Sevdah is not ‘Bosnian blues’

The aim of this article is to explain that referring to Sevdah as ‘Bosnian blues’ is simply wrong.

Coining of the phrase ‘Bosnian blues’

Phrase ‘Bosnian blues’ was first coined in the Mira Erdevicki’s documentary ‘Mostar Sevdah Reunion – The Bridge of Bosnian Blues’.

It was also recently re-affirmed in the film ‘Sevdah’ by Marina Andree, which recently won Audience Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

This phrase came to existence because people who do not know much about Sevdah (nor blues) tried to make an ill-judged comparisons which have no grounding in concrete facts.

Comparison of origins

Sevdah is a Bosnian tradition which was developed over some five centuries, while blues originated only in the late 19th century.

Sevdah is therefore much older than blues and it’s heritage is much wider and richer than blues’.

Giving blues music the name of ‘American Sevdah’ could be a more appropriate discourse since there is no way in which Sevdah creators could have ever known about blues four centuries before blues was created.

Sevdah was developed under continuous influences of the Ottoman empire, which ruled Bosnia without major oppression, while blues grew out of slavery and heavy, continuous oppression of blacks by the ‘free American regime’.

Because of its origins, blues continuously talks about themes related to oppression, depression, struggle, longing for long lost mother land of Africa and sadness, while Sevdah regularly depicts only melancholy out of those feelings, but again in a different way to blues.

A distinguished philosopher, ethno-psychologist Vladimir Dvornikovic described in details that peculiar condition caused by Sevdah in his marvelous book ‘Psiha jugoslovenske melanholije’ (Zagreb, 1925)

Sevdah music usually deals with topics such as: love, history of Bosnia, enjoyment of life, religious spirituality and the enormous beauty of Bosnia as the homeland of beautiful, proud and brave Bosnian people with long engraved tradition of living in their motherland.

This fact illustrates that origins of blues and Sevdah diametrically oppose each other.

Sevdah is therefore music of people who are relatively well grounded and belong to a country which has existed for over eleven centuries.

Blues is the music of ‘refugees’, people who have been forcibly displaced and taken away from their natural habitat and no longer ‘belong’ to any country.

Bosnians have rarely seen the need for being depressed, hence Sevdah music celebrates the richness of Bosnian life and culture, and only ‘looks’ for pain and sadness in the love stories between people who used to be together, but no longer are because of the cultural or traditional reasons.

This is not to say that Sevdalinka isn’t a reminiscent song, however reminiscence in Sevdalinka is usually of celebratory type and remembering of good times, so at the heart it is reminiscence of positive nature.

Cultural differences

Arguably one of the biggest differences between Sevdah and blues is that Sevdah evolved out of a society with a rich tradition, mostly celebrating and documenting the good values of that tradition.

Blues covers the topic of enslaved people’s struggle in life, their longing for their home land, longing for freedom of blacks in America and so on.

These subject matters cannot be further from ‘the same’ or even ’similar’.

Sevdah also regularly includes Bosnian traditions and outfits, while there are very few (if any) traditions and outfits associated with blues folklore.

Sevdah music was created and usually performed indoors, amongst a group of well off Bosnian people, while eating and drinking (i.e. ‘aksamluk’) in their houses – blues, however, was conceived in cotton fields by slave cotton pickers.

Notably, members of upper social class (i.e. beys) in Bosnia usually had their own private singers, especially for certain occasions like the holy month of Ramadan, (Hadzijahic, ‘Narodni pjevaci na dvorovima bosanskohercegovacke aristokracije’, 1935).

To really understand any heritage, one should at least try to research it and read about it as much as possible, and then attempt at drawing comparisons, always in the light of cultural, social, and political circumstances!

Lyrical differences

Blues incorporates into its lyrics regular repetitions of the same line, usually four times over in occurrence.

In Sevdalinka, such lyrical structure is never present, as Sevdalinkas are often songs which talk about historic events or narrate a complete love story de-facto giving no affordance to repetition in order to fit everything into one singable song of reasonable length.

Musical differences

Musically speaking, Sevdah and blues are also almost totally different.

Depending on the type of orchestration, blues is performed by a mixed electric band, while Sevdah is usually performed by a solo voice with acoustic accompaniment in the form of a single saz or a single accordion.

This certainly does not exclude other accompaniments, including big orchestras.

Blues scales follow more or less Western form, with presence of a ‘blue note’ which coincidentally is not present in Sevdah scales.

Most Sevdah songs are based on an adaptation of oriental scales and often have richer harmonies than the 12 bar blues, which is usually based on a simple three chord pattern.

Sevdah songs which have a predominantly 3 chord patterns usually do not match the 3 chord patterns of blues songs either, bringing rise to different harmonies altogether.

To say that two types of music are ’similar’ can potentially be a fairer comment, however let’s remember that it is often impossible to compare music of Mozart and Beethoven, let alone two totally separate musical forms, coming from totally different times and totally different geographic locations.

In short, there might be remote similarities between Sevdah and other types of music, but they should never be exaggerated to the point of saying that two types of music are ’similar to’ or ‘like’ each other, as that approach is missing the major aspects of both styles and traditions.

A fellow musician once told me that the similarity of blues and Sevdah can be observed in straight (sometimes referred to as ‘plain’) accompaniments which come in the form of 1/1 measure with no clear structure, lead by the solo voice and are highly spiritual in nature.

Careful listening will show that these 1/1 plain accompaniments are quite different in attenuation with blues backing usually sounding quite swingy giving it a feel of 2/2 pairing, while Sevdah backing of this type sounds more like a moderately fast march (great illustration is Sevdah song Djulzulejha).

Although it is the case that Sevdah and blues are spiritual, let’s not forget that so are the chants of Native Americans, Buddhists, Ghospel choirs and most of the classical music, which was often written for church masses.

Music itself is a spiritual art form, as it is the only art form which directly influences people’s feelings, so spirituality of music is no proof of similarities between musical styles.

Comparing musical styles

When it comes to music, one should hear as much of both styles in order to make any comparisons.

If making comparisons, examples should be given along with explanations, which illustrate similarities between two styles.

These examples of parallels between Sevdah and blues have not be given by anyone, as they essentially do not exist.

It is very unfair, misleading and ill judged to compare Sevdah or blues with anything else in the world.

It simply cannot and should not be done.

Instead of, if interested in Sevdah, one should start listening to it closely, try and understand the lyrics and context and enjoy the unique beauty of this wonderfully rich Bosnian heritage.

Same with blues, one should listen and hear what the people are talking about and try to avoid assumptions and presumption, as one will miss the point of any traditional music one listens to.

Practical and perceived differences

Calling Sevdah music ‘Bosnian blues’ could have various unwanted and misleading connotations.

It firstly implies that these two styles are similar, which I have already proven not to be the case.

It also implies that these styles might be somehow related, which does not do any good to Sevdah nor blues, both of which have their rightful place in history and music world.

Some people have argued that ‘it is impossible to describe Sevdah in one or two words’, so using the phrase ‘Bosnian blues’ comes closest to it, but in fact this only serves to confuse matters and misrepresents Sevdah.

A complex matter can rarely be described in one word, and if we were forced to describe Sevdah in one word, then we should go back to the lose meaning of the word Sevdah, which is ‘love’.

Some have argued that it is easier to ’sell’ Sevdah to younger people who are not aware of Bosnia or anything to do with Sevdah by simply comparing it to blues.

However, my four year experience of performing Sevdah music around London shows to me that young people today know as little about blues as they know about Sevdah, so when describing to them Sevdah music, I am usually starting from ‘ground zero’ anyway, so there is no need to be drawing any parallels, as they simply cannot be drawn.

Published on 28th September 2009

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