Re: Tonal Songs and glossalalia
| From: | Padraic Brown <pbrown@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, April 12, 1999, 17:19 |
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On Mon, 12 Apr 1999, Sally Caves wrote:
>
> How "universal" is the tradition of tonal singing? What is its
> relationship to invented languages? I ask this, because Yaguello
> and Schnapp sometimes seem to confuse this kind of language invention
> with the stuff that we are doing. (Schnapp's remark about "infantile"
> syllables, "open vowels" etc.; he means "open syllables" Matt told me).
Probably fairly universal. There's mouth music in Celtic Europe (and
America), which is essentially what you do when you don't have a fiddler
or whatever. Or when the fiddler wants a break. The tunes are the same
as what a fiddler would play for a dance, but someone is singing
"nonsense" syllables (all those
skin-na-ma-rinck-a-diddle-i-ay-and-diddle-ay-o-lay's) Hey that actually
works! Frequently the singer will make up nonsense verses about the
people present, or absent friends; which don't necessarily make sense, but
have good rhythm and rhyme. My mother seems to have recollections of such
events from her childhood; and I have a recording of some Scotsman doing
this at a competition. It's a very pretty art, and judging from the
whoops and stomping of the audience in the background, gets people in the
mood for dancing rather easily.
>
> While we're on the subject, who has heard of Sally Oldfield? (any
> relationship to Mike Oldfield?) She produced a record album long
> years ago called _Water Bearer_ in which she seemed to be singing
> a Tolkein-like language. There is another singer, more recent,
> whose CD my husband has in the attic and he promises to get it for
> me--I can't remember it by sight-- where the woman has a private
> language she sings in. I think it was a kind of tonal singing.
Sorry I can't help there.
Padraic.