DavidJE
Oud Junkie
Posts: 265
Registered: 7-14-2013
Location: Vienna, Austria
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Bosnian Sevdah Music
My wife and I were on vacation in Bosnia for a couple of weeks, and I discovered traditional Bosnian Sevdah music/songs there. The music dates back
to the time when Bosnia was ruled by the Ottomans, and tends to use scales from the makam system, although these days it appears that the micro-tonal
nature has been lost.
We visited a museum in Sarajevo called the Sevdah Art House, a "cafe" with a fairly large museum inside the building. (https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g294450-d2296632-Reviews-Sevdah_Art_House-Sarajevo_Sarajevo_Canton.html) In the museum store I
found a book with notation and lyrics (in Bosnian) for 430 Sevdah songs, which I'm excited to have!
The Sevdah songs are primarily or perhaps only love songs. I had our hotel staff translate some of them for me, and the lyrics are often very poetic
and beautiful. I've purchased a number of albums on iTunes with both traditional and modern Sevdah performers. The older albums tend to be a
combination of saz and vocal, and the newer albums have a variety of different instruments + vocals, but usually not saz. Muhamed Mesanovic Hamic and
Hasim Muharemovic are two great older performers, Himzo Polovina and Zaim Imamovic seem to be in the middle in terms of what is currently available,
and groups like Divanhana and Mostar Sevdah Reunion are newer. You can find them all on YouTube or iTunes. Divanhana and Mostar Sevdah Reunion add a
good bit of jazz improvisation to the music.
I had never heard of Sevdah music before. It seems to me to be pretty unique in that it isn't exactly Ottoman/Turkish and doesn't conform to the
traditional Turkish forms, but it did evolve from that tradition. I'm pretty excited to have discovered it, and looking forward to exploring more of
it. I had my oud on our trip, and learned a few of the songs in Sarajevo. I played them for the hotel staff and they loved it, telling me to promise
them I'd make a video and upload it for them to see. So if you'd like to see one of the songs played on the oud, here's a link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8WWBEKuOVw
There is a good bit more on Wikipedia about Sevdah songs or Sevdalinka: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevdalinka
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yavaran
Oud Addict
Posts: 41
Registered: 7-23-2014
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Awesome! I knew about sevdalinka but didnt know the older artists used saz, etc.
Also, you traveled with your oud? Respect on taking that risk 
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DavidJE
Oud Junkie
Posts: 265
Registered: 7-14-2013
Location: Vienna, Austria
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Well, I'm in Vienna so I drove to Bosnia, which made bringing my oud easy. But I have been flying with my oud for the last couple of years with no
problems. It has fit in the overhead (in the hard case) all but once, and on that one occasion the flight attendants put it in the on-board closet
for me. I just hate not to have an oud with me, and I can't see traveling for more than a couple of days without bringing one.
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Jack_Campin
Oud Junkie
Posts: 333
Registered: 5-6-2007
Location: Scotland
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At a guess, your book is the same one I have - Muhamed Zero, "Sevdah Bosnjaka", Sarajevo 1995. Nicely done, but you really do need the CDs to make
sense of the notation.
I really liked Amira Medunjanin's first solo allbum, "Rosa", from 2005 - she's apparently gone in a more Western direction since and I'm not sure I'd
like that as much.
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