German Music

Traditions

Drinking beer is very important in Germany. Beer brewing has been regulated by the beer purity law (the Reinheitsgebot) in Germany for nearly 500 years. It is the oldest food regulation in the world and exists today unchanged from the original. It was ordered by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria in the year 1516.

However, to most Germans, beer is not important because it is so good (which it is), but because drinking beer is a venue to socialize and enjoy the company of other people. The concept of Gemütlichkeit connotes the notion of belonging, social acceptance, cheerfulness, the absence of anything hectic and the spending of quality time in a place. There is no better example of that than a beer hall with a good german brass band.

Beer Halls

Beer halls are essentially over-sized pubs that specialize in beer. Munich is undoubtedly the beerhall capital of the world; almost every brewery in Munich (and there are quite a few) operates a beerhall.

The largest beer hall was the 5,000-seat Mathaser near the Munich train station; unfortunately, it was torn down/coverted into a movie theater in the last few years. The best known is probably the Hofbräuhaus, also in Munich. The best, from a quality and cultural point of view, is probably the Augustiner.

Brass Bands

A brass band is a musical group consisting mostly of brass instruments, often with a percussion section. In some traditions other types of instruments like a clarinet or saxophones may be added, but other traditions do not accept woodwinds as part of a brass band.

While brass instruments had long been used together in various contexts, the first modern brass bands were developed early in the 19th century in Prussia, when all military and government bands were issued the new technology of rotary valve instruments and instructed to use standard tuning. This allowed musicians to much more easily play with other bands and for smaller bands to be combined into large bands.

Music

Oom-pah is a slang term for a large body of traditional German, Austrian, Swiss and Eastern European music. Performed most frequently in beer halls and at Octoberfest, this is not a single style of music, but a wide variety of styles including Polkas, Mazurkas, Schottishes, Waltzes and Landler.

The term 'Oom-Pah' is in imitation of the downbeats played by the bass or tuba and the off-beats played by other instruments to provide rhythmic accompaniment for the melody.

So now that you know all about German music, here's a little montage of Kleine Blasmusik at work: