Let’s end our week of Bulgarian music by chilling in park in the capital city of Sofia with a happy local band. The guys in this video aren’t the fanciest musicians, but they sure do catch the Sofia groove. Be cheerful, my friends! Hope you had a great time this week with Bulgarian sounds.

Yesterday we enjoyed a fantastic version of the Bulgarian traditional song “Dilmano Dilbero.” When we sing the song in class we tame the rhythms a bit, but we still do pretty well. “Dilmano Dilbero” is a song that is ostensibly about the pepper harvest. It’s important both in Bulgarian weddings and as a labor/work song, tying together the importance of both life-cycle events like marriages and the regular coming of the harvests. Plus, we get to chant about paprika.

Bulgarian music is known for its “additive” rhythms, phrases that build upon small groups of beats to create a dynamic whole. In one traditional version of the song we’re hearing in this video, “Dilmano Dilbero,” the first line is in the time signature 8/16,  the “kajui mi kak se sadi” line is 11/18, then the count goes to 5/16, then back to 8/16… Can you count along with these singers?

Based in my beloved West Philadelphia neighborhood, the Philadelphia Women’s Slavic Ensemble does good work honoring Slavic vocal traditions, especially those from Bulgaria. Here they’re singing “Svatba,” which means “Wedding.” The English translation of the song offered by LyricsTranslate.com is riveting: “The mountain is my mother and my father was the violent wind, The dark sea is my brother and my sisters are the wild grasses, That’s who I am – I am telling you myself….I’ll hold a weighty wedding and I’ll bring 300 musicians, The sun will wed us and it will give you a star for a ring, I’ll cover you with gifts so you wouldn’t grieve over your mother and your father wouldn’t ask in anger Who has taken his greatest treasure from his house. Who lies to you and with what he lures you? Join in the dance with me and never let go of my hand.”

In 1980 an album called “Le Mystères de Voixs Bulgares,” a compilation of performances by several Bulgarian vocal groups, introduced the world to truly unique Bulgarian (so-called) “open-throated” singing. These astounding vocalists inspired generations of Americans to pursue the art of Bulgarian singing.  In this video we meet Bulgarian music as much of the United States did in the early ’80s — with a mesmerizing Bulgarian vocal performance on the Tonight Show.

This week in our online class we visit Bulgaria, a Southeastern European nation that has a millennium-long, cyclical history of ruling Southeastern Europe by force, eventually succumbing to stronger empires, struggling against those powers to achieve independence, then building up to start the whole series of events again. Today Bulgaria isn’t exactly rallying its military to conquer the continent, but in one way it does rule the world — Bulgarian rhythms and “open-throat” vocals are unlike any other music, anywhere. We’ll meet some of Bulgaria’s best over the course of the week.