I play the violin.
I got my first violin at the age of five.
I've been playing the violin since thiat time.
I never wanted to play any other instrument but the violin.
I started like this when I was a child,
because my deceased father was also a double bass player,
who was an excellent musician and he led me to it.
But it already came with that, as we were still only in the contact with music.
At home and also at school when I went.
At work, we only talked about music as well.
Music was everywhere around us.
My father was not a musician, but my uncle was a violinist.
A very good violinist.
And he said I should go to music school,
that I have talent to play the violin.
I went to school and they saw that I had what it takes to keep playing.
I have elementary art school and high school.
I didn't want to go to study further, because I already used to go to play with the band.
I started playing when I was thirteen years old.
I went to school in Fiľakovo, I also went to music school in Fiľakovo.
I went to Fiľakovo.
we came to live in Strážské.
It is located before Humenné and Michalovce.
My father played there in an ensemble.
There was a music school.
He wanted to put me there, I went there
and there the teacher told me that I had no ear for music.
I sat down at the piano and couldn't sing with him.
But I could already play the double bass.
There was such a small table at home, I stood on it
on it and I started learning.
So dad didn't send me there, to that elementary school.
Years later, we met the teacher again
and he wondered how was that possible.
I was about nine years old and I had already started playing the double bass nicely.
He was surprised.
Then we returned home, to Veľké Dravce
One must have a very good ear to be able to learn.
Even such a good teacher must know what needs to be taught.
At home we always listened to gypsy normal...
...a cimbalom music, and bands like this.
We turned on the radio, and they always played at noon.
Gypsies, we listened every day.
And at home we only learned gypsy music
and we listened to it everywhere.
Ours were also...
My father had five brothers, that was the whole band.
There were so many that they had a violinist, a cimbalom player, all brothers, made a band.
They just missed a violist, they always took one, the second, the third,
They didn't have one of their own.
And the music was also folkloric, gypsy Hungarian.
But even I, when I was older,
so the guitars and keyboards were already coming.
You know, times have changed.
So as a young boy I was not interested in the double bass,
but I was interested in electrical things.
So I had dealt with that for about five years.
But then my poor father died
and to that band where I also played the guitar,
so I went to play double bass and bass guitar again.
We have a friend in the band, Roland Horváth, a clarinet player.
He is my good friend and he already knew those boys, the cimbalom player and the violist.
And he said we'll go together to play at a wedding sometime.
And since then we have been going to play together.
We are such good friends, as a family.
In addition, we also go to play with others.
We also have a second band where we go to help.
In our country, there are few musicians.
Those older musicians died out.
They are not anymore, the young generation of 20-year-old boys
can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
And that's just the violinists.
And there are no players for double bass and viola.
Not so much for these tools.
That's for searching.
There are few of us in our region.
If there are two or three bass players at all, around Rimavská Sobota, Fiľakovo and Lučenec.
You won't find them anymore.
We also play wedding things because we use to go to weddings.
And such a fun, cultural - fun,
Gypsy, Hungarian, Slovak, if they want Slovak.
We have to learn all kinds, because people ask us everything they can.
Both modern and classic.
It's up to the people, the guests, what they ask for, so we'll try to satisfy them.
I also listen to modern Roma music at home.
- They are very good bands. - It's on another level.
They played very nicely.
And I like it.
It is very advanced.
But my heart is only captured by gypsy music, folklore.
It's hard for us musicians these days.
To make living somehow.
Restaurants are no longer meant to hold live music.
Wine bars closed.
It wasn't like that years ago.
There were ten restaurants, and about eight, seven of them were with music.
Now if you find one, where's a piano or keyboards.
Yes, covid came and it was even harder.
We sat at home for two years.
Even the owners don't want to pay for live music.
This way we don't make a living in restaurants anywhere.
In Lučenec, in Rimavská Sobota, there is no such place.
I am a musician, I play every week, at home and everywhere.
I have four bands and I still go to play.
With one, with the second, and with the third.
I go three or four times a week.
The mother tongue is Hungarian.
- Everyone speaks Hungarian at home. - That's how they brought us up.
We have a Hungarian primary school, but also a Slovak one.
It's not a problem here in Fiľakovo, that someone is Hungarian or Slovak.
But we also normally learn the Slovak language there.
- We try, even if we don't speak very well. - We also studied the Russian language.
But we understand a little and talk a little.