The Third Side of the Pick

Đakovo suite

2011-10-06T04:10:00.001+02:00

We (Campanera, ex. Zvonari) survived our prom concert, where we presented the new album. It was a tough fight, because we had only one rehearsal, few ours before the concert, and whole album to prepare. But nevertheless, we managed to deliver the material reasonably well. I won't go in details here, because I'm too tired at the moment. I'll put a more verbose report in a day or two, but for the time being, here is my first ever suite:

Zvonari album is close... Really close

2011-10-04T02:13:00.001+02:00

After period of musical absence, I'm proud to announce that Zvonari album is finally coming out. Long due, mixing the last of the tracks from the album took much of the burden I carried, because at times, it seemed like there is no an end to the recording, mixing and mastering sessions. It was two year period of constant learning, experimenting and gaining experience. Now it's time for me to rest, and gather new ideas and new inspiration. I will post some of the tracks that I creatively partook in as soon as possible, probably until the end of this week.

Here is one of the tracks, just to give you a glimpse into the material. My best attempt to translate the title is "Let the colt be gaudy."

D. Shostakovich - Op. 34 No. 10 - Prelude

2011-07-05T17:52:00.000+02:00

Time has come to dust off one of my earlier recordings. If I recall correctly, this one was recorded two years ago. The choice of the piece comes from my utter fascination with this great composer. As a matter of fact, I'm still determined to record (at least) one of Shostakovich's string quartets on tambura.

Well, here it is:

Sorting algorithms and folklore

2011-04-14T13:04:00.000+02:00

These few links are probably funniest and most imaginative demonstrations of sorting algorithms I've ever seen. Hope you'll enjoy them as much as I did.

Bubble sort with Hungarian folk dance
Insertion sort with Romanian folk dance
Shell sort with Hungarian folk dance
Selection sort with Gypsy folk dance

Japan Crisis

2011-03-18T01:19:00.001+01:00

You probably already know everything about harsh situation evolving in Japan after the 3/11/2011 tsunami and series of earthquakes. I wish to express my empathy and condolences to the Japanese nation, and especially to those individuals suffering direct consequences of nature's vertiginous character.

I also encourage everyone to make a donation. Here are some useful links for organizations operating on international level:

http://www.interaction.org/crisis-list/interaction-members-support-japan-earthquake-response
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2381922,00.asp

"Joyful Christmas" follow-up

2011-01-09T11:10:00.005+01:00

Again, there is a story implicating my old friend Tvrtko. A month or so before Christmas, Tvrtko asked me to write something little for a tambura quintet. His request was much unexpected, but I gladly accepted, and the reason why is that I needed something to lift my creativity rate up. I think it was because of late autumn. I'm not sure if it's only me, but i find that late autumn always adds to the daily mental pressure we need to endure through the day. It's thinking season, when we recapitulate before the big sleep in the winter.

I was totally into it, and I started writing a small composition (3 minutes in duration) in my usual mode: I took (in this instance) three Christmas carols, glued them together with some good mood, and wrapped them altogether with some of the Christmas spirit I caught on the streets of Zagreb. To be honest, I'm not much of a Christmas guy. Yeah, it's all nice: the feeling of some distant, yet better future, the time spent together with friends and family, the intangible warmness in the air (although it's -10°C :) ), the food, of course, etc. But I'd rather crawl into my new home with my wife and watch Curb Your Enthusiasm or Desperate Housewives anytime, instead of sharing the exciting experience of Christmas around.

Well, to make a long story short, this little composition, which I appropriately named "Veseli Božić" (Croatian for "Joyful Christmas"), was performed on December 17th 2010 in the intermission of the Slavonica's Christmas concert. Slavonica is a male vocal group from Đakovo where my pal Tvrtko sings. A few days later I decided to make this little composition into a Christmas eCard, so I took my instruments straight to the studio.

This is the result:

Oh... And with obvious delay, I wish you a fruitful and happy New Year!

Project with Campanera

2010-12-02T01:26:00.004+01:00

I think it would be only fair to write in one of my first posts here about undergoing project with Campanera.

The whole story began when I was approached by my high-school friend a couple of years ago. He invited me to join him in a brand new tambura orchestra, which was still looking for new members. The orchestra was to operate on the relation between Zagreb and major Slavonian cities. The whole thing was organised and led by Marinko Žeravica, who already settled things with our future conductor and leading arranger Marijan Makar.

The orchestra was called Zvonari. The name was overtaken from tambura orchestra originating in Mainz, Germany. It was founded by Croatian catholic mission in Mainz and is still active. After some year or so in rehearsal, we made notifiable performance on Hrvoje Majić Memorial in Vinkovci,

Zvonari - Kod Pere Tumbasa
Zvonari - Hommage a Pere Tumbas
Zvonari - Polke i drmeš
Zvonari - Markuševečki veseli dani - 2. stavak: Po Prigorju
Zvonari - Markuševečki veseli dani - 3. stavak: Ideju mladi
Zvonari - Zvonari Bunjevci
Zvonari - Pjesma rastanka

After that event, Pere Ištvančić, who was playing brač in Zvonari, Marinko Žeravica and I started a tambura album with both transcriptions of folk themes and original songs and compositions. Some of the material was taken from folk tunes that are still performed by folk groups in Slavonia. Arrangements were mostly written by Pere and me for tambura orchestra, varying from 9 to 12 parts.

There are four instrumental tracks on the album, one of which is my first attempt to write in the form of orchestral suite. For tambura orchestra, of course. :) Besides that, what added more to the challenge is that most of the instruments on all tracks were played by me, except for few tracks where Pere recorded tambura bass or tambura cello.

At the moment, there are two more songs that are awaiting full production (recording, mixing and mastering), but most of the material is ready for public display and I sincerely hope to present the material here in the next two months or so.