Narodne Pjesme

We've been taking singing lessons from a local folk singing group. At first I was rather unimpressed by the songs-- no ornaments, no real harmonies to speak of (or it could be the singing style of our school group-- our enthusiasm makes every song sound like an ancient funeral dirge). Then I heard them singing a really kick-ass song during one of the breaks and I asked if I could record it. They said it was a really old song (stara pesma) that no one sings anymore, and that the songs they were teaching us are known among Serbian people now (Ajde Jano, Coban Tera Ovcice, and Durdgevdan-- that one from "Time of Gypsies"). I'm getting a copy of their recordings tomorrow. Which is better, because I can never tell when this recorder of mine is going to freak out and refuse to start recording.

Other malfunctioning hardware: my clarinet. It is vrlo los (translates to POS). My clarinet instructor (Ivan) was taking it apart yesterday and the plastic of the end piece actually BROKE off of the cork part-- it looks like a broken wine bottle. Ivan has very kindly found another one that I can borrow. Other than that, the lessons are going well-- he has optomistically scheduled me to play with the local orchestra at the end of the classes (three weeks, oi).

I listened to some of the recordings from Guca and they're really fun, especially with the background crowd chatter.