This is how my memory works
Nov. 27th, 2021 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soniaAttended online Texa-Kolo Balkan dance and music festival this weekend. Michael Ginsburg taught the dance Kotlenkso Horo from Bulgaria, and started out by singing the melody to us without words.
It sounded familiar, and after a bit words floated up, "Tumen Se, Tumen Se." And a context, the fire circle where singing classes are taught at the Balkanalia festival. And a teacher, Radostina Kaneva. Whom I remember learning from one of the first years I attended, so somewhere around 2006. And a vague image of sheet music.
So I could search my iTunes library and find the tune, confirm from the first few notes that it was the same recording Michael was using, and post the name of it in chat.
I didn't have the sheet music scanned in, so first I looked through the folders where I have sheet music sorted by country, and then through the folders from Balkanalia where I haven't pulled out and scanned all the music, and then finally the old binder for my singing group, even though we never sang it. Came up empty. Then it floated up that there was an earlier binder. I found that, looked through alphabetically, and there was the sheet music, matching my vague image, labeled 2007.
I triumphantly scanned and shared the music with the person who had expressed interest at the workshop. Here's the song, Tumen Se Oblak Zadade. The dance they're doing looks like a performance version of what Michael Ginsburg taught.
I sometimes wonder if people say indulgently about my singing, "Well, she works so hard..." (but she'll never be any good). But I have *something*, to be able to do that with a song that I haven't heard or worked on since 2007. Realistically, I think I have that common artist problem of my ear being better than my skill level.
Also about my associative memory, I've posted before about my minor superpower of knowing what folk dance someone is requesting from minimal clues. Last night at my little zoom dance group, someone dropped in whom I've danced with a lot in the past, but not in the last few years. She said, "What's that Dwight-dance that starts with a lift, that's happy." (Dwight leads a lot of great dances.) It helped that she physically showed a big starting lift. I paused to let that floating-up process happen, and got it in one try. Strumička Petorka.
The dancer in that video is Bora Gajički, the man who introduced the dance. As a side note, I have dance shoes just like his, because he made and sold opanci (pointed toe leather shoes) out of his home in LA for many years. In the dance group when I was a kid, one of the best dancers had opanci. I had always wanted some, and jumped at the chance to get a pair at my first Balkanalia. A rare experience, to want something for 30 years, and like it just as much as I thought I would when I get it. Over time, I danced right through the leather bottoms. A dance friend John Sharp glued thicker leather to the bottoms for me, and I'm still dancing in them.
It sounded familiar, and after a bit words floated up, "Tumen Se, Tumen Se." And a context, the fire circle where singing classes are taught at the Balkanalia festival. And a teacher, Radostina Kaneva. Whom I remember learning from one of the first years I attended, so somewhere around 2006. And a vague image of sheet music.
So I could search my iTunes library and find the tune, confirm from the first few notes that it was the same recording Michael was using, and post the name of it in chat.
I didn't have the sheet music scanned in, so first I looked through the folders where I have sheet music sorted by country, and then through the folders from Balkanalia where I haven't pulled out and scanned all the music, and then finally the old binder for my singing group, even though we never sang it. Came up empty. Then it floated up that there was an earlier binder. I found that, looked through alphabetically, and there was the sheet music, matching my vague image, labeled 2007.
I triumphantly scanned and shared the music with the person who had expressed interest at the workshop. Here's the song, Tumen Se Oblak Zadade. The dance they're doing looks like a performance version of what Michael Ginsburg taught.
I sometimes wonder if people say indulgently about my singing, "Well, she works so hard..." (but she'll never be any good). But I have *something*, to be able to do that with a song that I haven't heard or worked on since 2007. Realistically, I think I have that common artist problem of my ear being better than my skill level.
Also about my associative memory, I've posted before about my minor superpower of knowing what folk dance someone is requesting from minimal clues. Last night at my little zoom dance group, someone dropped in whom I've danced with a lot in the past, but not in the last few years. She said, "What's that Dwight-dance that starts with a lift, that's happy." (Dwight leads a lot of great dances.) It helped that she physically showed a big starting lift. I paused to let that floating-up process happen, and got it in one try. Strumička Petorka.
The dancer in that video is Bora Gajički, the man who introduced the dance. As a side note, I have dance shoes just like his, because he made and sold opanci (pointed toe leather shoes) out of his home in LA for many years. In the dance group when I was a kid, one of the best dancers had opanci. I had always wanted some, and jumped at the chance to get a pair at my first Balkanalia. A rare experience, to want something for 30 years, and like it just as much as I thought I would when I get it. Over time, I danced right through the leather bottoms. A dance friend John Sharp glued thicker leather to the bottoms for me, and I'm still dancing in them.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-27 11:04 pm (UTC)There are many ways to interactr with music. My sweetie WD who cannot sing is really knowledgeable about popular music over the last century, and has been a DJ. I find that really impressive.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-28 12:00 am (UTC)I have a complicated pile of ideas about "cannot" sing. I think it's kind of like running. Very few people can be Olympic athletes. Most people can work up to jogging a mile. Some people can't, due to injury, illness, or other disability. I wish our culture interacted with singing more casually, so I would be less likely to hold myself to a performance standard I'm not going to meet, partly due to not starting to learn music as a child.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-28 04:52 am (UTC)You have an excellent point -- one of the good things I did get out of my church upbringing was singing, and this is alaso why I was a filker for awhile.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-28 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-27 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-28 12:01 am (UTC)