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This is a database of ethnic music scores and discographic data, with emphasis on Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The vast bulk of the scores are my transcriptions of commercial recordings, field recordings and musicians I've worked with. Sprinkled in are a few arrangements for bands I've worked with, original compositions, reworking of old material using new techniques and technical exercises. In addition, there are some transcriptions by musicians I trust to get them right, Marcus Moskoff and Mark Levy, which are used here with their permission.
The primary audience for EMDB is musicians, but the large Balkan discography may also be useful to others - singers, dancers, disc jockeys, researchers, music lovers generally. Note that the discographic data comes from various collaborators (see Credits), and does not represent my personal collection (which is rather meagre). The recordings I have transcribed from remain mostly undigitized and I don't distribute the digitized copied I do possess for legal and ethical reasons.
The primary motivation for this database is personal, and so is arranged in a way that is useful to me. For other musicians, my hope is that you would take the scores here with a large grain of salt and study them in association with source recordings or perhaps other people's transcriptions of the same source. The scores are largely unedited, and represent only my understanding of the piece at the time of transcription (up to forty years ago). As noted above, I can't provide these recordings, but the performer names and record numbers provided for most scores will hopefully be a first step toward accessing a copy.
This is a work in progress, and subject to the limitations of my spare time. Various additional limitations are mentioned in the sections below.
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