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Re: Tonal Songs and glossalalia

From:Padraic Brown <pbrown@...>
Date:Monday, April 12, 1999, 17:19
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.
> > Sally > scaves@frontiernet.net > http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html > > > >