Osman Aga

One thing about the pandemic, there's been more time to do stuff that I wouldn't get around to if we were out and about as in the before times.  For example, looking for online info on the dances from each week's Zoom session and posting the annotated playlist with links to whatever music/dance info I can find.  Another thing I've finally gotten around to is learning to use the open source Musescore software (that I downloaded several years ago) to transcribe music from a recording to sheet music.

One dance that we've been doing since Elsie Dunin taught it at the Argonne folk dance group around 30 years ago or so, is Osman Aga.  I have searched online for notes or a video of the dance, or a recording or sheet music for the particular catchy tune we dance it to, but no luck.  So whenever it's included in one of our weekly Zoom playlists, I have no links to reference for it.  

Roo learned from Elsie Dunin that Osman Aga is the name of the tune we use, and that the dance is a type of Macedonian Rom Lesnoto, which can be danced to many different tunes.  I've found a different tune online, also called Osman Aga -- there are many Turkish versions, as well as this Macedonian one by Koco Petrovski.  But I haven't found any info for the Osman Aga music we like, from that old cassette.  I even tried playing the music for Siri on the iPhone to "name that tune" (I think she uses the Shazam app), but no luck there, either.  

I searched for Rom/Romsko Lesnoto, but the only info I found was for a different dance called Romsko Lesno.  According to Andrew Carnie's Folk Dance Musings blog, that dance was "originally taught by Michael Ginsburg, who learned it from the Roma community in the Bronx."  That one is in 7/8 S-Q-Q time and starts on the right foot, while the one we like starts with the left, and is in even 4/4 (or maybe 2/2) time.

So: I decided to learn how to use Musescore by transcribing the Osman Aga music from that old cassette.  And after several weeks of "learning experiences" I got through it.  It turned out to be a somewhat ambitious piece to start with -- I was only thinking about the single short dance pattern, but the music actually has quite a few different sections.  But, now I have a link to include in the annotated playlist!:  

Transcribed From Old Folk Dance Cassette by lgs1

While I was at it, I wrote down the 3-measure step pattern:

Measure	1				2				3
Count (4/4)	1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4
Or Count (2/2)	1	&	2	&	1	&	2	&	1	&	2	&
Foot	L		R		L		R	L	R		L	R
Direction	↗		→		↘		↑	●	↘		↑	●