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Traditionally there are two types of Romani music: one is rendered for non-Romani audiences, the other is made within the Romani community. The music performed for outsiders is called “gypsy music”,which is a colloquial name that comes from Ferenc Liszt. They call the music they play among themselves “folk music”.

The main ethnic groupings of the Roma living in Hungary are the following : Although Romani musicians in Hungary were mentioned in books since the 15th century, musicianship as an occupation didn’t become widespread among the Roma until the latter half of the 18th century. The Roma started to develop an ethnic music culture from the 1970s and they obtained national minority status in Hungary. Two famous Romani musicians of the 18th century were Mihály Barna and Panna Cinka. The band of the latter had two violin s (“prim” and “kontra”), a cimbalom, and double-bass.

The boom of Romani music in the last decades of the 18th century was triggered by the Hungarian nationalist movement. New genres started to evolve in music, and dance. Gypsy bands performed in more places, suck as parks, promenades. Patronized by aristocrats, Romani musicians started to learn more about Viennese classicism and European musical culture. The unique harmonization of Hungarian “Gypsy music” started to differ from its Balkanian counterpart. This was one major factor of the Western European success of Hungarian “Gypsy music”. This music was exotic, but still accessible for the mass public. Another contributory factor for success was the tradition of playing without scores. This further popularized the Romani musicians since they learned and play music by ear. Gypsy bands usually consisted of strings, harp and “duda”. Later on harp was replaced with “cimbalom”. The harmonies accompanying the melodies became more dominant in their music. “Duda” was replaced by clarinet and “tárogató”. The most popular instrumentation, which was impacted by Austrian classical influences was: two violins (prímás and kontrás), cimbalom, double bass. Soon after they added clarinet, cello, and later another violin (tercprímás).

In the early 19th century, Romani musicians became the representatives of national music. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 in Hungary, gypsy bands played their music for soldiers before and after the battle to encourage and entertain them. After the loss of the war, these musicians gained a lot of respect from the country. Gypsy music became the symbol of desired freedom. A new genre called Magyar nota evolved by around the middle of the century. The composers of the time wanted to sound more like Western European music by extending the folksong form and adopting some elements of Western style. This genre was also performed by Romani musicians, thus it started to be labelled as "gypsy music” too. The most famous Romani composer of this century was Pista Danko (1858-1903).