Ksenija Cicvarić

Montenegrin folk music is the traditional music of the mountainous and coastal regions of modern-day Montenegro, shaped by centuries of oral epic singing, clan-based dance culture, and coastal polyphonic song. At its core stands the gusle—a single-stringed bowed instrument—accompanying decasyllabic epic verse about heroes, honor, and historic battles. In the highlands and inner regions, solo or unison singing with a sustained drone and narrow-range melodies predominates, while on the Adriatic coast (Boka Kotorska) multipart klapa-style vocal harmony reflects Mediterranean and Venetian ties. Dances such as the oro (a circle dance symbolically forming an “eagle”) and various kolo variants are central to social life, often performed to asymmetric Balkan meters. The sound world blends Slavic narrative traditions with Ottoman modal color and coastal homophony, producing a repertoire that can be both austere and heroic or warmly communal and lyrical.