Conference on Finnic runo-song tradition

Conference on Finnic runo-song traditio

The Metrics of Seto Choral Laments in the Context of Runosong Metrics

The aim of this paper is to get an overview of the lament metrics in Seto oral song tradition, which belongs to the southern border area of the Finnic song tradition, and the placement and historical development of lament metrics in the framework of the whole Seto oral song tradition. In the paper the metrical structures of two main genres of Seto choral laments – choral bridal laments and death laments – are analysed that share common features with solo laments and are similar to the structures of Seto runosongs. Metrical structures of the laments are detected based on sound recordings, taking into account the linguistic structure of the lines and the varied realization of it in a musical performance rhythm. The analysis showed that laments’ metrics where 5-unit end structures play an important role, differs the most from the main body of runosongs and is structurally more similar to a group of runosongs with refrains and varying line length. Outlining the development patterns of the metrical system of Seto songs, the influences of local unique musical tradition with varied rhythmic structures atypical of the most runosong area, specific functions of ritual song genres, historical changes in language, as well as possible external connections to early eastern and southern song cultures are highlighted

Musical Manifestations of Textual Patterning in Estonian Regilaul

The article analyses the marking of song text patterns by means of musical devices in the performances of Estonian regilaul. The article examines which variants of musical rhythm and melodic contour are preferred by four singers in their performance of verses that have different functions within the song structure. In both the text and the musical rhythm, a greater number of syllables, and the attendant changes in musical rhythm, mark the verses that have an initiating function and which communicate entirely new information. In performing such verses, rather than the extension verses of parallelism groups or verse repetitions, in the short melodies with narrow pitch range, the singers prefer more "intense" variants of melody contours in which the higher notes of the scale are predominantly used. In two-line melodies, the singer's patterning of the song text is largely determined by the musical logic, attempting to align the beginnings of the melodic strophes and verse groups

Motivations of Volunteet Archive Correspondents: Three Women from Estonia

In the course of the past centuries, continuous attempts have been made to re-contextualize the documents that have been accumulating in the world's many archives of cultural heritage proceeding from different objectives and theoretical foundations. One of the ways to understand archival documents is to pose questions regarding the persons who produced them. The majority of these people were unpaid volunteer contributors, in Estonia traditionally referred to as correspondents. For such correspondents, collecting was extra work carried out in addition to all other duties, and enough time and energy had to be found to pursue this endeavour. The problems, including the inner conflicts that the correspondents who were thus engaged expcrienced, are reflected, for example, in the metaphors used by one of such correspondents from the past, Marta Mäesalu, who put it thus: she had to "steal time" for writing and "steal herself away" from domestic chores. By analyzing the motivation of three Estonian women correspondents from the 20th century, this article poses the following questions: what motivated these women to choose the role of a volunteer contributor to the heritage archives, and what kind of impact did their daily life and the private sphere as well as the socio-cultural environment and ideologies of different eras have on their motivations. My focus on women correspondents is not accidental, considering the weight of women's collecting activities in the 20th century and the presumable gender differences in motivation as a complex psychic phenomenon

Individual Rhythmic Variation in Oral Poetry: The Runosong Performances of Seto Singers

The article explores the individual differences of rhythmic variation in traditional sung oral poetry. The analysed group of ritual songs is part of the Seto singing culture – a subtradition of Finnic oral trochaic tetrameter. The rhythmic variation, created by different positioning of stressed syllables in the song line, reveals itself on two levels, in linguistic verse structure and in musical performance. In the singers’ performances the verse and musical structures complement each other, having a cumulative rhythmic effect. By designing the rhythm at both levels, the singers systematically take into consideration the linguistic features of the used words. A statistical analysis shows a remarkable divergence in the rhythmic variation of different lead singers. The results are more homogeneous at the level of linguistic verse structure and more diverse at the level of musical performance. Also, the rhythmic choices of the lead singer and his or her choir in the course of the performance may differ. We may speculate that this divergence in individual rhythmic strategies could have been caused by the singers’ type of creativity and skills, their different perceptions of genre features and intergeneric relations, and the musical influences between more closely related singers

People of the present and songs of the past: collecting folk songs in Estonia in the 1950s and 1960s

This paper discusses musical folklore-collecting practices in Estonia in the 1950s and 1960s. My aim is to observe folkloristic encounters that took place 50 years ago { to do ethnographic Fieldwork in the ethnomusicological past, as called for by Philip Bohlman (Bohlman 1997). The objects of my research are the folkloristic Fieldwork culture from half a century ago (one of the cultural processes characteristic of that era) and its representatives: the folklorists and their interviewees. 'Fieldwork in the past' is a key phrase which allows us to study the persons operating at the time as equally historical Others without focusing too much on the deconstruction of past disciplinary practices, but rather attempting to assume the position of an understanding and sensitive listener to the voice of the Other