Quote from: milos on Today at 07:57:45 AMOh, I didn't know she comes from the Far East. Yes, when you have an empire like Russia, many lands are recently conquered, and so those regions don't have long cultural tradition. I also really don't know if the Communist Soviet regime suppressed the traditional Russian culture including the music.

I have noticed one funny detail, when you talk about traditional music, you have in mind traditional instruments in the first place, and then the music is modern from the video games. I am not into that video gaming stuff to be honest, and I don't know if that video games music is traditional or not.

Here in Serbia, and generally in the Balkans, the situation is quite the opposite, we play traditional music using modern instruments. There are some ancient instruments, like "gusle" (not the same as Russian "gusli"), an ancient instrument with just one string, then wooden pipe called "frula", and the Balkan type of bagpipes called "gajde". But they are almost extinct, nowadays the instuments mostly being used are violin, double bass, clarinet, trumpet, accordion.

I would give some examples of these ancient music instruments.

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That guy gets a lot of music out of the single string gusle.  The frula is said to be southern Slav and the Svirel eastern Slav.  I learned of different bag pipes only a few years ago. I have seen bagpipe and drum bands in Syria.

I am not into gaming and only recently learned of such music. It is one platform for composers to reach wide audiences. Some games like Witcher 3 have better music than others. Witcher 3 music was from a Polish folk group Percival. Some  symphony orchestras cover such music. Some musicians cover video game music.

I don't believe that the communists suppressed music. Initially they promoted minorities to show how much better they were than the Russian empire. The orthodox church and Russian empire did suppress music.

Grok:

QuoteThe domra was effectively banned in Russia during the 17th century as part of a broader suppression of folk music and musicians. In 1648, Tsar Alexis of Russia issued a decree that prohibited the activities of skomorokhs (traveling minstrels who played instruments like the domra), labeling their performances as "demonic" and pagan due to their association with pre-Christian traditions and perceived moral corruption. This edict, reinforced by the Russian Orthodox Church and earlier church rulings like the Stoglav (1551), ordered the destruction of folk instruments, including the domra, and imposed harsh penalties: corporal punishment for the first two offenses and exile for a third offense of engaging with skomorokh music. ... The domra's revival in Russia started in 1896 with Andreyev's rediscovery and reconstruction efforts, gaining prominence in the early 20th century.  That year, a broken domra was found in a stable in the Vyatka province

I have seen Blagoveshchensk and Khabarovsk in video blogs. Blagoveshchensk is on the Amur river with a bigger Chinese city on the other side of the river. Khabarovsk is north of Vladivostok also on the Amur river. China is close. Khabarovsk used to be the last stop on the trans Siberian RR for most as Vladivostok was a closed city in USSR.

I learned that Khabarovsk was the site of post WWII war crime trials for the Japanese who were very nasty. to regional Chinese and others. It is also the site of a summer RR run by teenagers.

Here is a domra played in Blagoveshchensk on the river bank used to play an Irish piece. This young woman got me started on all this Slavic folk and video game music.

https://youtu.be/aEadQcDQT08?list=PLVmg3ofLiKGoew6Oc4wg9vULZU6c1Dxkf

As an example, here is a symphony orchestra built around the Polish folk group who did the music for Witcher3. I jumped into the middle.  Jump to 45:40

https://youtu.be/bLUyKn7I6b8?t=2741