POLKAS: THE MUSIC OF LOVE

The perfect music for any time, anywhere. They say music is the language of love. Most of it ain't. Never mind all them violins and crooners and dreamy elevator music, the C&W yodeling about broken hearts. Polkas have brought more love and bliss and happiness to couples all over the world. Young and old, big and little, every race, color and creed. Except queers. They run contrary to the laws of God and man.


Summer is polka season. In fact it has been designated The Official Music of Summer. I can think of no better way to wait for Fall than by tapping my feet to lively polka music.



That's right, you heard me. The polka has been around for centuries and can be found in classical music, like polkas, mazurkas and waltzes. Many countries of the world venerate polka music; show me people that don't enjoy polkas and I will show you losers.

Never sadness or negativity or dysfunction. No sedition or anarchy or profanity or glorification of crime and drug use. Won't hear no polkas on the boom boxes, uh uh. All in all happy music, happiness being something which we can use more of these days. Experts agree that polka people have divorce rates far below the national norms.

This from Wikipedia, not totally verified but that has never stopped me:

The polka is a lively Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in the Czech lands and is still a common genre in Swedish, Lithuanian, Czech, Polish, German, Hungarian, Austrian, Russian, Slovenian and Slovakian folk music.

In light classical music, many polkas were composed by both Johann Strauss I and his son Johann Strauss II; a couple of well-known ones were composed by Bedřich Smetana, and Jaromír Vejvoda, the author of "Škoda lásky" ("Roll Out the Barrel").

The name comes from the Czech word půlka – literally, "little half" – a reference to the short half-steps featuring in the dance. The word's familiar form has been influenced by the similarity to the Czech word polka, meaning "Polish woman". The name has led to the dance's origin being sometimes mistakenly attributed to Poland.

It should also not be confused with the polska, a Swedish 3/4-beat dance with Polish roots; cf. polka-mazurka. A related dance is the redowa. Polkas almost always have a 2/4 time signature. Tempo is usually 120 beats per minute, also used by the military when marching and can be found in brass band marches, i.e. Sousa et al.

You already heard a polka on this blog and you're gonna hear some more.





Here's an example of winners. Note the instruments these guys are playing:

Frank Yankovic, no relation to Wierd Al, kicks out the jams:

 

The accordion is discussed in another post.