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Title: Macedonian Folk Songs for Voice and Tambura Volume 1 by David G. Bilides, Rachel MacFarlane, Kathryn Stately ISBN: 0-9658579-0-5 Publisher: Izvor Music Pub. Date: June, 1997 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $42.00

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: Superb resource for musicians and singers
Comment: An indispensable resource for English-speakers wishing to learn traditional Macedonian songs. Thorough, beautifully edited, respectful of tradition and easy to use (spiral-bound to lie flat on a music stand). Highly recommended and well worth the price.

The book includes voice and tambura charts, lyrics (Macedonian Cyrillic as well as Latin alphabet) and translations for 35 Slavic Macedonian songs, all attributed by performer, village and region. I've played Balkan music for 20 years and have seen the authors perform; they know their craft. The charts in this book are meticulous and easy to read, and do a good job of explaining vocal and instrumental technique, styling and ornamentation in terms that Western musicians will understand. There's also a pronunciation guide, great list of folklore resources, regional map, glossary and list of teachers (almost all in the US). But (curiously) no photo or realistic diagram of a tambura.

The book comes with a cassette of properly licensed original recordings of the songs, an essential tool for anyone learning the material. To American ears, the music may have something of an Appalachian quality, with piercing vocals and zither-like accompaniment. To fans, it's gorgeous.

A Macedonian tambura is a plucked-string, fretted instrument with a small, teardrop-shaped body. Stringing and tuning varies, but is often two courses of doubled strings, AA-DD, melody played on the D strings, A strings droning or silent.