Scaler is good at Balkan tunes

I was just trying to do a jazzy tune with an old 32Bit sax plugin, when I found that some triplet patterns in Scaler 2 can be useful to compose Balkan-style songs

I think that more triplets can be useful for this style
here is the pattern xml
Balkansax.xml (12.4 KB)

let me know what do you think about

3 Likes

Checked out your Balkan experiment, sounded good. When I saw Balkan music in the headline, I had to read it.

When I was in my early 20’s, I lived in a house that had about 20 bands practicing in it and countless dozens of touring bands staying overnite. The only elder roommate was a guy in his 50’s who was from the folk music side but got along with us who were more progressive in newer styles. There were a number of up and coming speed guitarists who not only studied the rock and jazz greats, but also the likes of Chopin and Beethoven in an effort to improve their chops. He would invite them for a session of smoking and drinking and listening to his vintage Boris Karlov albums from the 20-50’s that he had and blow their minds. The speed, accuracy, clarity and scale craziness that Karlov played was an inspiration to every one of them. Who would have thought that an accordion player playing Balkan music was such a progressive musician?

When I meet similar guitarists today, I find myself doing the same as he did, recommending Karlov as a must listen and be inspired by. For the saturated field of speed players, Karlov brings a very uniquely different spectrum of eargasm. I never thought I would even like Balkan music, but it is strange how a good friend and an open mind brings one to a better place in music.

To this day, I listen to many different styles of cultural music for inspiration and to break the monotony of what the music industry tries to feed us. I frequently use virtual instruments from those cultures in my music. It is many times one would hear an instrument made hundreds of years ago in a hip hop, r & b, rock, or jazz song that I have composed. They might not know it by ear, but it is there mingling with the other sounds of the song.

As a modern example for those musicians who don’t see the value, two very successful teams of composers who have dozens of number 1 songs and countless Grammy’s, are Timbaland and the Neptunes. Both use tons of instruments and cultural inspiration from many styles of ethnic music. The last 5 years of Pop music and R & B has been flooded with inspiration and direct layouts from Latin, Caribbean, AfroCuban, Haitian, and various African cultures.

I see you are carrying an open mind to music variety also. Awesome.

2 Likes

Hi Paris

I’m happy you liked my simple sample
:smiley:

I love Balkan music, and the World music in general, notably their use of brass sections and wild rhythms

if you look my music library that I dropped here, you understand how many different styles I heard
live when possible

for example Acquaragia Drom and Fanfare Ciocarlia

I love the African pop as well, notably Congolese and Nigerian one, but I never tried to compose that way… so far
:smiley:

if I succeed I’ll certainly report a sample here
cheers

I’ll do a look at this guy for sure

I love him!

even why he played the accordion, the instruments played by my mother, uncle, and aunt
:smiley:

BTW, the accordion was the typical instrument played in mountain and countryside village festivals when my relatives were young

and I remember I performed Balkan dances when I was a fan of traditional European dances

what a booombastic term!
I looove it

This is more like polka than Balkan style. And a good polka. Balkan’s music is dull, this song is not.

1 Like

I am so ignorant at music and proper spelling of people’s names, that I immediately thought of this guy here. :rofl:

hahahahaha, in the same style…
halloween07

try this or this and maybe you’ll change your mind
:grinning:

You’re right. This is Gipsy music.

No. No it’s not. My brother plays in a Balkan centric band and they are NOT dull. Vibrant and exciting are the works I would use. Hardly dull.

Not Balkan like I’ve listened to. Polka maybe but not Balkan.

Can we call it polkan?
:rofl:

Scaler is not yet there for world music. In the Balkan and Gypsy music, they play fast chromatic and non-diatonic chord runs. Think of jazz played at speeds above 150 BPM.

1 Like

Vibrant and exciting are the works I would use. Hardly dull.

Well, I lived for many years there, a long time ago, in a city not far from Slovenia (polka) and Bosnia (“sevdah”), The latter was a dull, looong, slooow, lovesick. Vibrant Gipsy music is quite rare over there, probably more in southern Serbia than in other parts of what was called Yugoslavia and, of course, in Hungary (not really Balkans) and Romania.

1 Like

To add a bit of complexity :grinning:, here is the Balkan music wiki
Fanfare Ciocărlia is included…

Wait tomorrow that I’ll post a Scaler folk song :grinning:

in the meanwhile, listen this, this, and this

Ok, a rock song from the '70’s, based on the Macedonian rhythm, Croatian band called Time, title (Makedonija - YouTube).
Also,band Leb i sol, song Aber dojde donke. Special cases in former Yugoslavia’s rock. Oh, yeah, Korni grupa band with their prog rock music, song Put za istok. But this is rock, not folk.

For world music, we need dyads and octaves within them to be generated faster than the workarounds. World music relies heavily on pitch-bend techniques on keyboards. My goal with Scaler for World music is to write track sheets that can be changed fast when need be. Imagine a vocalist in trouble to hit a note.