Romanian gypsy music - where you can go - without losing your money and rucksack

I read if you want to hear original Romanian gypsy music, choose on of the gypsy encampments on the South side of Bucharest and simply ask. I cannot honestly think of worse advice if I tried. I can imagine what would happen - a fresh faced Englishman, carrying all his worldly goods in a fancy new rucksack wanders into a poverty stricken camp and asks in his best English for some music please.

He would be taken down some even grimmer part of the camp, the normal chat would be 'you want Romanian girl? I get you Romanian girl!' - by which time four of these gentlemen have surrounded him and held him tight as they skillfully get busy with their razor sharp knives, checking out each and every pocket, slicing off the straps to his rucksack and vanishing back into the grime whence they came. So looking in a gypsy camp for anything other than good robbery story to text your mates is not the way to go about it.

The simplest way is to switch on Romanian cable TV - there are channels dedicated to 24/7 Romanian music. I still can’t quite imagine who it is who is watching these folks gently wobbling from side to side in a fake pub setting at 3.00am in the morning, I guess Romania is secretly a national of insomniacs. Then again I can’t imagine who would watch these channels full stop – I have never been a fan of traditional Romanian music.

I did explore the idea of having a Romanian gypsy music band at my wedding, though having anyone of the Roma fraternity would have been strongly resisted by everyone else. I stopped when I asked the price of a few pub players and they quoted a price of 2000 euros for the night. Romanians never cease to amaze me, for their lack of business skills. When that is like 6 months wages for many Romanians, to expect them to pay that for a night won’t work, so we stuck with the traditional DJ, who as it happened had a wonderful stock of traditional Romanian music dances. An old friend of mine, went the other way, and decided that he could do away with the DJ and rely entirely on these folks to make the music – their repertoire was limited and he got bored, so I am certain I made the right choice in the end.

There are also a few other places you can hear Gypsy musicians for free. If you hang about the local town hall on the Saturday, every 15 minutes, a man with a battered all accordion will come and play for the passing weddings. Of course you will only ever hear the Romanian equivalent to the British ‘Happy Birthday Song’ – but they use this for pretty much any happy occasion. The second place is on the underground – this is a lot less common. Most of the time, you will just see people on their knees, praying to God, complaining about their lot, and then wandering up and down with their hands out, everyone else, who also have a lot of on their own plates, avoiding their eyes. The only winner, which I would love to do, is if you complain about your lot and then send a sweet looking child down the train to do the begging, then all the purses magically open.

The other places you are certain to hear Romanian gypsy music is from Romanians booming car radios or if you are unlucky enough to have young folk with big speakers living near by, then you can hear it across the valley. We have a Doctor who lives below us and treats all the young women of the area, and so their men folk just sit in the car, and provide the street with their choice of music. Sadly their tastes are not universal and there seems to be precious few Tom Jones fans out there!

If you do go to a traditional Romanian folk concert, to hear some Romanian gypsy music, then you had better brace yourself for a long night. They offer the very best in terms of value of money, and often my wife comes home about 1 or 2 in the morning. I don’t like the music, and so I am spared this, as I can’t appreciate it for more than oh – a few songs, before I curl up and have a snooze – so it is completely wasted on me.

Tell me more about your opinions on Romanian gypsy music! Where have you heard it and are there any particular bands I should be looking out for?

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