Traditional from Serbia

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Sung epic poetry has been an integral part of Serbs and Balkan music for centuries. In Montenegro, these long poems are typically accompanied on a one-string fiddle called the gusle, and concern themselves with subjects such as the life under the Ottoman occupation or various battles such as the Battle of Kosovo against the Turks. In Croatia (Serbian Krajina), the poems are about the life and feeling of the Serbs under Austro-Hungarian rule and oppression. Medieval musical instruments included horns, trumpets, lutes, psalteries, drums and cymbals. Traditional folk instruments include various kinds of bagpipes, flutes, diple,tamburitza and gusle, tapan, lijerica, and zurle, among others. Brass bands are extremely popular, especially in southern and central Serbia. This brass-band tradition is a specifically Serbian one, born of a culture that has spent almost its entire existence either at war or in subjugation. The music began in 1804, when the trumpet first came to Serbia during the Karageorge uprising, in which a Serbian patriot known as Black George led a revolt against the Turkish occupation of 400 years. Though it was a military instrument to wake and gather soldiers and announce battles, the trumpet took on the role of entertainment during downtime, as soldiers used it to transpose popular folk songs. When war ended and they returned to their hometowns, the music entered civilian life. Eventually, Gypsies adopted the tradition, adding more complicated rhythms and melodi

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