Are there any musicians in the group?

What did you expect to find Behind the Yellow Door?

I sing in a buncha languages in DC, play guitar, banjo, keyboards, piano, various kinds of ethnic drums and things to blow on. Last couple of years have been giving away musical instruments to sons - sitar to one, gave up my gaida (bagpipe from Macedonia), thinking of popping the bucks to buy new ones.

Bagpipes! I'll never get used to them. Something about the raspiness makes me want to hit someone with a sword. You must be popular with the neighbors ; )

Typical of the Balkans, every link I followed on the gaida referred to

"The set starts off with two of the big names in Bulgarian music, clarinetist Ivo Papazov and singer Yildiz Ibrahimova. But expect the unexpected here. The two present duets for reed and voice alone, in an eerie, post-modern style that is as much Meredith Monk as Balkan celebration. The pair squeak, squawk and shout a freeform music that is sometimes sweet and beautiful, and sometimes way on the outside. "

Hmm, Kaba Gaida is what it is called in Bulgaria but this is a deeper greater sound and actually a more ancient type than the kidn you are talking about. One of my dreams is to go to this festival they have in Prilep, Macedonia where about 3000 or so gaida players (and a few tapan players, the two instruments kind of going together soundwise) are playing something together in , say 11/13 rhythm and a few of the people around are dancing to it.

There's a lot of gaida stuff online. Here is a guy learning:

Encourages people to stop smoking, for sure. Gotta have a certain amount of lung capacity to fill that large goatskin.

Ivo Papasov et all are jazz musicians who, btw, regularly make it to US and Canada, best album is "Wedding Music" As a Montenegrin, you oughta like it.

As for traditional gaida, this is something else entirely, usually played as festivals and celebrations, like at the end of an all night vigil where after the service is ove, you go out and eat and dance:

I guess it's an acquired taste, but I wasn't talking about bagpipe music. Ivo Papasov's Wedding Music is the kind of music that Serbs, Romani and Montenegrins always have for weddings, literally. It features about ten or eleven kinds of brass instruments augmented by some modern ones and some ones we never see in North America. It's hard to explain until you hear it. But with Ivo, it's also jazz. Here is brass music with added dumbek and drums on Saint Nicholas Day in Macedonia:

I'm familiar with this sort of music, and like it quite a bit, especially the dance music. I used to dance "kolo" as a kid. Great fun.

Does that make you a mulatto-tremolo? :)

I think that made me *Yugoslavian*, although that concept would seem to be out of date.

dead out of date. The Montenegrins have had the euro as their official currency for a decade. They voted themselves out of remnant Yugoslavia and independence.

I like the Shmenge Brothers.

I like the Shmenge Brothers.

I like the Shmenge Brothers.

Really good...On the other hand, a local church is kinda known for its Kapusta piroshki with musroom s that one lady makes.....By the time you make it home from church after a few bucks worth of these, you are creating your own fuel. Problem? How to harness that fuel...

Oi. The dietary equivalent of bagpipes! Throw in some popara and kacamak and you've got me running west like a two-legged, balding, Terry Fox... at least until I get to Italy. There I could linger for a lunch or two.

Speaking of sheep, you can't make decent popara with cow cheese . Mamaglia (kachamak) owes itself to AMERICANS.

Everyone owes everything to everyone and everything else. You didn't create your atoms - they were undoubtedly part of people and things that came before. Everything else is meaningless subdivision for the purposes of Ego.