Re: Tonal Songs and glossalalia
| From: | Diana Slattery <slattd@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, April 12, 1999, 11:44 |
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Sally,
How very interesting. I know one Jewish-mystical one that just goes "Yi
yi yi (long i)--very beautiful and haunting, learned from a rebbe named
Michael Shapiro--might have been his song. Not a chant, but only one
syllable. I'm thinking also of Qawwali--sufi songs, though they start
with known words, name of god, but branch into ecstatic sounds,
syllables. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. borderline?
Diana
Sally Caves wrote:
> Are there any musical experts on this list? What does anyone
> know about "tonal songs" -- songs that are sung with meaningless
> words? Bobby McFerrin has come out with a FABULOUS new CD
> called "Circle Songs" (anybody familiar with it) where he and
> famous singers like Nick Bearde, Paul Hillier, and Janis Siegal
> get together and produce entirely vocal "orchestras" of meaningless
> words. There is one song on there, just called "Circle Song Six,"
> that is completely haunting. While the rest have a kind of jazzy
> African or Haitian quality to them, this one is hauntingly Middle
> Eastern, and it fooled me into thinking that the man was singing
> a real language. Is this how glossalalia works? The copy on the
> CD speaks of it almost in those terms: "No words are necessary, and,
> in fact, words only get in the way of the interaction between the
> singer and the Divine. Words can create separation between listeners
> due to language limitations. Tonal songs are universal in their
> appeal and feeling. Such sacred sounds can be understood and
> appreciated
> by all, regardless of their culture, tradition, or background."
> Jonathan
> Goldman.
>
> 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).
>
> 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.
>
> Sally
> scaves@frontiernet.net
>
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html
>
>
>