Music

The music styles in Serbia  have been various and rich in many influences.

- The traditional Serbian music has been the polyphonic song coming out of the rural patriarchal tradition. The village inhabitants could be divided into two groups: men and women, and they have been intonating the songs by very important variations of sounds. These songs have been accompanied by wind instruments such as the flute and the clarinet. Since the I World War the ensembles formed of these instruments, of the drums and accordion constituted very popular orchestras. Two present singers, Lepa Lukic and Bilja Krstic, in a more modern style. Boki Milosevic remained still the best clarinettist. But above all don’t go out without going to one of many “kafane” where, on occasion of a marriage or of going to the military service, the groups of friends are singing out of the heart, holding one another by shoulders, the Slav songs known to everybody, such as “Hej Sloveni” or the very good “Hej Krcmarice”.

- The Gipsy (or “rom”) music is a pure wonder. You remember those merry fellows making the sonic foundation of “Underground” and “The Gipsy Times”, but very important is what has been called “trubaci” in Serbia. The orchestras with the drums formed by Gipsies, their village drums going from cabaret to cabaret, and at the slightest request if yours are able to improvise, in an explosion of sounds and of songs any song from the national repertoire. The best has been , without any doubt “Mesecina”. The safe values remained the orchestras of Fejat Sejdic and Bakija Bakic, but little young Boban Markovic has not been badly distinguished.

- More classical, but still Gipsy , the stringed instrument groups inspired by Russian Gypsies would often accompany your meals in the great hotels. The famous groups of “Odjila” of the new ones “Loulou Djine” have been interpreting the classical Gipsy repertoire such as “Pilem Pilem” and “Kiko tuke” would easily satisfy you. But all your senses would be mobilized listening to the e
Excellent Gipsy “hymn” “Ederlezi” and taken to the heart.

- The cinema music has been also a local specialty. Everybody knew Goran Bregovic, the imaginative composer of the Pictures by Kusturica from “The Gipsy Times” to “Cat white-Cat Black” Bregovic had always based his music on the trubaci, on the choruses and the traditional instruments.