Paris: Cité de la Musique. 80 pages and audio CD.

This book is the first of a series published by the Cité de la Musique, and supervised by Luciana Penna Diaw. It aims to provide pedagogic materials in an ethnomusicological spirit, primarily for music teachers.

After a general introduction on rromani (Gypsy) history and culture, this book presents eight samples of the repertoire of an amateur Rroma singer from a village near Bucharest. The songs are translated and analyzed, and pedagogic pathways are described. An audio CD presents the referenced songs and their variants, performed by various Gypsy musicians. The overall intent is to illustrate notions of freedom, wit and fantasy, which are important in many Gypsy communities in Romania. The challenge of the book is to bring these notions in range of French music teachers, to help them build meaningful sessions of musical practice with their pupils.

During my work at Cité de la Musique (2007-08), I had the opportunity to reflect on the design of the overall series. For a discussion of its concept, see this contribution. 

Here are some sample pages related to the song Mamuliga brânzali (which would translate as "Polenta with cheese") : 

Here is the reference recording for this song  :

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The book can be ordered here.

The images and audio recording presented here are copyrighted by Cité de la Musique. Do not use these samples without explicit permission of the editor.