h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*sweeping in*

..and welcome to h2g2!

I'm one of the h2g2 <./>ACEs</.> and also one of the h2g2 Guardian Angels, and we say hi to newcomers and try to be generally helpful!

Feisor has created an entry with useful hints and links that you might find interesting, here: A719840

Folk music? I'm interested in folk music too, but not local (Swedish) as much as Eastern Europe/Balkan - oh, and Flamenco, obviously! I used to play the flute myself, and dance Balkan folk dances, but I've switched to Flamenco Dance for the last couple of years.

You'll find a lot of conversations going on at <./>Askh2g2</.> - just jump right into one, or start one of your own! Have fun!

Hi there, nice to have a friendly welcome, especially being a relative internet virgin. Pleased to see you enjoy national music. Eastern music is very good, assuming you mean Balkan and other eastern european stuff. I am no expert, although I have heard a range of it at folk festivals here in the UK. I would need a major amount of practise to even do the easy stuff, although I do play a couple of Israeli dance tunes. I hope you stay cool this summer,

Ciao, MadFiddler.

Cool? Not much chance of that, I'm afraid - we've had very, very warm and sunny weather - almost a bit too much of the good thing, one might say. I don't especially enjoy +32ºC indoors in my bedroom in the morning, or in my kitchen and living room in the afternoon - despite closed doors, closed windows, closed blinds. Unfortunately it didn't help opening them either... *sweat, sweat* But I believe the UK has had its fair share of warmth too?

So how do you find h2g2 so far? What are your thoughts? What would you be most interested in - reading, writing articles or talking? That does seem to be the 3 major things that people do here!

Oh - and I think that one of the trickiest things when it comes to Balkan music is the rhythms - but that's what attracted me in the first place! 5/8 or 7/8 or 9/8 - I once even learnt a Bulgarian folk dance that was 13/8 - but it was impossible to count the beat, and we wouldn't have been able to learn the dance without the music.

Luckily enough the teacher had brought with him an accordeon player, who could slow down the tempo a bit while we were learning the steps. You could actually hear from the music when it was time to change from one type of step to another - but counting to 13? Nope, impossible!

Hi,Kristina,
What ever you do, do not try 16C/17C English music,such as Fallibroom or some non-standardised Playford. They do have weird time-signatures. Like your Balkan 13/8, it could be 6/2,22/6 etc. It appears there was no standard, which is one of the reasons for setting up common-time. There were also styles of atonal music, melodic music and I've also heard of Pythagorian Music (!). Confuses the life out of me. If you come across unusual time signatures I would love to get more info.
Ciao, Neal.