This instrument, the tambura has come from Turkish Persian roots but what we use now is very much related to Hungary. Back at the beginning of the 20th century a Hungarian instrument maker tried to make a tambura sounding like a gypsy violin - trying to have a similar sound but in a picking style.
Now this tambura is a very famous instrument, widely used in parts of Serbia and even more in the Southern part of Hungary, and along the Danube river where Serbian and Croatian people live in Hungary. Hungarian people are now also starting to use this instrument because it goes well with any kind of music, both Hungarian and Balkan styles. It is especially common where we come from, the town of Szentendre (also along the Danube, about 20km from Budapest) as this town is home to the biggest Serbian community since 300 years ago, so this culture is very much at home there.
We also use this instrument because of our family – our father is also a musician so we grew up with these instruments always around the house and we just had to pick one up, and try and do something. Especially me, as I play the lead tambura or tamburitsa: I was 5 when my father bought me a tambura. It was a master’s instrument so he told me, this is your instrument, but you can’t touch it yet, we will put it on top of the cupboard and you can only touch it if there are musicians around from our ensemble who can show you how to use it. So I was always very interested in this, eyeing up the instrument on the top of the cupboard.
So it’s worked out pretty well: my father told me he didn’t want to push us to become musicians, we could just do whatever we liked. But me and my two brothers we all became musicians so my father knew pretty well how to get us started.
You play in your band with your two brothers, a cousin and a school friend - how does it feel to play in a band with your closest family?
In a way it’s a very good thing, especially musically. We don’t have to have words to know what the other wants to do on stage, or just musically thinking, so it’s a very good way. On the other hand it can be quite hard too. I am the oldest brother, then there is the middle one, my brother Benjamin, and the youngest one, Salamon, so it’s not easy sometimes but anyway it has worked very well. We have a special relationship not just because we are a family but we also spend most of our time together, so it can be really hard for others, the other parts of our families. We are touring a lot, we are playing a lot, so we spend much more time together than we do with our wives or children. So it’s not easy from this perspective, but it is working pretty well on stage, I do think so!
There is more family history, your father is a very well-known musician too.
My father is a member of a famous band called Vujicsics, this name comes from a man called was Tihamér Vujicsics. He was the biggest collector of Southern Slavic music in Hungary. He was of Serbian background, but not just a folk music collector, but also a composer, and a pupil of Zoltan Kodaly. He then went on a trip to collect folk music in Asia and his plane crashed and he died, so my father and his brother and some others decided to take on his name and continue what he started.
My father grew up in Pomáz, a town very close to Szentendre, where also lots of Serbian people live. So they started to play for dances and other community events, started playing in a natural way, and then this became a stage performance because they also studied classical music at the academy. But they decided to do just this, trying to arrange this folk music for stages and concert halls, and this is what we try to continue. For us when we think about our father and his ensemble, they are the biggest masters, or biggest idols for our music.
So your music is primarily dance music. Can you describe the dance that goes with it?
It a style of circle dance called kolo (which means round dance). The Southern Slavic tradition is one of couple dances, but with many people in a big circle, and it has asymmetric rhythms – it looks like it is very easy but it’s not. It looks like – oh they just take a few steps, one after the other – but it’s not like that, it’s not so easy to keep up with the music. We started playing for dances when we were young, when we started the band, we were playing for dance houses, and also the local community events around Szentendre and the surrounding country side.
What does the folk scene in Hungary look like today?
I think the scene is really strong, and today a lot of young people are involved with folk music and dances. Hungary is a special place for folk music - it has a very strong tradition. Sometimes it’s too strong – you have to open the borders a bit and sometimes the folk music borders can be too big sometimes. But it is very good that there are lots of young bands doing the folk thing, not just Hungarian folk music but also Balkan music in general is going strong.
We also teach, myself I teach at the Music Academy, I teach the tamburitsa so I have some students who are really talented and I’m really happy that people are getting involved with it and trying to be professional with it. So it becomes not just music for the dance house, it’s about getting to international stages too and about rethinking this music.
What would you like to leave the UK audience with on this tour?
That’s a hard question…. maybe it’s about the energy of what we can do on stage. I think this music has very very special energy, and live it is a totally different experience. Listening just from a CD or recording is really not anything like the experience it can be live. People keep talking about how our brotherly connection is working on stage, and again it’s a special thing – people like it when they see how much we like what we do. So it’s not like, OK, we are professionals and doing this tour for a living – we love to play, and we love to show to the audience what we feel when we play. Sometimes we joke about this – that we enjoy even more than the audience what we do on stage… it’s funny but true!
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