, third-person singular since there are no infinitives in Bulgarian.) Each of these verbs is transitive and linked uniquely with specific cognate sub- jects and objects: a 'tuner' 'tunes' a tune or a musician plays music (svirach sviri svirnya or muzikant sviri muzika), a singer sings a song (pevitsa pee pesen), a lamenter laments a lament (tuguvashtiat tuguva tuga), a drummer drums a drum (tupandzhiya tupa tapan), and a dancer dances a dance (igrach igrae igra or horo). In this classification scheme, 'tune' (svirnya) is largely synonymous with 'music' (muzika) and both directly contrast with song (pesen); 'song' is not included within muzika.

Although English usage possesses some similarities, there are some im-

portant differences. The Bulgarian categories are separate and cannot be intermixed as they are in English. Where we might say, "He played a waltz and then a love song," at least some Bulgarians would be careful to say that he actually played the tune (svirnya, muzika) for a waltz and then the tune for a love song. Ironically, record jacket notes and concert programs produced today in Bulgaria reflect the relative imprecision of modern Western usage. They write, 'he plays a wedding song and a straight dance' (toj sviri svadbarska pesen i pravo horo). But, according to Kostadin Varimezov, Bulgaria's leading bagpiper, it would be more correct to write, 'he plays a wedding tune and a straight tune' (toj sviri svadbarska svirnya i prava svirnja). Traditionally in other words, Bul- garians danced dances and sang songs; they never played them.




































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Since no overarching verbal category or label exists for all of these behaviors, the question of the boundary between 'music' and 'non-music' becomes meaningless. Other kinds of behavior are as distinct from these five categories as they are from each other. For whistling, they say, 'he plays with his lips' (toj sviri s usta). The intransitiveness of this expression, contrasted with 'he plays bagpipe' (toj sviri gajda), suggests that whistling is close to playing but not quite the same. Similarly, humming is referred to as 'he plays without music' (toj sviri bez muzika); in other words, he 'plays' something, but it is not 'music.' The sounds of nature and of animals are also linked verbally with human behavior, and yet no Bulgarian would confuse them with that behavior. Birds, for example, sing (pile pee), but they never sing a song. The wind blows (vyatar duha), but it never blows a flute (duha kaval).

To assert that the question of the boundary between music and non- music is moot in Bulgarian culture begs the question of how these five categories are structured. Do they form a direct contrastive set at one level in some larger taxonomy that includes other 'non-musical' behavior? Or can some of them be grouped by inclusion within some such larger taxonomy? Unfortunately, given a priori assumptions about the nature and limits of the discipline, inherent in its name, this was not investigated in any systematic way. However, a number of possibilities can be suggested and others are certainly possible.

First, these categories could form part of a taxonomy of adult behaviors grouped by sex: (1) 'playing' and 'drumming' typical of men; (2) 'singing' and 'lamenting' typical of women; and (3) 'dancing' typical of both sexes. In this taxonomy 'playing' and 'drumming' contrast directly with housebuilding, herding animals, riding horses and only indirectly with 'singing' and 'lamenting' through the dominating taxon, 'appropriate behaviors for each sex.'

Another possibility is that the categories belong to a taxonomy of 'fun behaviors' (veselba). In this taxonomy 'drumming,' 'singing,' 'playing,' and 'dancing' would contrast directly with eating, talking, drinking, and laughing, whereas 'lamenting' would probably, although not surely, be eliminated altogether from the taxonomy.

Third, they could form part of a taxonomy based on a first-level distinction between outsider and insider behavior. In this taxonomy 'drumming' might be included in outsider behavior more typical of Gyp- sies, whereas the other behaviors would be typical of insiders, that is, the villagers themselves. In this case drumming would contrast directly with other Gypsy behaviors such as zurla (oboe) playing, belly-dancing, tinkering, and begging, and only indirectly with the other Bulgarian behaviors.

These behaviors could be included in a domain labelled 'art' (izkustvo), but the problems with this are comparable to the problems with 'music.' No serious attempt has yet been made to establish its validity as a folk domain apart from the literary tradition and its language.

In Bulgaria a new 'non-folk,' state-created domain has recently emerged, namely, 'amateurism' (samodejnosta). When 'singers,' 'drummers,' 'players,' 'dancers,' and possibly even 'lamenters,' along with story-



















































tellers, ritual re-enactors, piano players, and choral and drama 'collectives' appear on stage in state-sponsored festivals and competitions, the performers are called 'amateurs' (samodejtsi). In this taxonomy the five categories probably contrast directly with other kinds of non-musical,' folk and non-folk performances.

Finally, perhaps they could be included in a taxonomy of 'communications.' But there is no evidence that this would be meaningful in Bulgarian culture. 'Communications' would seem to have the same etic status in folklore studies as 'music' has in musicology.

Thus it is likely that these five behaviors exist within multiple taxonomies in Bulgarian culture. None of these taxonomies is isomorphic with the Western category, 'music.' Each is structured uniquely and thus the taxa contrast in different ways depending on the taxonomy. If, because of the preoccupations of the discipline used to study these behaviors, they are crammed into the Western domain labelled 'music,' they all contrast directly with no possibilities for inclusion of, say, 'drumming' within 'playing' or 'lamenting' within 'singing.' The behavioral validity of this formulation is examined in the next section.

Music and Song Music/tune, song, lament, drumming and dance are not just separate

verbal categories in Bulgaria; they are distinct behavioral or functional categories as well. Dance, for example, is a communal occasion and possibly a place where bodily movement and physical contact are the means for social interaction. It may be accompanied by either music or song. Lament, as Sachs (1976) points out, is strongly contrasted to music and song because its primary function is a personal, cathartic communication between the living and the dead, whereas song involves communal sharing of emotion among the living. Drumming seems to have been largely a peripheral, professional, musical activity brought into the village by Gypsies, whereas playing was a crucial, amateur or semi-professional activity performed by local villagers.

The distinction between music/tune and song in Bulgaria is perhaps the most interesting for Westerners because they are so thoroughly linked in our own thought. Even in the West, however, some verbal evidence suggests that they may be latently separate categories. Zemp (1978: 63) gives a few French examples, and there is plenty of English anecdotal evidence. A music teacher once told me, for example, "All musicians can sing, but not all singers are musicians." While any attempt to separate song from music in the West would have to be based on fragmentary, humorous, or vestigial references, their separation in Bulgarian thinking is vivid and behaviorally valid. Realizing that they may be separate categories in Bulgarian thought leads naturally to a re-examination of behaviors from a new perspective. In fact, much verbal, physical and 'musical' behavior confirms the reality of this division.

Part of the reason for the division resides in the nature of the sound events themselves: song is word-bearing, while music/tune is not. Song is capable of making direct and unambiguous statements in a way that




















































music cannot. The major functions of song in Bulgaria are: (1) to describe the activity it accompanies, implicitly stating that this is the correct way to do things, (2) to record events that have important implications for the culture, (3) to state publically and communally the values of the society, and (4) to entertain through verbal humor and choice description. With the exception of entertainment, these functions do not reside in instrumental music in Bulgarian culture. Music, on the contrary, has fewer and different functions: primarily personal diversion as when a shepherd plays flute while watching his flock, and public recrea- tion as an accompaniment to eating and dancing. Finally, music in Bul- garian culture carries no specific verbal or even general referential meaning, although in certain contexts it has a signalling function. It brings sen- sual pleasure without ethical, historical, or descriptive implications.

The functional and verbal division between music and song is rein- forced by a behavioral division of labor based on sex. Men are almost exclusively the instrumentalists (svirachi) and women are the main bearers of the song (pesen) tradition. The exceptions are the type that ultimately confirm the rule. Only a handful of female instrumentalists were reported in the literature before the recent advent of state-sponsored schools of folk music. The strangeness of women players is reflected in the unflattering names such as masculine Maria (mushka Maria) that people called them (Katsarova 1952: 44). Similarly, while women sing on every important ritual occasion and to accompany field and house work, men typically sing only in taverns or when celebrating and drinking in someone's home or at a wedding or religious holiday. In these cases they are more commonly called drunks (pianitsi) than singers (pevtsi). While women sing when perfectly sober as a natural and necessary adjunct to ritual and work, men sing mostly under the influence of alcohol. Song is expected of women, induced in men.

The koleda ritual is the other exception to the rule that women are the singers. During koleda, a mid-winter ritual now held on December 24th in Bulgaria, the adolescent boys of the village go from house to house in groups of six to ten wishing each family health, happiness and fertility. That men, rather than women, perform this ritual would seem to be one of those characteristic reversals of form that students of ritual behavior have taught us to expect (Turner 1969). At all other times of the year and in all other contexts the women of the village take primary responsibility for nurturing both symbolically and physically the health and well-being of the village, its people, animals, and crops. But on this one occasion, koleda, the men assume a role more characteristic of the women and sing songs of luck and fertility. (The question of why the reversal occurs during koleda must be left to another study.)

Another reason for believing that music and song are conceptually, verbally, functionally and behaviorally distinct categories is that they rarely co-occur. A male instrumentalist accompanying a female vocalist is an exception rather than the rule in Bulgarian traditional musical life. Instrumentally accompanied song is so taken for granted in the West that we hardly think of it as evidence that instrumental and vocal music are thought of as sister arts, different sides of a single coin. Yet in Bulgaria the absence of instrumentally accompanied songs and the problems Bul-






























garians have with them provide important clues to their thinking. During a wedding procession, for example, a bagpiper will play a dance tune for dancers while singers follow behind the bride and groom singing them a song with a tune and set of pitches unrelated to the bagpiper's. Although playing and singing occur simultaneously, there is no sense in which one accompanies the other. At Sunday and holiday dances in the past, the women began the dancing after church in the village square and created their own accompaniment by singing dance songs. When a bagpiper led the men out of the tavern later in the afternoon, he often took up the tune of the women's song. They then stopped singing immediately and instrumental music continued throughout the rest of the day.

The instrumentalist who accompanies his own singing is the one traditional exception to this rule. The bowed-lute player who sings and plays Krali Marko ballads in the Shop region of Western Bulgaria is ubiquitous, and plucked-lute players and occasionally even bagpipers also accompany their own singing. All of these examples occur primarily, however, in the context of male tavern or home entertainment singing and perhaps fit best into that already exceptional category. Male musicians accompanying female singers remained, until recently, a rare or, in some areas of the country, non-existent occurrence.

In recent years, however, radios, phonographs, and now television have penetrated even the most remote Bulgarian villages, exposing the people to all kinds of popular, classical, and folk music. Given the ubi- quity of instrumentally accompanied song in most of these traditions, the idea that accompanied song is preferable to unaccompanied song has firmly entered the performance practice tradition in most parts of Bulgaria. Today at music festivals, competitions, and radio and television stations, individual singers and choirs are accompanied by a single traditional instrument, by a small ensemble of these or Western instruments, or by the large orchestras of folk instruments at Radio Sofia or in the National Ensemble of Folk Song and Dance.

In the Shop region of Western Bulgaria, however, musical behavior suggests that the idea of accompanied song is still not yet well-established. The main evidence for this is musical behavior. At music festivals and competitions in the Shop region, women who know Krali Marko epic songs are occasionally asked by the organizers to sing them accompanied by gajda or gudulka. In these cases, the singer often sings at a pitch totally unrelated to the instrument's pitch. Elena Stoin (personal communication), a noted Bulgarian ethnomusicologist, explained this as a function of the unfamiliarity of the singer with the instrumentalist. The singer had a comfortable pitch at which she sang her songs and could not adjust to his pitch. Subsequent field work, however, showed that unfamiliarity is not the only problem at work here. These musicians and singers do not completely share the Western concept of accompaniment.

Accompanied song in the Shop region also occurs with similar results on less highly-structured occasions between men and women well known to each other. In one case a brother accompanied his sister on clarinet, in another a husband accompanied his wife on the gajda, and in the third a gajda player accompanied a group of women from his village. In none of these situations was unfamiliarity a problem. In the first two cases the






































couples enjoyed performing in this fashion and indicated that they did it quite often. In both cases, however, the instrument and the voice performed at completely unrelated pitch levels. The bagpiper even had two instruments about a fourth apart, and one would probably have been close to the range of his wife. In neither case, however, did she attempt to sing the same pitches that her husband played. Other villagers responded favorably to recordings of this pair, suggesting that they were attractive performances. This was not out of mere politeness, for they criticized the recording technique, feeling that the gajda was too prominent compared to the singer. In the third case a bagpiper was present at a table (na trapeza) of women and began to play a Krali Marlo tune (svirnja). In the midst of one of his phrases, a woman began to sing a Krali Marko song (pesen) but at an unrelated pitch and not in rhythmic unison with the bagpipe. After she finished her verse of the song, a second women took up the song at yet a new pitch and so it continued, the song passing from woman to woman with each verse. The bagpipe continued to play, but neither the rhythm nor the pitch was synchronized with the singers. The result was not accompanied song in the Western sense, but simultaneous music and song, the former apparently suggesting, reinforcing, and in- spiring the latter.

These three examples suggest that only part of the idea of accompanied song has made its way into Shop musical thought and practice-the part that suggests that song and instrumental tune can be performed simultaneously. The other part of the idea, that rhythmic and pitch unison is a desirable goal, is neither widely recognized nor practiced. Although such performances sound bizarre and humorous to the Western listener and to Bulgarian listeners from other regions, they clearly are appropriate and satisfactory performances in the Shop region, where they reflect concrete but different ideas about the possible relationship between music and song. In fact, they seem rather closely related to the traditional wedding practice, where the bagpipe played for dancers at the same time as singers sang songs for the wedding party. Simultaneity of music and song was possible traditionally and is now practiced occasionally in homes or on stage. But the idea of instrumentally accompanied song, with all of its attendant concepts, has not been adopted fully in this region.

In sum, these verbal, physical, and musical behaviors, taken together, suggest that Bulgarian villagers traditionally conceived of song (pesen) and instrumental music (muzika, svirnya) as quite separate categories. Each category had its distinct functions, its appropriate sex, and was musically immiscible with the other. The ways of thinking and talking about each category may have been distinct as well.

Song The rest of this paper focuses, as promised, on just one category of

Bulgarian 'musical' behavior: the ideas and taxonomies they have in the domain labelled 'song.' The discussion centers on the Shop region as before, an area notable for its unique style of multi-part singing that emphasizes almost continuously sounding simultaneous seconds. Mono- phonic songs also exist, sung in unison or by soloists.





































To classify song types, Shop villagers, like all Bulgarians and most Europeans, use a dual, overlapping system-i based on usage and content. Not surprisingly for an agricultural society, a large number of songs are associated with field work: songs for going to the field, at the sunrise, at mid-morning when the sun gets hot, at noon when the sun casts no shadow, at the afternoon rest, when the afternoon breezes begin to cool, at sunset, and for returning to the village. There are also indoor work songs, wedding songs, dance songs, saints' day songs, and songs for the major calendar rituals: koleda (mid-winter), St. Lazar's Day (spring), and peperuda (summer drought). In addition some songs are sung 'anytime,' 'whenever guests gather together,' or 'at table.' Simultane- ously, Bulgarians describe these songs according to their subject matter: love, history, humor, luck, fertility, and religion.

How Bulgarian villagers talk about and presumably think about the musical dimensions of song is the focus here, based on conversations with about thirty female singers in this region. It is an attempt to present an emic analysis of the songs, one that illustrates the extent to which these singers are capable of verbalizing the details of their singing style.

Two-Voiced Song Bulgarian musicologists, led by Nikolaj Kaufman (1968), follow the

Russian practice in the classification of song textures, shunning the Greek-derived monofonia/polifonia in favor of words based on Slavic roots: ednoglasie/mnogoglasie, 'onevoicedness/twovoicedness.' Since three or more parts are the exception in Bulgaria, the most important distinction is between one-part and two-part textures: ednoglasno peene (one-part singing), dvuglasni pesni (two-part songs), dvuglasna oblast (two-part region, that is, Southwestern Bulgaria). It is ironic, then, that their decision to use Slavic words results in confusion when those words are used in conversations with the singers themselves.

The singers do not typically understand dvuglasna pesen to mean two- part song, as do the Bulgarian musicologists. The singers seem to inter- pret glas in this case to mean quite literally 'voice' and understand dvuglasna pesen to mean that two women with two voices sing the song. There is no implication that two different musical parts are present, but simply that choral and specifically duet singing is occurring rather than solo singing. Thus, from the point of view of the bearers of this tradition, the word constructed by musicologists to mean polyphony actually refers to the timbral contrast between solo and choral singing. Perhaps it is here, in fact, that the borderline between monophony and polyphony should be drawn for this culture.

Observations during a brief study of the mid-winter caroling ritual (koleda) provide an independent confirmation of this view. Men perform koleda songs in antiphonal choral unison-an etic description of their performance style. But the men distinguish between the role or function of each singer in the duet with words. To achieve the precise and effective unison the men seek, one singer stands slightly behind and to the right of the other. The man who stands behind is said to trail or follow (vlachi) and sings relatively quietly and with indistinct pronunciation in-













































to the ear of his partner. This man, who stands in front (po napred), is said to cry out (izvikva) and sings louder and pronounces the words more distinctly than his partner, while taking responsibility for blending as closely as possible with this mate's voice.

The female singers of two-part songs use exactly the same terminology to distinguish the differences between their voices. In their case, however, the differences between the two parts extend beyond loudness, care in pronunciation, and the relative position of the singers to a difference in the pitch content of the two parts. Thus, Bulgarian villagers use identical terminology for songs that are etically distinguishable as polyphonic and monophonic. This suggests that emically, and at one level in the Bul- garian taxonomy of song textures, all choral songs belong to one category. They call the category 'two-voiced songs,' referring to the number of singers, not to the number of different musical lines.

The desire to distinguish vocal function in an etically unison singing tradition such as koleda songs suggests that these singers recognize the impossibility of a true unison in choral performances. When two or more singers attempt to sing the same musical line together, they must produce some simultaneously contrasting sounds (polyphony) through rhythmic, pitch or timbral differences. While Western theorists emphasize intent or what linguists might call competence in choosing to call the style monophonic, the Bulgarian singers seem to emphasize what both musicologists and linguists call performance by employing a terminology that suggests the polyphonic character of any choral, even unison, performance.

The implications of this view for the structure of taxonomies of musical texture are summarized in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Taxonomies of Musical Texture

a) Proposed Western Taxonomy

vocal music

monophonic polyphonic

solo unison octaves parallel oblique contrary motion motion motion

b) Proposed Bulgarian Taxonomy

song

solo 'two-voiced' (choral)

with without 'bellowing' 'bellowing'

(see below)







vocal music




song



(see below)







vocal music




song



(see below)







vocal music




song



(see below)







vocal music




song



(see below)







vocal music




song



(see below)







vocal music




song



(see below)







vocal music




song



(see below)


One of the striking differences between these two taxonomies is the relative emphasis on musical versus social factors. In the proposed Western taxonomy, admittedly that of an educated layman or professional, the primary emphasis is on a musical feature-the number of different musical lines present and their relationship. In the Bulgarian village taxonomy the primary emphasis is social-the number of singers present.

This difference directly reflects the different functions in Bulgarian culture of unison and choral singing. Solo singing either occurs when the individual is by himself, or when the singer is cast in the role of enter- tainer, usually performing in a tavern or for guests at a social gathering. Choral singing, on the other hand, occurs in communal situations where the performer-audience distinction is less important. Not only do more people participate in the actual process of making music, but the setting for group singing usually involves everyone present in other aspects of the situation such as dancing, participating in ritual observances, or waiting their turn to sing while chatting or working. Thus, the social and timbral polyphony of supposedly unison choral singing represents a culturally meaningful extension of the Western category of polyphony. If the categories of monophony and polyphony are to be retained, they must be applied in this slightly different sense to be meaningful in the Bulgarian context.

Songs with 'Bellowing' Having established in the previous section that the phrase, two-voiced

songs, refers to choral performance and not to the number of musical lines, the discussion moves to the next level of discrimination of texture and specifically to choral songs performed with two or more musical lines. The generic term these singers use to label two-part songs is pesni na buchene (songs with bellowing) or pesni na vlachene (songs with trail- ing). No phrase distinguishes choral one-part songs. They belong to a largely unnamed category, although if pressed the singers might call them pesni bez buchene (songs without bellowing).

Within the category of songs with bellowing-in Western terminology, polyphonic songs-the singers are able to describe with some ac- curacy the differences between the two musical lines. Vasil Stoin (1925: 25) first mentioned that Bulgarian singers of two-part songs distinguish verbally between the musical functions of the two voices. Discussing songs from near the town of Razlog in the Pirin region, he pointed out that the higher, melodic voice 'leads' while the accompanying singers 'walk.' Since that first observation, other collectors have assiduously reported how the singers describe the two parts of their songs. Some of the most common words for the behavior of the higher-pitched part-in Western terms, the melody-are izvikva (cries out), trese (shakes, referring to the plethora of ornaments in the style), otiva po napred (goes in front, referring both to leading the singing and to a position slightly in front of the accompanying singers). The singers of the lower-pitched, accompanying part are said to vlachat (trail or follow), buchat (bellow),






































tresat (shake, referring to glottal stops) and otivat po nazad (go behind, referring both to musical function and position).

This ability to distinguish and talk about the different voices in the texture actually facilitated a more accurate musical analysis of some of these songs than had heretofore been achieved by Bulgarian musicologists. In four villages around Sofia, the capitol of Bulgaria and the center of the Shop region, the extraordinary harmonic power of the singing is im- pressive, perhaps resulting from some narrow, especially dissonant, harmonic interval; perhaps the singers from other villages were less stuc- cessful in producing this effect.

Conversation with the singers revealed that this supposition was totally wrong. The cause of the powerful harmonic effects was the presence of a three-part texture, not just two parts as experience and all previous reports of the style had suggested (Ex. 1). According to the singers, the lead singer 'cries out' as usual, but the accompanying singers split into two parts. This was expressed in different ways in each village. In one village, for example, one accompanist was said to 'bellow crookedly' (krivo buchi) while the other was said to 'bellow straight' (pravo buchi). Analysis confirmed that the former sang a two-note part alternating between tonic and subtonic, while the latter sang a drone. The pravo buchi part had never been described in the Bulgarian literature on this tradition. Harmonically this practice produced powerful three-tone clusters that were not used in most other Shop villages.

Other ways of expressing the three-part texture were also effective: "We [three singers] all begin together and then we split apart," and according to the leader of one group, "I listen especially to one of the women who bellows. Without her I could not sing." She was referring to the krivo buchi part, which in this village also functioned to mark phrase en- dings in free rhythmic songs. Thus, the singers of this tradition are conscious of the differences between and character of the individual parts they sing, and they can become true collaborators in any attempt to reach accurate analytical statements about musical style.

Pitch Pitch is distinguished along a continuum labeled fat (debel) and thin

(tunak), where thin corresponds to high-pitched and fat equals low- pitched. The singers used this continuum to compare vocal ranges, as in "she has a lower voice (po-debel glas) than I have," or to complain about the tessitura of a particular performance, as in "we sang that song too high (mnogo tunak) for me."

These singers do not make finer distinctions in pitch such as the nam- ing of scale degrees or different modes. Musical behavior with respect to pitch, however, suggests that the singers have a different conception of pitch from the West's. Perhaps the most striking feature of Bulgarian pitch behavior in the two- and three-part songs is its instability. Al- though Harwood (1976: 526) claims that 'chunking' is a cognitive univer- sal leading to the repetition of a small set of pitches during the performance of a song, Bulgarian singers consistently employ a variety of pit-



















































EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE

J= 92

J I. fr Z' A r **1

J= 92

J I. fr Z' A r **1

J= 92

J I. fr Z' A r **1

J= 92

J I. fr Z' A r **1

J= 92

J I. fr Z' A r **1

J= 92

J I. fr Z' A r **1

J= 92

J I. fr Z' A r **1

J= 92

J I. fr Z' A r **1

< ) I I L -J -- -

L-Bl -i-J

E MO - RI MA.J-KYA Y( - RO MOR RI TAN-KO PLE - LO

17A. .i}n\ ^n7- 17

< ) I I L -J -- -

L-Bl -i-J


17A. .i}n\ ^n7- 17

< ) I I L -J -- -

L-Bl -i-J


17A. .i}n\ ^n7- 17

< ) I I L -J -- -

L-Bl -i-J


17A. .i}n\ ^n7- 17

< ) I I L -J -- -

L-Bl -i-J


17A. .i}n\ ^n7- 17

< ) I I L -J -- -

L-Bl -i-J


17A. .i}n\ ^n7- 17

< ) I I L -J -- -

L-Bl -i-J


17A. .i}n\ ^n7- 17

< ) I I L -J -- -

L-Bl -i-J


17A. .i}n\ ^n7- 17

r tt ^-L J (f1 YA 'T-NO) CGf'T. CGf1'I, ) -S( (1:1, (;: - Nl' ('.-DAN G, - N

& J ZrJ J1-w-^ n 77

1 J =E7 l 1

TO SOM NA PI-RIN ZA VO-DO 0 I

I r, J _ J j. JJ . i .J -I -

X n X n nN ; 7 1 ; 7 1 J J j j i


& J ZrJ J1-w-^ n 77

1 J =E7 l 1


I r, J _ J j. JJ . i .J -I -

X n X n nN ; 7 1 ; 7 1 J J j j i


& J ZrJ J1-w-^ n 77

1 J =E7 l 1


I r, J _ J j. JJ . i .J -I -

X n X n nN ; 7 1 ; 7 1 J J j j i


& J ZrJ J1-w-^ n 77

1 J =E7 l 1


I r, J _ J j. JJ . i .J -I -

X n X n nN ; 7 1 ; 7 1 J J j j i


& J ZrJ J1-w-^ n 77

1 J =E7 l 1


I r, J _ J j. JJ . i .J -I -

X n X n nN ; 7 1 ; 7 1 J J j j i


& J ZrJ J1-w-^ n 77

1 J =E7 l 1


I r, J _ J j. JJ . i .J -I -

X n X n nN ; 7 1 ; 7 1 J J j j i


& J ZrJ J1-w-^ n 77

1 J =E7 l 1


I r, J _ J j. JJ . i .J -I -

X n X n nN ; 7 1 ; 7 1 J J j j i


& J ZrJ J1-w-^ n 77

1 J =E7 l 1


I r, J _ J j. JJ . i .J -I -

X n X n nN ; 7 1 ; 7 1 J J j j i `.. -` `.. -` `.. -` `.. -` `.. -` `.. -` `.. -` `.. -`

ches for apparently the same scale degree. Messner (1976: 222) measured this phenomenon with a sonogram and concluded that one group performed only the subtonic consistently: about 165 cents below the tonic. All other pitches above the tonic varied considerably in pitch.

Apparently the mode of a song, in the Western sense, can be altered without destroying or changing the essence of a song. The clearest and most striking example of this occurs when the two groups singing antiphonally do so in different modes (Ex. 2). This is musical evidence of the relative unimportance of the Western concept of mode in this style. Specifically, distinctions which are meaningful in Western culture between whole steps and half-steps are apparently meaningless in Shop culture. 'Meaningless' here means that pitches transcribed, for example, as bP and b' are used interchangeably without affecting the integrity and identity of the song, its emotional content, or the aesthetic response















C - -- r-p \, _P7\ 1 -

, 7 C - -- r-p \, _P7\ 1 -

, 7 C - -- r-p \, _P7\ 1 -

, 7 C - -- r-p \, _P7\ 1 -

, 7 C - -- r-p \, _P7\ 1 -

, 7 C - -- r-p \, _P7\ 1 -

, 7 C - -- r-p \, _P7\ 1 -

, 7 C - -- r-p \, _P7\ 1 -

, 7


i . . i . . i . . i . . i . . i . . i . . i . .

56 / 1980 YEARBOOK OF THE INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC COUNCIL

of either singers or listeners. These two versons of b, plus all their variants notated with arrows pointing up or down over the note, have

equivalent musical functions or meanings in Shop multi-part songs. Shop singers behave as if there were only scale degrees in these songs: subtonic, tonic, second, third, and fourth degrees of the scale. Their precise pitch in Western terms is meaningless. Although a pitch can be given a certain descriptive, etic precision by calling it b4 , slightly flat, this precision is functionally, emically meaningless in Shop songs.






















J =180 J =180 J =180 J =180 J =180 J =180 J =180 J =180

EXAMPLE 2 EXAMPLE 2 EXAMPLE 2 EXAMPLE 2 EXAMPLE 2 EXAMPLE 2 EXAMPLE 2 EXAMPLE 2

3 r I I 3 r I I 3 r I I 3 r I I 3 r I I 3 r I I 3 r I I 3 r I I

O -N - DO -- DOJN. MI MO - ME DJ - N

l PR - BL- S )) - N[' DOJ-NI MI MO - Mli DOJ - NE O -N - DO -- DOJN. MI MO - ME DJ - N







l PR - BL- S )) - N[' DOJ-NI MI MO - Mli DOJ - NE

N ._ _ _ _ ________ -

_z24P4 j - - _ --

I_ _ (_-N I F DO. - N1. DO,I_-- MI -- MI - - - - - - NI 1

X --?-- ^ ^ __ __ _^^: _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _-

N ._ _ _ _ ________ -

_z24P4 j - - _ --


X --?-- ^ ^ __ __ _^^: _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _-

N ._ _ _ _ ________ -

_z24P4 j - - _ --


X --?-- ^ ^ __ __ _^^: _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _-

N ._ _ _ _ ________ -

_z24P4 j - - _ --


X --?-- ^ ^ __ __ _^^: _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _-

N ._ _ _ _ ________ -

_z24P4 j - - _ --


X --?-- ^ ^ __ __ _^^: _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _-

N ._ _ _ _ ________ -

_z24P4 j - - _ --


X --?-- ^ ^ __ __ _^^: _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _-

N ._ _ _ _ ________ -

_z24P4 j - - _ --


X --?-- ^ ^ __ __ _^^: _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _-

N ._ _ _ _ ________ -

_z24P4 j - - _ --


X --?-- ^ ^ __ __ _^^: _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _-

One way this situation is often expressed is that the people under discussion have a higher tolerance for deviation from pitch norms than we do. But it seems rather that the same kind of norms simply do not exist. The first statement implies a certain carelessness about pitch which is, in fact, not the case. Shop singers manipulate pitch, but according to principles different from the major/minor, whole-step/half-step dicho- tomy of Western music. That the second degree of the scale may be notated variously as bb', b, and b4 in a single strophe is not indicative of lack of standards or of poor performance. Nor is it indicative of a Middle








i. i. i. i. i. i. i. i.


Eastern tonal system with more than twelve sub-divisions of the octave. Rather, pitch is manipulated subtly along a continuum to achieve a particular harmonic effect.

Harmony: Consonance and Dissonance Instead of trying to sing natural seconds as opposed to flat seconds to

create modal unity, Shop singers try to generate harmonic intervals between the two (or three) parts that, in their words, 'ring like a bell' (zvunat kato zvuntsi) (see Katsarova 1954: 209). Seconds, thirds, and fourths can do this, but they are especially effective when sung slightly flat of the Western norm. On shorter tones this kind of manipulation for interval quality is not practical, since the results are fleeting and hardly worthwhile. A b~ might result. On longer tones the pitch will typically slide slightly until the desired "ringing" is achieved, resulting in a notated b , or even bb . Thus the manipulation of pitch to enhance the effect of the harmony causes the apparent variations in notated pitch, not a carelessness born of a greater tolerance for pitch deviation.

While the evidence for this line of reasoning about the meaning of pitch variation rests on musical behavior, verbal behavior suggests that the singers are quite conscious of the harmonic dimension of their 'songs with bellowing.' When they say they want their singing to 'ring like a bell,' they are apparently referring to the clash of overtones and funda- mentals, similar to the sheep or cow or goat bells in a flock or herd. The resulting sound is described as dissonant by those Westerners impressed with the large number of major and minor seconds. But clearly there is no reason to believe that this application of Western ideas across cultural boundaries is appropriate. Katsarova (ibid.: 209), in trying to rectify this view, argues that seconds are consonant in Bulgarian part-singing because they are so ubiquitous, and the singers acknowledge verbally that they seek these 'ringing' intervals.

Carrying the argument one step further, it is likely that the concepts of harmonic consonance and dissonance, so important to Western theorists when discussing polyphonic music, are not present in the minds of these singers and are not useful categories for understanding how these songs work. The distinction between consonance and dissonance is not recognized in the verbalizations of the singers themselves.

Every attempt to elicit responses that would differentiate among the harmonic intervals in this style failed. There were no verbal descriptions of the sounds of different intervals, despite the use of every possible method to focus the singers' attention on particular intervals. Nor could they relate to possible oppositions between different intervals that might be relevant to our concept of consonance and dissonance such as tense/relaxed, harsh/smooth, rings-like-a-bell/doesn't-ring-like-a-bell, pretty/ugly, finished/unfinished. This line of questioning elicited little more than uncomprehending stares. Apparently all the intervals (unisons, seconds, thirds, and fourths) are the same in their aesthetic im- pact. "They are the same." "They all sound fine (hubavo)." "We like them." "They ring like a bell." Messner (1976: 19) reports the word













































smooth.' Even the various thirds and fourths can be made to ring like a bell, although Westerners tend to perceive the seconds as most 'ringing.' On the basis of this inability to distinguish between harmonic intervals verbally and assuming that consonance and dissonance are intertwined, complementary concepts within a single musical system rather than etic categories that can be applied cross-culturally, it seems reasonable to conclude that they do not exist as meaningful, emic categories of thought for the singers in this tradition.

Ornamentation For Westerners Bulgarian folk music and song are strikingly rich in

ornamentation. Rapid trills, turns, mordents, plus dramatic glottal stops with or without a momentary high-pitched 'yodel' add immeasurably to the aesthetic pleasure we feel in hearing Bulgarian music and song. Shop villagers use the word tresene (shaking) to refer to all these manifesta- tions and do not distinguish among the various Western types listed above. Although tresene can be roughly glossed in English as ornamentation, conversations about tresene revealed that it may not have quite the same function as ornamentation in Western music and musical thought.

Two notions seem to be central to the Western concept of ornamentation. One is that it is peripheral and inessential, especially when compared to the main structural importance of the melody or harmony. The other is that its main function is to beautify, to vary, or to bring to life this same stolid melodic outline. In Shop song, however, neither of these notions is inherent in the concept of tresene.

Tresene is mentioned by these singers whenever it is structurally important, not peripheral to the style. Its structural importance varies from region to region and from genre to genre within a region. There are at least four different uses in which tresene is mentioned. First, in areas where ornamentation is etically very rich, the higher-pitched part is said to shake (trese), expressing the crucial, structural role of tresene in generating and maintaining this part (Ex. 3). Second, in villages around the town of Samokov and Ihtiman, southeast of Sofia, the lower part shakes (trese) with rapid glottal stops as a crucial element in generating more harmonic ringing between the voices (Ex. 4). Third, in Shop songs sung during noon rest periods in the fields, the songs conclude with a typical cadential pattern called tresene in which the upper voice descends below the tonic and shakes (trese) before the end of each strophe (Ex. 3). Final- ly, near the town of Pazardzhik, also southeast of Sofia, an ornamental heterophonic style exists that is totally dependent for its ringing effects on the difference between two simultaneous performances of a single melodic line, one with shaking and one without shaking (Ex. 5). Three of these cases involve regional styles in which tresene is crucial, and in one case tresene figures prominently in part of a strophe of a particular genre. In all these cases tresene, while it sounds to Western ears like ornamentation, is not a peripheral, optional, or casual addition; it is structurally and often harmonically integral to the performance of the songs. The singers express this by labelling the appropriate higher or lower line or melodic section as tresene.




































RICE ASPECTS OF BULGARIAN MUSICAL THOUGHT / 59

EXAMPLE 3

J 72

( h ,$s I I _ I x _ k


EXAMPLE 3

J 72

( h ,$s I I _ I x _ k


EXAMPLE 3

J 72

( h ,$s I I _ I x _ k


EXAMPLE 3

J 72

( h ,$s I I _ I x _ k


EXAMPLE 3

J 72

( h ,$s I I _ I x _ k


EXAMPLE 3

J 72

( h ,$s I I _ I x _ k


EXAMPLE 3

J 72

( h ,$s I I _ I x _ k


EXAMPLE 3

J 72

( h ,$s I I _ I x _ k

A IIO- I,AT MO- MA I I PO- LAT MO- MA

>

2 ;

_ _ t_ _ +__ : _ ; j > > < _ t;! __ _

- - - - - - - f - - - - - -- -__ _


>

2 ;

_ _ t_ _ +__ : _ ; j > > < _ t;! __ _

- - - - - - - f - - - - - -- -__ _


>

2 ;

_ _ t_ _ +__ : _ ; j > > < _ t;! __ _

- - - - - - - f - - - - - -- -__ _


>

2 ;

_ _ t_ _ +__ : _ ; j > > < _ t;! __ _

- - - - - - - f - - - - - -- -__ _


>

2 ;

_ _ t_ _ +__ : _ ; j > > < _ t;! __ _

- - - - - - - f - - - - - -- -__ _


>

2 ;

_ _ t_ _ +__ : _ ; j > > < _ t;! __ _

- - - - - - - f - - - - - -- -__ _


>

2 ;

_ _ t_ _ +__ : _ ; j > > < _ t;! __ _

- - - - - - - f - - - - - -- -__ _


>

2 ;

_ _ t_ _ +__ : _ ; j > > < _ t;! __ _

- - - - - - - f - - - - - -- -__ _

I ts . I R -

RU-SI KO - SI I'L - . - LA I

__3-, j j .2 . . -.-. _

E PJ J o M - 4 = 152

EXA PLE NF VRA-TA MIL DE-VEk I

NF V1 VRA-TA Mil DE-VE RO

I ts . I R -


__3-, j j .2 . . -.-. _

E PJ J o M - 4 = 152



I ts . I R -


__3-, j j .2 . . -.-. _

E PJ J o M - 4 = 152



I ts . I R -


__3-, j j .2 . . -.-. _

E PJ J o M - 4 = 152



I ts . I R -


__3-, j j .2 . . -.-. _

E PJ J o M - 4 = 152



I ts . I R -


__3-, j j .2 . . -.-. _

E PJ J o M - 4 = 152



I ts . I R -


__3-, j j .2 . . -.-. _

E PJ J o M - 4 = 152



I ts . I R -


__3-, j j .2 . . -.-. _

E PJ J o M - 4 = 152



f 'ret -1 i-; _r-;i--m -1r-t r- i; 1 f 'ret -1 i-; _r-;i--m -1r-t r- i; 1 f 'ret -1 i-; _r-;i--m -1r-t r- i; 1 f 'ret -1 i-; _r-;i--m -1r-t r- i; 1 f 'ret -1 i-; _r-;i--m -1r-t r- i; 1 f 'ret -1 i-; _r-;i--m -1r-t r- i; 1 f 'ret -1 i-; _r-;i--m -1r-t r- i; 1 f 'ret -1 i-; _r-;i--m -1r-t r- i; 1

a - n --- 1- Wjv .a- r r - a - n --- 1- Wjv .a- r r - a - n --- 1- Wjv .a- r r - a - n --- 1- Wjv .a- r r - a - n --- 1- Wjv .a- r r - a - n --- 1- Wjv .a- r r - a - n --- 1- Wjv .a- r r - a - n --- 1- Wjv .a- r r -

I I I I I I I I

WJ WJ WJ WJ WJ WJ WJ WJ


EXAMPLE 53

= 120

;r I I1-v I I I

I-VA - N

3 3 _

E PRO - VI - D -

.--___ _3_ _ ..n'_ -__ ___

1,( SEV - )D\ CO-LE-

l : ' n - : -4X,_f-=l

Since shaking in the Shop region is more structural than optional, it is not surprising that the second notion so closely associated with the Western concept of ornamentation, that it somehow beautifies or ornaments a melody or performance, is also not commonly spoken about. The richness and clarity of tresene-an etic measure of virtuosity-was rarely, if ever, used in evaluations of singers or of particular performances. Instead of favoring singers with an abundance of clean, crisp ornaments, the Shop women appreciated other qualities such as knowledge of a large repertoire, a loud voice that blended with the other singers, an ability to sing long phrases-including occasionally whole strophes-in a single breath, and an ability to adjust harmonic intervals so they rang like bells.

Tresene, no matter how crude, was always performed by every singer at the structurally important points and thus satisfied the minimum criteria of the style. The virtuosity of the tresene did not seem to affect the listeners' judgment of a singer. As long as a performance worked in terms of phrasing, harmony, loudness, and blend, it could apparently not become more beautiful by the mere addition of more tresene. Tresene, in other words, while often impressively virtuosic to the Westerner, does not necessarily ornament or beautify a performance of a song for these women.

EXAMPLE 53

= 120

;r I I1-v I I I

I-VA - N

3 3 _

E PRO - VI - D -

.--___ _3_ _ ..n'_ -__ ___


l : ' n - : -4X,_f-=l



EXAMPLE 53

= 120

;r I I1-v I I I

I-VA - N

3 3 _

E PRO - VI - D -

.--___ _3_ _ ..n'_ -__ ___


l : ' n - : -4X,_f-=l



EXAMPLE 53

= 120

;r I I1-v I I I

I-VA - N

3 3 _

E PRO - VI - D -

.--___ _3_ _ ..n'_ -__ ___


l : ' n - : -4X,_f-=l



EXAMPLE 53

= 120

;r I I1-v I I I

I-VA - N

3 3 _

E PRO - VI - D -

.--___ _3_ _ ..n'_ -__ ___


l : ' n - : -4X,_f-=l



EXAMPLE 53

= 120

;r I I1-v I I I

I-VA - N

3 3 _

E PRO - VI - D -

.--___ _3_ _ ..n'_ -__ ___


l : ' n - : -4X,_f-=l



EXAMPLE 53

= 120

;r I I1-v I I I

I-VA - N

3 3 _

E PRO - VI - D -

.--___ _3_ _ ..n'_ -__ ___


l : ' n - : -4X,_f-=l



EXAMPLE 53

= 120

;r I I1-v I I I

I-VA - N

3 3 _

E PRO - VI - D -

.--___ _3_ _ ..n'_ -__ ___


l : ' n - : -4X,_f-=l



ASPECTS OF BULGARIAN MUSICAL THOUGHT 61 ASPECTS OF BULGARIAN MUSICAL THOUGHT 61 ASPECTS OF BULGARIAN MUSICAL THOUGHT 61 ASPECTS OF BULGARIAN MUSICAL THOUGHT 61 ASPECTS OF BULGARIAN MUSICAL THOUGHT 61 ASPECTS OF BULGARIAN MUSICAL THOUGHT 61 ASPECTS OF BULGARIAN MUSICAL THOUGHT 61 ASPECTS OF BULGARIAN MUSICAL THOUGHT 61

What does beautify or ornament (ukrasyava) a song according to these singers are the long-held tones or harmonic intervals, especially in the so- called free-rhythmic or pulseless songs. According to Shop singers, the longer a tone is held, the more it beautifies the song-a fascinating reversal of the Western idea of ornamentation, which emphasizes the short tones that grace the melodic line. In the Shop region, on the contrary, the long tones are the ornaments. They not only beautify the songs, but they, rather than harmonic motion, are the source of tension in the songs as well. Tension is generated, according to the singers, by holding any pitch or harmonic interval for a long time, not by the choice of a specific interval. Thus, tension and release are at work in these songs in the tem- poral dimension of duration of pitches and intervals, not in the harmonic dimension of chord or interval manipulation.

Melody Bulgarians use the word glas to mean (1) voice in the physical sense,

(2) the melody of songs, and (3) the genre to which a melody belongs. They do not use it to refer to functions in a polyphonic texture. They do not say, for example, "she sings the melody (glas) while another sings the drone." Rather glas is used to differentiate the genre appropriate for a given melody, as in, a 'wedding melody' (svadbarski glas) or 'epic melody' (Krali Markov glas). (Svirnya would be used for the instrumental version of the tune.) In the Shop region there seem to be relatively few traditional melodies (glasove), compared either to other regions of Bulgaria or to the number of texts. Each genre or category of usage (wedding, harvest, going to the fields, working-bee) has one or a very few melodies to which all of the songs of that genre are set. Ten to twenty wedding songs in a given village are all set to one melody, for example. In one Shop village four hundred songs (pesni) were sung to about 30 tunes (glasove). These tunes are recognized and named by their associated usage.

It is also possible that Shop women have recognized another, rather abstract feature of melody, namely, melodic contour. While recording in the Shop region, women would occasionally try to end a recording ses- sion after only a few songs by saying, "why do you want to record more? All our songs are alike." Obviously, they had come to understand that my interest was primarily in the musical aspects of song and less in the meanings of the texts. So whereas all their songs are clearly different when the texts are compared, they obviously perceived some funda- mental similarity in the melodies. This claim was made quite a few times in the Shop region, but never in the other areas of Bulgaria where multi- part singing occurs. After returning from the field, musical analysis confirmed that there is one sense in which these Shop songs are all alike, and it may have been this property of the songs that the women were referring to.

Etically, ornamental and rhythmic variety clearly separates one melody or genre from another. But ignoring rhythm and ornamentation, the melodic contour of virtually all part-songs in the Shop region is based






































on a single model with two variations: an arc using stepwise motion and an undulating arc also using stepwise motion (cf. Ex. 3). Admittedly arc- shaped melodies and stepwise motion are common throughout the Bul- garian folk song tradition, and the narrow range of Shop songs limits the possibilities. But in the central area of the Shop region around Sofia, only these two possibilities are exploited. Farther away from the center of the region, more types of melodic motion are used until no such easy pattern of similarities in melodic contour can be found.

Thus the women may be correct when they say that all the songs are alike; they may be referring to the almost identical melodic contour of all their songs. Obviously this is a judgment of sameness in song style that might be eschewed by the modern ethnomusicologist, wisely fearing that etic analysis may be ethnocentric and inappropriate. But in this case the analysis of sameness is supported and validated by the verbalizations of the singers themselves, leaving the analyst with the feeling that, for once, his musical analysis need not be ad hoc and culturally irrelevant, but meaningful within a specific context.

Form All of the multi-part songs are strophic, but there is no folk term for

strophe. Its existence as a concept, however, is recognized behaviorally by the singers who always begin and end any incomplete performance at strophic boundaries. Antiphony, which is the norm in this style, also is based on alternation of strophes. The internal structure of strophes is recognized and labelled only by the singers of one village (Kaufman 1968: 26). According to the singers of Gintsi village, they can sing the same song in one of two ways: in two voices (na dva glasa) or in three voices (na tri glasa). This refers neither to the number of singers nor to the number of parts, but to the number of phrases in a strophe. When a song is sung na dva glasa, the melodic structure is AB. When the same song is sung na tri glasa, the first phrase is repeated so that a two-phrase song becomes a three-phase song: AAB. So far, this, plus the above- mentioned sub-strophic section labelled tresene, are the only reported instances of singers in the Shop region verbalizing about sub-strophic aspects of form.

Rhythm Tempo is the only element of musical time discussed explicitly by Bul-

garian singers. They compare performances along a scale from slow (bavno) to fast (burzo). They did not traditionally discuss their songs, tunes, or dances in terms of the number of beats per measure. The asym- metric or aksak meters so famous in the West and analyzed in detail by Singer (1974) and Kremenliev (1952) were first recognized by a Bulgarian school teacher in 1886 (Kaufman 1970: 35). Before his transcriptions in 7/8 and 5/8, transcribers crammed Bulgarian tunes into the nearest commonly available Western meter: 2/4, 3/4, or 6/8. Today village musicians and singers with any connection to the academic music world through the local music teacher, an ensemble conductor, or a child with some formal music training know the time-signatures for at least some of












































the music they play or sing. But even knowing the time-signatures, they often can neither count the number of beats nor clap the accented metrical groupings.

Traditionally the various meters, symmetrical or asymmetrical, of Bulgarian music were identified only by the generic name of the dance (horo) that a given tune (svirnya) or song (pesen) might accompany. These generic dance names, however, did not refer uniquely to meter (the number of pulses per measure) but to a set of rhythmic features including number of pulses, grouping of pulses, accentuation, and tempo. Tunes notated in 7/8 time, for example, are called ruchenitsa when grouped 2+2+3, Makedonska when grouped 3+2+2, and Eleninata when grouped 2+2+1+2. Fast tunes notated in 9/8 (2+2+2+3) are called Dajchovata, whereas slow tunes in 9/8 (2+2+2++3) are called Samokovskata. Tunes in 6/8 (3+3) are called pravata when evenly accented on the two main beats, kuklenskata when the accent falls heavily on the first of the two beats. Bulgarian villagers distinguish and label generically a constellation of rhythmic features that unify a subset of their dance tunes and songs. In this process they give no particular emphasis to meter alone, nor do they count the number of beats in a measure.

Thus, number of pulses (5, 7, 9, 11) is not an emic feature of Bulgarian meters, whereas metrical groups, accentuation, and tempo (and perhaps others) probably are. Unfortunately, so far there has been neither an ade- quate folk taxonomy nor componential analysis (Goodenough 1956) of the features of Bulgarian meter. Whereas Westerners tend to group the versions of the 7-beat meters together, it is more likely that Bulgarians group Dajchovata (9) and Eleninata (7) together based on identical numbers of metrical groups, namely, four: 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 and 2 + 2 + 1 + 2, respectively. It is also possible that the taxonomies and components of meaning of meter differ in song (pesen), tune (svirnya), and dance (horo). Thus, despite the etic precision of the analysis of Bulgarian meter, it has yet to receive a convincing cognitive or emic analysis.

Timbre

Shop singers talk at some length about vocal quality. Voices fall into one of two basic categories: the clean (chist), reedy (piskliv) group or the muddy (muten), buttery (mazhen) group. The common English metaphors for the timbre of the former group would be 'pure,' 'clear,' 'thin,' 'tense;' for the timbre of the latter group 'slightly raspy,' 'somewhat thicker,' 'fairly relaxed.' Generally a woman's voice goes from 'reedy' and 'clean' as a young woman to 'muddy' and 'buttery' as an older woman. But even among a single age group these distinctions app- ly. In many cases where two groups of women sang antiphonally, there was a 'reedy' group and a 'buttery' group. The women said that they formed these groups on the basis of which voices blended or sounded good together (uidishat). Although the women make this bipartite classification of vocal quality and possess a notion of blend, they do not seem to prefer one voice type over the other.




Timbre





Timbre





Timbre





Timbre





Timbre





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Timbre




One vocal quality which is prized, however, is the ability to sing loudly (visoko). These singers contrast voices along a dimension labelled visoko (loud, high)/nisko (soft, low). In other contexts this pair of words means high and low, but when connected with music they have the complementary meaning, familiar to students of Medieval and Renais- sance music, of loud and soft. The lead (po napred) singer often spoke of the value of having women with loud voices accompanying her. They forced her to sing even more loudly in order to be heard above them, and this resulted in a more satisfying performance. Many people fondly reported their memories of hearing singers from so far away that they were completely out of sight. Women from other regions often com- mented on the loudness of Shop singing when comparing singing styles. This ability to sing loudly is valued in the Shop region over any particular tone quality and over the ability to shake (trese) in a virtuosic manner.

Conclusion

Although some aspects of Bulgarian musical thought have been listed and described here, they have not yet been placed in the context of a larger system of thought that would order and explain them. Christopher Marshall (in press) has attempted to do this for another South Slavic group-the Debarcani of Yugoslav Macedonia. Since it is likely that similarities exist between Shop and Debarcan thought, his study can be read profitably with this one. He develops a wide-ranging epistemology for the Debarcani, with musical thought and aesthetics as one particular manifestation. He argues (p. 17 of ms) that "each [musical] piece is seen as a concept, a single entity apprehended by the akil ['mind'] as a total Gestalt. The concept of structure is foreign to this epistemology ..." This approach to a song as a totality helps to explain why sub-strophic form, the size of intervals, the precise character of ornaments, and the number of beats per measure are not analyzed; they cannot be analyzed by a 'mind' that 'grasps' the song as a whole, unbreakable concept. On the other hand qualities that pertain to the whole piece and remain cons- tant throughout are analyzed and discussed: texture, timbre, tempo, melodic contour, tessitura, the overall harmonic goal ('to ring like a bell'), the need for ornamentation, and the names of dances which a song accompanies. Thus, the data in this paper tend to confirm the correctness and generality to other South Slavic cultures of Marshall's Debarcan epistemology.

This discussion opens a tiny window on a vast and fascinating subject-how the Bulgarian people talk and think about music. The 'aspects' of the title is not simply academic verbosity. It truly reflects the tentative and partial nature of the inquiry. The issue of sampling, for example, has not been addressed. Instead of working with a single individual in the manner of Zemp's 1979 study, these verbalizations and behaviors were elicited from and observed among a variety of individuals and synthe- sized into a presentation that almost surely misrepresents the view of any single individual in the culture and that does not adequately treat the


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problems of change and acculturation. Also the process of gradually nar- rowing down the scope of the study excluded many areas of Bulgarian musical life. After distinguishing the separate categories of music, dance, song, drumming, and lament, the discussion focussed solely on song and beyond that on multi-part song in the Shop region.

Much work remains to be done on Bulgarian musical thought in the other genres and regions. Experience suggests that substantial differences exist among the regions not only in musical style, but in verbal behavior, aesthetics, and thought as well. Perhaps this study, along with those by Marshall and Sachs, will stimulate others to extend its range both geo- graphically and conceptually.

NOTES

This paper is based on three periods of research: three months in 1969 supported by an NDEA Title VI grant, fifteen months in 1972-73 supported by IREX and a Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, and nine months in 1978-79 working with Kostadin and Todora Varimezov, artists-in-residence at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto.

1. End-blown fippleless flute, bowed lute, long-necked plucked lute and bagpipe, respectively. The song styles and musical instruments mentioned in this paper can be heard on a number of readily available commercial recordings, for example: Bulgaria. The Columbia Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Vol. 17, KL 5378. Collected and edited by A.L. Lloyd. In the Shadow of the Mountain: Bulgarian Folk Music. Nonesuch H-72038. Collected and produced by Ethel Raim and Martin Koenig.

2. From now on I will use the adjective musical in the broad, Western sense rather than the narrower Bulgarian sense in order to avoid confusing circumlocutions like 'sonic' or 'tonal.'

3. In this example the strophe ends minus the final syllable, which is understood by vir- tue of linguistic redundancy. 'Go-Le-' is the first two syllables of golema (large). The last syllable in this and subsequent strophes is never pronounced.

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Aspects of Bulgarian Musical Thought

Documents

instrumentally

bulgarian

slavic word

western concept

musical lines

contrast directly

bulgarian

primary emphasis