Latcho Drom

The movie Latcho Drom ("Safe Journey") depicts the migration of nomads from South Asia to the Middle East. After watching the first part of this movie, it is evident that music plays a major role in their lives. There were three major musical scenes: 1) nomads under a full moon, 2) an Egyptian couple dancing, and 3) a takht ensemble playing in a Turkish teahouse in Istanbul. In these three scenes there were many musical instruments, some different and some similar to each other.

In the first scene, I saw an instrument that I had never seen before and that did not appear in any of the other scenes. I don't know the name of it but it looked like a pottery pot/vase. It seemed like they were using it as a drum; it was interesting. There was also a stringed instrument that looked like a bouzouki. In the second scene, what stood out the most to me was the tambourine. There was also another drum that resembled the tambourine but without cymbals, and an instrument that resembled the Chinese erhu . I also saw another type of drum; I think it's called a dholak. The third scene showed the typical instruments of the takht ensemble: 'ud, qanun, nay, tambourine and violin. The instruments in the three scenes were similar in that they all included some type of drum, stringed instrument, and cymbals.

The director of Latcho Drom was trying to demonstrate how the nomads absorbed the various music cultures they encountered into their own music. The director did this through the children in the movie. Every time they stopped somewhere, the "gypsy" kids were very curious to find out what was going on around them. They watched very closely the musical performances of the region they were in and tried to imitate the performers. Then they went back to the "gypsy" settlement and show the rest of the nomads. In this way, as they traveled through different parts of the world, the "gypsies" picked up different musical styles that made their way into "gypsy" music.