Re: coceks

[Paul M. Gifford <PGIFFORD...>]

"Helen Winkler" <winklerh (at) hotmail(dot)com> wrote:

> This might be a silly question but I'll ask it anyways.  Given that there 
> was so much interplay between klezmer and Rom musicians, I was wondering if 
> there was such a thing as a klezmer cocek in European klezmer repertoire?

Here is a possible, but probably not likely, connection:  _cocek_ is 
the Macedonian name for a Gypsy woman's dance, using the same or 
similar rhythm as the Turkish cifte-telli. In Romania today, the name 
for essentially the same thing is _manea_. Most of the music played 
at Gypsy weddings these days (or at least to the extent that I've 
seen or heard) are recent borrowings from Serbian "newly-composed" 
music or Turkish pop music, etc. This rhythm is also used in a genre 
called _turceasca_ ("Turkish"), which is played as a cimbalom 
showpiece at the end of the wedding reception (sometimes as a kind of 
"contest"). The accompaniment patterns on the cimbalom in the 
_turceasca_ or _manea_ are the same.

This leads to a possible link between the _turceasca_ and the 
_terkish_. Zev Feldman says that the _terkish_ or _terkisher_ uses 
the same rhythm as the Greek _sirto_. The basic rhythm of the 
_turceasca_ is eighth note-quarter note-eighth note-quarter note-
quarter note, while a _sirto_ is dotted quarter note-eighth note-
quarter note-quarter note. But could they be the same? The sirto does 
not seem to have a living counterpart in Romania today. Since there 
are versions in Jewish tradition of the sarba, hora, doina oltului, 
hangu, etc., why not turceasca too?

Paul Gifford

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