Martina Ďuriková Cínová Štefan Cína Jr.
We come from the picturesque village of Hnilec,
where our father, our grandfather and all his ancestors lived all their lives.
Our mother comes from Revúca.
And we are a half-musician family, because my father was also a musician.
My ancestors on my grandmother's side were also musicians.
And from my mother's side
there are also, and were, some people who played musical instruments.
But of course they didn't study music, hey didn't pursue it professionally.
They had their jobs that they worked at and they played in bands alongside.
We were led to music by our father, from a very young age.
We both started playing guitar.
First at home, where he taught us chords and some notes
and then we found out that we probably needed something more,
to take it to the next level somehow.
So our parents enrolled us in the music school in Spišská Nová Ves.
They enrolled me in violin and my brother in accordion.
I saw Vanessa Mae on TV at that time, how she played there.
I guess all the girls were into it then.
So I picked violin and I remember,
we couldn't find a suitable instrument at the time
and we found one in a pawn shop in Spišská Nová Ves.
Sometimes I still remember where, on which street.
And that's where my parents bought me a violin for 1300 crowns.
And I started to rehearse at home. And my brother, I don't even know.
I got into it...
At the primary school that I attended,
there was an old accordion in the classroom, black.
And because I started playing quite late, when I was thirteen or fourteen years old.
- You were also twelve. - Twelve.
I brought it home.
And my father bought me this little piano book in the music shop in Spišská Nová Ves.
And there were some markings, chords, what to play.
So I was at home, it was over the holidays,
before we ever came to the music school,
we tried something together at home.
Well, just purely by ear, self-taught kids, youngsters like that.
But it had something to it.
Just, the instruments that we chose at that time,
we still have a positive relationship with them to this day.
Of course, we also play other instruments.
Just for ourselves we learned.
But with the fact that we studied that accordion and that violin,
there really was a time when we played it six hours a day?
I mean, when I was in conservatory, there was
such an obligation to practice for four, five hours.
I mean, there were times when you felt like
cutting the instrument or throwing it somewhere.
But of course it passed.
And I'll say for myself that I probably can't imagine my life without the violin.
And I remember when I had my son and I couldn't play,
I wasn't home, I missed it so much.
You enjoy it, you have such a relationship formed with that instrument.
- So, it's an emotional bond. - Yes.
The accordion too.
It's a very sympathetic instrument.
About the formation of the band
We started out still on that guitar,
and we had this tape recorder and our dad bought us empty tapes.
And we were still recording "Elán" songs and stuff like that.
Desmod, Aneta Langerová and various things.
And then, when we already knew scales and things like that,
we started playing gypsy songs.
We had a little black book.
There my father wrote us the words, the chords and the folk songs.
And later I went to study
at the state conservatory at Timonova 2 in Košice.
And there they forbade me to play folk music.
But we played it anyway.
And actually, at that time we started playing at weddings, celebrations and various events.
And gradually, when we already knew some of the basics,
we started playing some songs together.
And then my dad found out that there was actually missing that first time.
So he bought a double bass.
And he had played bass guitar in a rock band when he was younger.
So this was pretty much like that.
And so there were actually three of us.
That was in 2006 or 2007, when, I can tell you,
that a band was starting to kind of take shape.
So that's when we were formed.
Our band just kept growing over time.
And we added a violist.
A member from our village, from Hnilec, Jožko.
We played with him for about four years.
Then somehow Jožko gave it up.
So Peťo came to fill in for him on the viola contralto,
who's currently playing bass.
Because we were classmates at music school.
Then I went to university here in Prešov
and Peťo was my classmate there.
We were also together in the dormitory here.
We used to play together at weekends.
Then, at one time, a dulcimer player from Spišská Nová Ves
used to play with us, Ján Faglic, an older gentleman.
He played actively with us for three or four years.
But he was also in one other band.
So it sometimes happened that he couldn't come with us to those events on weekends.
And Pišta, who's playing the dulcimer at the moment,
he was about 13 or 14 at the time.
He started learning the dulcimer when he was nine years old.
I mean, he was banging on it in the way that I play the drums, sort of.
And he played his first gig with us here, specifically in Prešov.
It was a college party.
And he's stayed in our band ever since.
That's how we used to play.
And then when my sister got pregnant,
we needed a violinist to fill in.
So we approached Janko Jóny, who we met
about five years ago through a folk group.
He was just free at the time, so he started playing with us.
And when Martina came back, he "fit" into our band.
We kept him.
In this lineup that we have today, we look at each other
and we should know that now it's going this way and that way.
It's a different way of working anyway.
The fact that we're all graduates in the band, we're all music teachers,
so it's just a different way of working.
You know, when you have a person in the band who still has a problem
to pick up a chord and understand all that music theory
and transfer that to an instrument, it's hard.
- But thank God, I have to knock. - On a stone.
In the formation we're in today,
I believe we'll be like this for decades to come,
I don't think we really have a problem.
But we could practice more.
- Because time is short again. - That's true.
We play almost every weekend,
so I'd be in favor of us practicing more.
Every good band should sing.
And since my brother here was shy about singing at first, it was left to me.
So I started singing, we were looking for notes.
Because not every note suits a girl, not every note suits a boy.
So we tried it.
And later on, I started to like it that way.
And now I'm studying both voice and violin in college.
So I want to get into the art of singing more professionally anyway.
But I actually sing the way I feel.
Just after I finished the music school,
I came here to Prešov to the University of Prešov,
where I studied music and technology.
As part of music we also had singing, of course.
I sang in the choir and everything, on weekends.
Of course with the band, with my sister, with the boys.
And then I studied the singing.
So I graduated in it, too.
About folk music
Were we attracted to that folk music, that folklore?
Well, definitely yes, definitely yes.
Through the fact that we, as kids, young people, rather learned that pop, that rock.
When I was thirteen, fourteen, I was really, really into metal.
I wore chains and longer hair and black t-shirts.
And we listened to bands like Konflikt.
-That's, like, punk rock. That's, like, punk rock, hard metal, music.
And then when we got into folk music,
classic es-ta in folk, m-pa, m-pa, m-pa, m-pa, m-pa.
And when you compare it to metal, or punk rock, it's exactly the same.
I mean, the bpm tempo and the alternation of that heavy and light time
is built on exactly the same principle.
So it's definitely close,
you just have to find that connection.
Nowadays, there are few such traditional dulcimer music bands in Slovakia.
We observe it.
We have classmates, friends who are also involved in this
and they're already adding drums to the band, they're already adding cymbals...
- Keys- - Keys, various other instruments.
And we would really like to keep to that traditional form
and the traditional blend of those instruments that it used to be.
Really preserve that, because when we, the younger generation,
don't preserve it, it's gonna disappear.
And as for those folk music lovers,
we always go to a wedding and now we come there
and there's a million young people there, we're like:
Oh my God, they're definitely going to want some Despacito and I don't know what.
We also have a DJ just in case.
And it ends at two in the morning with singing Na Kráľovej holi.
And it's the young ones who like it.
So I think that folk music lives in all of us somewhere,
we just have to find it in ourselves.
So I think I will definitely teach my son folk music.
I'm already teaching it to him, so I think it's going to stick.
We play gypsy songs only marginally.
And, of course, at weddings.
But more or less, when we're with dad, we play, we sing them.
But we play more Slovak ones, yes.
I guess my father built us some foundation, a good one, so we know them.
Also today we played some older Phurikane giľa.
And such old songs.
But I personally listen to other bands too.
Even the ones that have, like, drums and those keyboards.
I try to have an overview of those songs.
- A musical outlook. - Yes.
A musician, who actively plays,
should have a musical perspective through and through,
that when he actually comes to an event, he's gonna come somewhere and somebody's gonna tell him
they want them to play that song and he doesn't know it,
that's the biggest problem that can happen.
So we are listening to traditional folk music,
Ruthenian, Roma, just all of them.
Of course classical, different genres, jazz.
We live by that music, from morning till night, so to speak.
We make a living out of it.
About contemporary Roma music
I personally don't like the bands that are trying to break through
with singing up, high-pitched screaming, etc.
Not even the ones that go there to cry.
- But we do have one favorite, tell them. - Yes.
Yes, we have one favourite band that is, I think,
musically and vocally very good.
And it's a band from Strážske, Gipsy Culy.
And I listen to it, I listen to it when I'm cooking.
My husband's laughing at me already.
And it's one of those bands that really know what they're doing.
And they know why they do it.
And really, we've been to them, at parties and stuff.
They just play what they need to play, sing tastefully, very nicely.
As for those dulcimer bands, there are great dulcimer bands as well.
There is a very nice one here in Prešov, too.
All that Roma music is very valuable and beautiful.
So it's just a matter of taste and interpretation,
how that particular band member puts it out there.
But I don't think it's necessary to condemn any bands.
True, true, everybody, first of all, does their best,
they are certainly doing the best they can.
And if they don't know something, then either let them learn
or if they feel they are good enough as they are, then let them do it.
If they do it with love, with enthusiasm,
if they enjoy it and if people like it.
- Listeners, exactly. - Yes, because we do it for the people.
Of course, we enjoy it too,
but I say music and singing is for the people.
I mean, if somebody's already pulling out their phone and filming it, that's good.
About teaching music
I've actually been teaching since I graduated from the music school and I teach in Smižany.
And I dare to say that there is an interest in violin.
Especially through folk music.
Because the violin is still a "fiddle made of maple".
It's actually an instrument focused on folk music.
So the kids want it.
But I, as a teacher, over the years, there's not a lot of them,
but I can already say that I've taught a few lessons,
my main goal is not
to make a virtuoso out of that kid right away,
but to get him to love the instrument and the music.
To develop a relationship.
So that's my main goal,
to get those kids to love music and love the instrument.
And then when I see that it's already built there, that relationship
and that the pupil already wants it and has a disposition, that he's good at it,
then I push and we go hard after it.
But there are kids who will tell me:
"Teacher, we only like to play the violin so much."
"We don't play at home, but we like to come here."
I'm glad, we sing together, we clap together,
we do what we like.
Whereas here, here is a directive teacher.
And that's exactly the problem.
I dare say that 50% of today's pupils
are only there because their parents are pushing them and forcing them.
And forcing it on them.
And that's not good.
It's difficult for the student, the teacher, and the parent.
And it's all so artificial.
But on the other side, there are also pupils,
for example, a pupil comes to me to play the accordion, he signs up.
The first year or two, he's so bland, because his parents push him.
And then he finds it in himself that it really grabs him.
And then you just see it week after week after week,
how that student grows and progresses.
I can boast that I already have a pupil,
whom I taught and, I don't know whether this year or next year,
will be a graduate of the conservatory in Košice.
So I am already such a proud teacher.
Just now we were at a violin competition,
where we won the silver medal.
So I think it's a beautiful feeling that we have achieved something together.
And when I see that the pupil is also happy about it,
that the kid is happy about it, that's a great feeling.
That what I maybe know well or better than others,
to be able to pass it on to somebody.
About Roma culture
For me, Roma culture is probably a way of life for Roma people.
Although I think that every Roma family
has its own kind of microculture of its own clan,
of its own family.
But I think it's all a way of life,
a way of dressing, a way of eating, a way of having fun.
- Customs as well. - Customs.
In funerals different customs, in weddings different customs.
So that's it, I would say.
The way the Roma live.
And the fact that they are so temperamental, that we are,
we're on a different wave of emotions,
so I think that's the whole thing.
It's like a set of all those parts.
The material ones and the immaterial ones.
I very much, from childhood, I don't know about you,
but since I was a kid I've felt strongly about funerals.
It's such a morbid thing.
How that family all at once sticks together.
I don't know if it's like that in the village too, maybe with other people.
But still in that house where someone dies,
you actually go there until the funeral.
I think even after that.
And a bottle is opened there, there's a debate till dawn.
And it's so that family,
that's lost a loved one, isn't left alone.
So maybe that's the kind of thing that...
For example, I have a white husband, and when I was telling him about it,
when someone died in our family, he said: - And what are we going there for and why are we doing it like that?
And I say that's how it's done in our family.
So maybe that's how it affects me,
that maybe it's in my family, as I haven't seen this before.
At those funerals.
I don't have anything to add to that.