Gstanzln: The Bavarian Art of Insults!

 Hallo mei gute Freunde! Today this issue is going to talk about the Rap Battle's great Bavarian Opa the Gstanzl or, the Bavarian art of rhymes and insults. These songs of mockery are up to four or eight lines long and are sung in various dialects in Bavarian and Austrian-German. A person whose profession is to sing these songs without repeating a lyric is a Gstanzler, one man who makes his living doing this is a man whose stage name is Erapferkraut here is him doing his work... walking around and mocking people thru song!

    However when two or more people Gstanzl are Gstanzln, sometimes the object of this song-game is too take turns insulting each other, or a group insulting someone or something else until the whole group comes up with an insult so bad it makes everyone laugh or offended...One example is this clip of the humorist and accordionist Hias and singer and host Michael Hartl Gstanln each other live on television!

   So I ask all my fans of this blog to make their own Gstanzl in English-German dialect in the comments, I can't wait to see all of them and remember to be nice, or else you will end up like Biermosel Blosn! 

How Did an American Frau Find Real Volksmusik in America?

               

       My love of Volksmusik began when I was looking for music in a gift-shop in the town of       Frankenmuth, Michigan that would suit my needs as a tuba player. The first album on a CD that I found and still keep to this day was called Die Beste aus Melodien der Bergen basically songs that appeared on a popular travel/ music show in Austria what some of these regions call Volkstumliche Musik however I got it nonetheless...

    On the second track was a song by Ursprung Baum that did not sound like what Americans think of German or Austrian Folk Music, it sounded at first like Mexican Mariachi music without the trumpets and maracas. That was until I heard them singing in their Austro-Bavarian dialect one that is partly native to their home, Zillertal, Tirol, and that song were Don Camillo und Peppone. Another was an upbeat track by Die Hegel called Hallo, Servus mitenander and apparently, both Hallo and Servus are both greetings in Germany and Austria and miteinander means together which means the song is about Germans and Austrians singing and yodeling together.

 The next song Sens'n Boarischer by Original Tiroler Echo began the teenage-tuba-player-crush I had with their baritone player Helmut Mueringer...ist so handsome...When you get near the end of this folksy song you might wonder what the sharpening-knife-sound is? It's the sharpening of hay-cutting shears so that the hay-cutters can finish their work before the harvest, and store their hay to feed their livestock before the avalanche comes and yes it is an actual lyric in the song.

Music Video of Sens'n Boarischer

This next song I really liked for the jodeling and the chicken clucks in between and that song was an arrangement by Alm Zigeuner of a Bavarian Folk Song called Goassbeitbauernbuam. As it turns out the song is about two farmers insulting each other about whose goat's balls...are the biggest...you get the idea...A song like this one is part of a Bavarian song tradition called Gstanzln which I will discuss in my next post.

  That CD piqued my interest in Volksmusik so much that I started finding these artists on iTunes and on other CDs in Frankenmuth. One artist that I wish would be on their radar (please listen iTunes!) is a group of fantastic jodelers called Die 4 Holterbuam and one of their songs that I liked was on a Volksmusik Hitmix, however, my advice is to not buy hit mixes because you are only getting half the song. Sadly this led to getting their song Jodel du Amol on a pirated site which led to the crashing of my computer. This song is a fascinating one because it has different styles of jodeling all in one song, so here is one of their other songs Der Jodelerbua so please listen to their wonderful jodeling iTunes or else Ich Wutend mit iTunes!!!