European Voices: Audiovisuals 6
Cover: Voices from Lithuania. All songs are from life.
2023
Daiva Račiūnaitė-Vyčinienė. Voices from Lithuania. All songs are from life. European Voices: Audiovisuals 6. Vienna: Department for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna / Vilnius: Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, 200 p., 2 DVDs with audio and video examples included, ISBN 978-609-8071-69-6. Colour photographs.
In this publication are presented various Lithuanian multipart singing practices. The main focus is on the singers, concentrating on their own reflections regarding the music they make. The idea of paying increased attention to the voice emerged naturally from almost 35 years of interacting with them. Not only did the variety of timbres catch the listener’s attention, but also the singers' own metaphoric characterizations of the voice "as if from a barrel". This also applies to the harmonization of voices when singing in a group "the voices stick together like glue". Some explanations describe not only the importance of singing as a joyous "coming together", but also reveal the singers' admiration for its power and great resonance: “even the lamps would go out when we sang.”
The concept all songs are from life is revealed in this publication through sound, accompanied by the reflections of the singers. All the songs were once sung in their parents' homes, while working in the fields, or fighting for Lithuania's independence, and are retained in memory to this day, becoming part of the collective singing practice within the communities. Singing is the basis of the local people's existence: “Not singing is the same as not living.”
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