This is a common occurrence in the Caucasus: on a quiet Saturday afternoon, cars bedecked with flowers and ribbons suddenly wheel into an apartment courtyard. Well-dressed people pile out. Music erupts from accordions, drums, and clappers, echoing off of cement bloc buildings. People spontaneously break into dance, money and candy fly through the air, and sleepy neighbors look on with smiles. Soon the bride appears, having been fetched from her home, to be taken to the wedding, the celebration, and her new life as a wife. Once she gets in the nicest car beside her betrothed, the cars blare their horns in cacophonous celebration and tear out onto the main road.
Here is a snapshot of just one of these rambunctious moments.
MUSICAL ANALYSIS:
Organology: zurna. A Middle-Eastern double-reed conical bore aerophone with finger holes; a type of shawm (Hornbostel-Sachs classification no. 422.112) [1]
Melody: Melismatic
Mode: Phrygian
Rhythmic features: Hemiola
[1] Rice, Timothy, James Porter, and Chris Goertzen, eds. "[Z]." Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Volume 8 - Europe. Routledge (Publisher), 2000. 1094-095.