Albanian Traditional Music: An Introduction, with Sheet Music and Lyrics for 48 Songs

216 Pages·2011·9.02 MB·English

by  Spiro J. Shetuni

Albanian
Traditional Music
This page intentionally left blank
Albanian
Traditional Music
An Introduction, with Sheet Music
and Lyrics for 48 Songs
S J. S
PIRO HETUNI
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Shetuni, Spiro J.
Albanian traditional music : an introduction, with sheet
music and lyrics for 48 songs / Spiro J. Shetuni.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-6449-4
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
1. Folk music—Albania—History and criticism.
2. Folk songs, Albanian—Albania—History and criticism.
3. Folk songs, Albanian—Albania—Texts.
I. Title.
ML3601.S54 2011 782.42162'91991—dc22 2011012281
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
© 2011Spiro J. Shetuni. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover images: © 2011Shutterstock
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
In loving memory of my father, George S. Shetuni,
and in honor of my mother, Barbara J. Shetuni
Acknowledgments
I would like to extend my gratitude to a number of people for helping me
in writing this book. Firstly, I would like to thank my sons, Brandon and George,
and wife, Lulieta, for helping me refine my English writing, which has improved
but will never be perfect. I would also like to extend my gratitude to my dear
friend and colleague, Ian Price, for his help and willingness in providing musical,
literary, and bibliographic resources. Others I would like to thank are: Dr.
Thomas F. Heck, Dr. Alfred Uçi, Haxhi Dalipi, Dr. Xhafer M. Majkaj, Dr.
Ferid Hudhri, and Dr. Agron Xhagolli. I am appreciative of their mentorship,
guidance, and support through the years, without which the writing of this book
would have been impossible.
vi
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
General Classifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
PART I
ONE—Albania: A Historical, Ethnic, and Demographic Synopsis . . . . 11
TWO—History of Albanian Ethnomusicology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
THREE—Classification in Albanian Traditional Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
FOUR—Gheg Musical Dialect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
FIVE—Polyphonic Traditional Music: Origins and General Features . . 33
SIX—Tosk Musical Dialect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
SEVEN—Lab Musical Dialect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
EIGHT—Urban Musical Dialect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
PART II
Lyrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Gheg Musical Dialect: Gheg Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Tosk Musical Dialect: Tosk Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Lab Musical Dialect: Lab Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Urban Musical Dialect: Urban Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Musical Notations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Typical Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Typical Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
vii
Map 1—Albania: Geographic Location
Introduction
The traditional music, folklore, and other cultural elements vary amongst different
nations, peoples or ethnic groups. At the root of this phenomenon lie original, individual,
and non-repeatable features in content and form. At the same time, the traditional music,
folklore, and culture of one nation, people or ethnic group resemble those of another.
Underlying this phenomenon are common, widespread features in content and form. The
viewpoint that downplays the unique features of traditional music and folklore is just as
erroneous as the viewpoint overstating their uniqueness. It is fair to say that traditional
music in general consists of a blend that is neither entirely unique nor entirely similar from
one culture to another.
Albanian traditional music in its content and form represents a monumental cultural
and artistic heritage. As we attempt to explore it, we realize that its features are fascinating
but also difficult to characterize. It is almost as if Albanian traditional music, in its richness
and depth, also represents a puzzle that can be difficult to decipher. This book can be viewed
as a modest attempt to describe and characterize the traditional music of the Albanians.
Recordings of the songs featured in this book may be downloaded at http://www.sound
cloud. com/albaniantraditionalmusic/.
I began my professional career in Albania in the mid–1970s as an ethnomusicologist.
Studying Albanian traditional music for a living is a rather obscure niche, but from the very
beginning I was passionate about it. In 1992 I arrived in the United States as a Fulbright
scholar. It was not feasible to continue my trade as an Albanian ethnomusicologist, so I
became a music professor and university librarian, a new career I have found to be a won-
derful fit. Although I was working in a different profession, my enthusiasm for Albanian
traditional music continues to this day. I have always felt that writing a book on this subject
in English (as well as in Albanian) would be useful and well suited to someone with my
knowledge of and appreciation for this subject.
Albanian traditional music exists alongside other traditional music cultures found in
the Balkans and around the Mediterranean. An important feature of this region is a large
col lection of nations and ethnic groups in a relatively small area. A natural consequence of
this conglomerate of peoples is a rich collection of brands of traditional music. The Albani-
ans, Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Rumanians, Arumanians, Slovenians, Croatians, Bosnians,
Serbs, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Roma, and so on all have their specific types of tradi-
tional music.
There are two critical factors that should be emphasized when broadly describing
Albanian traditional music. Firstly, as a whole, it contains a collection of unique character-
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