The Roving Musicologist

Travel Post #7: GFF part 2: The Old Man

I’m always trying to find old men playing any kind of instrument.  I don’t like it when people can sing too well, when their voices can handle any note with ease.  Playing traditional music makes some people work…they can’t change the notes around to fit their range.

There were about fifty people onstage when this guy played.  Various people would play together during the set, and sometimes the entire orchestra.  Then there were a few two minute solo songs.  This guy came forward, did his thing, and then rejoined the line, like it was no big deal.

This is probably it for the traditional music posts for awhile…I am currently in Turkey which abounds with interesting street noise.

The lucky charm of an Albanian bus driver.

Travel Post #6: Gjirokaster Folk Festival with Three Women

High in the Mountains

Gjirokaster is a small town in the south of Albania.  All of the old houses are made of stone.  Even the roofs of the houses are made of a black slate that is found on the hillsides.  Because of a lack on investment in the town, there isn’t money to keep them up and there are wrecks of the houses scattered around town.  But many of them are still up and there is an Ottoman castle on the top of the mountain.  That’s where this festival was, overlooking the valley far below.

These singers were about the first thing I heard when I came in, and one of the two best things I recorded over the course of two days there.

While it sounds like it has been looped, it hasn’t.