Estonian folk song
Estonian folk song
Folk song rahvalaul is folk vocal music.
Usually stands folk song for old ethnic / national songs, e.g. Estonian, Russian folk song. Contemporary folk songs are often songs of (small) groups: student songs, soldiers songs.
Estonian folk song eesti rahvalaul stands mainly for village folk songs (~till the late 1800s), transmitted orally. According to contemporary folkloristics folk songs
are all wellknown songs that has become popular in various groups of Estonians.
Estonian folk songs are in Estonian and their content is in accordance with Estonian mentality.
Archaic vocal genres is general term for very archaic songs and song-like sounds. They were solo songs (excl. wedding laments), without instrumental accompaniment, often with a pragmatic purpose.
Very old and characteristic style of Estonian folk music was the regilaul song (usually translated as runo song, runic song, Kalevala-metric song), which belonged to the joint tradition of the Baltic-Finnic peoples and its age is approximately 2000 years (see: Lippus 1995; Rüütel 1998, Ross, Lehiste 2001, Särg 2005 a). The main criteria for a song to be classified as a runo song are the poetic characteristics of its text: word initial alliteration and assonance, parallelism (text lines were not organized into stanzas) and a specific textual metre. The regilaul melodies usually have isochronic syllabic rhythm, not very strict metre, narrow ambitus, monophonic stepwise melody movement, and short descending melodic motives that reveal influences from Estonian speech prosody. Singing was with a leader and chorus.
The living oral regilaul song tradition persisted until the beginning of the 20th century, and in some peripheral localities (ethnographical areas Setu and Kihnu) it is alive even today. Estonian cultural identity has been tightly connected with regilaul songs, because they represent archaic musical and poetic thinking, local dialects, folk religion, etc.
The more modern Estonian folk songs began to spread at the end of the 1800s and had become very popular by the end of the 1900s. Those songs were borrowed directly from Indo-European neighbours or shaped, following their folk music styles, especially according to German folk music. The modern folk song lyrics consisted of end-rhymed verses, grouped into stanzas. Song melodies and instrumental pieces also had a strict metre (usually in rhythm of popular dances), wider ambitus, and melodic structure, based on the diatonic scale and harmonic functions characteristic of Western music.
Contemporary Estonian folk song comprises different song styles, including “authentic” folk song, i.e. imitation of traditional music styles, various arrangements and popular songs as well. On the basis of context two main directions can be pointed out: 1) folklorism, and 2) spontaneous group-singing.
Folk song classification
Archaic vocal genres
hüüded shouts – for communication, organizing rhytmical activity, ritual shouts.
helletused – herding calls
imitations of nature and other sounds – bird songs, church bells, music instruments
loitsud incantations, charms – for forces of nature, people, deceases
lastelaulud children songs and rhymes – lullabies, children rhymes, “chain songs”
itkud lamentations – for funerals, weddings, soldiers, everyday life
Regilaul
1) Songs at certain activities:
töölaulud work songs (harvesting, herding, women house cores),
kalendrilaulud calendar traditions,
pulmalaulud wedding songs,
tantsu- ja mängulaulud dance and game songs,
lastelaulud children songs.
Usually very old traditional songs, that often include occasional improvisations.
2) “Free songs” in different situations:
lüürika lyrics (about singing, nature, everyday life, marriage etc...),
lüroeepika lyroepics (cosmologocal myths, legends, songs about family dramas. works).
Lyroepic songs have stable sujets, they are very archaic, lyric songs more modern.
The more modern folk songs
1) Dance, round game songs
2) Sentimental love songs
3) Songs about village life (“village chronicles”)
4) War and prison songs
5) Spiritual songs (folk chorals, mainly basing on Lutherian chorals)
1-2) Women’s repertoire, 3-4) Men’s repertoire
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