In Search of Tallava . . .

One of the biggest problems with researching Balkan Music as a constructive whole is the language barrier. Granted, there are some common terms carried over by the Ottoman Empire and the common Slavic root language. However, its difficult to know that names of things in different cultures.

Let's take for instance Tallava. Everything I watch about Roma music in Bulgaria using the word Tallava; but i have no idea what it means. I often times see it linked with Albanian music and Albanian Roma music. But honestly, I have no idea what it means. So, in my limited time left here in Bulgaria (until Oct. 10). With Tallava rolling through my mind, I decided to randomly ask people in the town I live in Bulgaria if they had heard of this word.

Examples:

Tallava Tereza KALLE STUDIO-SHARI



Directly "tagged" as Tallava on YouTube


AMZA-ALIOSHA-I SASHKO BIKOV


Music that I'm familiar with Bulgaria as Roma music (with a touch of folk music). It feels familiar but I'm not sure if it can be classified as the same.


The Tallava Interviews:

I met a Roma musician that has played professionally for over 15-20 years in Bulgaria. He plays the saxophone but like most musicians is capable of playing other instruments as well. Throughout his career, he has balanced the need for Bulgarian Folk music at mehanas where he has worked for 15 years and playing at more improvised Roma Weddings. A Mehana is a large dining restaurant with live music and heavy drinking. Possibly a country dance hall would be similar (except the guest sit down around 6-7pm and eat a full meal and then dance/listen into the night. In Serbia, a mehana is called a kafana. Anyway, I asked him about Tallava music and he said:

It's a type of Roma music with a certain type of drum set and usually has synthesizers. It also called Albanian Roma music sometimes.

Recently, I was visiting a Roma family in my town and I happened to have the good fortune of meeting an Albanian friend of the family who was visiting as well. As is common in Roma families in Bulgaria, and most of Europe, the friend of the family was from Albania but had worked in Greece for six years. Now he was visiting Bulgaria. Almost every Roma family has family members working and finally living abroad. Bulgarians also have a lot of family abroad but I would say that the immigration within Europe for unskilled labor is more common for Roma whereas Bulgarians (because they have more money and English) tend to immigrate to America. He spoke no Bulgarian and very broken english but was able to communicate with the Roma family in Greek. I talked with him in a mixture of Bulgaria (translated to Greek) and English. I asked him what Tallava music was and, obviously, he was a little confused as why an American would ask him about Tallava (and mispronounce it). After I finally switched to simple English and the question was translated into Greek, he finally was able to understand me to respond:

Oh, Roma music? Its Roma music. With the . . . *Makes drumming motions and air drums for a second*. Albanian music.

My Bulgarian friends just looked at me for a while and shrugged.

*Shrug*

Do You Know What Tallava means? If you do, please leave a comment or help direct my research in the right direction. Thanks.