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Estonian folk music layers in the context of ethnic relations

1998; Estonian Literary Museum Scholarly Press; Volume: 06; Linguagem: Inglês

10.7592/fejf1998.06.ruutel

1406-0957

Ingrid Rüütel,

Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies

Style and melody types in the comparative folk music research A comparative study of folk music is relevant from the aspect of both the style and the melody types. Style is specified as a complex of musical features and determined by their quality and structure. We may define national, regional and historical styles, genre peculiarities, performing styles etc. Style as a complex phenomenon is related to a complex of causes while in certain causal relations different factors may dominate. Alongside with historical, regional and functional factors style peculiarities are determined by the structure of language. Thus, the musical form of Estonian and Balto-Finnic runo-song tunes, especially the length of the basic structural unit, shows foremost the stage of historical development, while the length of the melody has a strong positive correlation with the melodic range (Ruutel 1986). In our case the horisontal as well as vertical widening of song tunes was mainly parallel. Deviations from such a general regularity seem to result primarily from the peculiarities of the function and the genre of a song. The melody-movement is particularly related to the speech intonation, at least in more ancient tune-layers. Rhythm and some melody attributes may be conditioned by the performance which in its turn is related to the genre and function of the song (e.g. the North-Estonian swing-song tunes with their very specific rhythmic and melodic structure). In actual development of folk music all the factors influencing the genesis and evolution of musical phenomena intertwine or mix and any music forms a symbiosis of them all. Beside the study of style, melody types as phenomenal units of folk music constitute a separate aspect of research in folk music studies. All folklore phenomena, including melodies, disseminate as variants in space and time. A tune type forms of a complex of its variants (tune samples) united by a common content and the basic qualities of form (for details see: Ruutel 1986). Its basic quality is expressed in the common invariant which as a rule is preserved in the samples of one and the same melody type.