I'm really curious, care to let us hear something?
I actually thought that tribes/folk/more traditional music was actually MORE based on rhythm (heavy use of drums etc)

 

Until you provide an actual recording*, my "history of music" books are 2500 Km away so I can't quote, in my opinion there is NO WAY traditional music being without rhythm. Simple rhythms were the first invented by human kind. What is popular now days is largely based on last thousands of years of music making. If atonal and arrhythmical compositions were popular at a certain time in history (therefore "natural") they would be kept over the time.

Be aware: a song can have multiple tempo values and multiple time signatures and rubato (to make it more confusing) - but that doesn't mean that the song is "tempoless" or is disregarding the music composition guides. Some songs change scales on certain segments to be more interesting, some songs can change other "parameters".

 

Well, you can search for recordings of authentic Balkan music, but I doubt you can find good ones in this style.
I know that there are records that became semi-popular abroad during 80s (instrumental arrangement for choirs based on folk tunes: check Le mystere des voiux bulgares compilations) and Ivo Papazov's wedding band dance fusion music, but they don't represent the authentic layers of folk music and the style I'm talking about.
Communism and later capitalism managed to destroy the musical heritage of my country - nowadays traditional music is something "dirty" here. -

 

At this point I can't tell if you're trolling or just can't get a time signature without "beats" (even though on the opposite side I know DJ's that can't beat match a breakbeat loop over a 4 on the floor loop - and I witnessed famous producers unable to beat match two tunes together)

 

I can't tell, if you are trolling, but did you even read what I wrote above?
I told you that I don't know any recorded examples, but you post these arrangements by Filip Koutev and Petar Liondev for the national choir... This music has nothing in common with what I'm talking about and is not really authentic folklore (Koutev's song uses motives and words of older song, but big part of the arrangement is his own original invention ), some of the other songs in these compilations have more in common with the sound of Wagner and the early European modernism than traditional music - like harmonizing the "Makam Hijaz" middle eastern scale with minor second clusters and similar devices that can't be found in the real folk music (but you can find major seconds in some traditional folk tunes).

 

Repetition Legitimizes:

 

A beautiful experimentation with instruments (outcome is outstanding):

 

Well nothing really new here. Sorta progressive structure... I don't see the point, there is music using verse chorus and there is this kind of structure which is just progressive and far from original, so? (Good tracks though, digging the thread)

 

 

Last edited: Jul 10, 2017