page_title: Culture of Bulgaria
section_title: Music
hierarchical_section_title: Culture of Bulgaria / Music
caption_attribution_description: Gdulka/Gadulka Bulkarian knee-violin with bow own picture
context_page_description: A number of ancient civilizations, including the Thracians, Ancient Greeks, Scythians, Celts, Ancient Romans, Goths, Slavs, Varangians and the Bulgars have left their mark on the culture, history and heritage of Bulgaria. Due to this great variety of influences, Bulgaria has adopted many unusual traditions, including nodding to mean "no" and shaking head for when you mean "yes". Thracian artifacts include numerous temples, tombs, golden treasures and ancient rites and rituals, while ancient Bulgars have left traces of their heritage in statehood, early architecture, music and dances. Thracian rituals such as the Tryphon Zarezan which is dedicated to Saint Tryphon of Campsada, Kukeri and Martenitza are to this day kept alive in the modern Bulgarian culture.
  The oldest treasure of worked gold in the world, dating back to the 5th millennium BC, comes from the site of the Varna Necropolis.
  Bulgaria functioned as the hub of Slavic Europe during much of the Middle Ages, exerting considerable literary and cultural influence over the Eastern Orthodox Slavic world by means of the Preslav and Ohrid Literary Schools.
context_section_description: Bulgaria has a long-standing musical tradition dating to the early Middle ages. One of the earliest known composers of Medieval Europe, Yoan Kukuzel (ca. 1280-1360), became famous for his work Polieleion of the Bulgarian Woman. About 90 of his works have survived. Kukuzel also reformed the Byzantine musical writing system, and became known as The Angel-voiced for his singing abilities.
  The tradition of church singing in Bulgaria is more than thousand years old. In the Bulgarian Orthodox Church there are two traditions of church singing - Eastern monodic (one-voice) singing and choral (polyphonic). The Eastern monodic singing observes the tradition of Greek and Byzantine music as well as the requirements of the eight-voices polyphonic canon of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The second tradition is the choral church music, established during the nineteenth century, when in Bulgaria enters the influence of Russian polyphonic choral church music. Many Bulgarian composers (Dobri Hristov, Petar Dinev, etc.) create their works in the spirit of Russian polyphony. Today Orthodox music is alive and is performed both during church worship services and at concerts by secular choirs and soloists. Contemporary Bulgarian worldwide recognized choirs and singers in whose repertoire permanently takes place the orthodox music are: Yoan Kukuzel Choir, Plovdiv Boys' Choir 'Stefka Blagoeva', Sofia Boys' Choir, Madrigal Sofia Choir, Sofia Orthodox Choir, Sofia Priest Choir, etc., worldwide famous opera singers Boris Christoff and Nicola Ghiuselev.
  The distinctive sound of Bulgarian folk music comes partly from the asymmetric rhythms, harmony and polyphony, such as the use of close intervals like the major second and the singing of a drone accompaniment underneath the melody, especially common in songs from the Shopi region in Western Bulgaria and the Pirin region.
  Bulgarian folk music is unique in its complex harmonies and highly irregular rhythms. These kinds of rhythms, also called uneven beats or asymmetric measures, were introduced to musicologists only in 1886 when music teacher Anastas Stoyan published Bulgarian folk melodies for the first time. Examples of such beats are , , ,  and , or composite ones like ,  and . Each area of Bulgaria has a characteristic music and dance style. Bulgarian folk music inspired and was used by musicians like Kate Bush and George Harrison.
  Bulgarian vocal style has a unique throat quality, while the singers themselves are renowned for their range. Their voices are low and soprano and the children love singing as well as anything artistic. Diatonic scales predominate but in the Rhodope mountains, for example, pentatonic scales occur, while in Thrace chromatic scales with augmented intervals (similar to the music of Classical Greece). Also, the intonation varies, and is quite different from the modern Western equal temperament. Depending on whether the melody moves up or down, an interval can augment or decrease by a quarter tone.
  Musical instruments (also characteristic of the whole Balkan region) include gaida гайда (bagpipe), kaval кавал (rim-blown flute), zurna or zurla зурна (another woodwind, similar to oboe typical among Roma), tambura тамбура (long-necked lute), gadulka гъдулка (bowed instrument held upright).
  The gaida of Bulgaria is worthy of its own subsection. In Bulgaria the gaida has been a long symbol of the country and its heritage, and is one of the more well-known instruments of the country. The gaida most widely used is the Thracian gaida. There is in the Rhodope mountains the deep-sounding kaba gaida. In the north, common of Dubrudzha and the Vlachs there is the dzhura gaida. Also in the Stranzha region near the border with Turkey there is the Stranzha gaida. The bag itself is made of a goat skin turned inside out, and most often the rims of the different parts of the instrument - chanter and drone pipe - have a piece of horn on it.
  Dances have complex steps matching the rhythms, and are often fast. Most are circle-dances or line dances called horo; but some are done singly or in pairs.
  Alt
caption: Gadulka, a traditional folk instrument.
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