While the music of western Europe has dominated the classical music scene, there is a rich tradition of unique and lively folk music from eastern Europe.

Hungarian folk music makes use of many familiar instruments like fiddles, bagpipes, accordions, and flutes. It also uses lesser-known instruments like the tambura, a plucked string instrument similar to a guitar. The folk music of Hungary is largely based on the pentatonic scale, which you can play using only the black keys on the piano. The name "pentatonic" comes from the five notes which make up the scale:

If you sing or play this scale, you will notice that it sounds very different from the major and minor scales that make up western harmony.

The folk music of Bulgaria is largely ceremonial. Songs are often used to celebrate religious holidays as well as rites of passage such as marriage or the birth of a child. For many generations, the women of Bulgaria sang work songs to ease their boredom while they worked in the fields. These work songs have been handed down through the generations in the aural tradition. Whereas many work songs of other cultures use the call and response format, Bulgarian songs feature a repetitive melody in which the singers harmonize continuously. Bulgarian singers use a vocal timbre (or tone quality) that is brighter and more nasal than what is used in western music.

Serbian folk music includes a rich tradition of communal dance in which men and women join hands and dance in a large circle, holding their arms over their heads. Unlike most dance music from western Europe, these dances often feature uneven rhythms, like the one you will hear in the gypsy dance “Niska Banja.” This song has a time signature of 9/8, which is felt in an uneven 4:

Nationalist composers like Bela Bartok, Antonin Dvorak, and Bedrich Smetana introduced the sounds of their native folk music to the western classical genre.