Poetical and musical folklore

This study group consists of researchers of the Estonian Literary Museum and members of teaching staff of the University of Tartu and the Estonian Music Academy in Tallinn. They have obtained their PhD degrees in different disciplines, such as musicology, psychology, linguistics, and cultural anthropology. This kind of interdisciplinary background makes it possible to apply multiple methods to the study of poetical and musical folklore, e.g. those from sociology, cognitive science, acoustics, and linguistics, as well as to integrate research of music, verbal texts, and context in which the two occur.

Research process

Ethnomusicological research requires sophisticated hard- and software in its every stage. Fieldwork is carried out generally using digital recording techniques. Estonian Folklore Archives continue to use the SAWPro software. Digitization and restoration of earlier recordings, including those on wax cilinders from the early 20th century, are currently in progress using the Cool Edit and Virtos Denoiser software.

Addressees of research work

A part of research results is directed to the scholarly community working in the field of ethnomusicology. Another and a more extensive part of results which is related to the culture in a broader sense, is intended for the general public. Students represent a sort of interface between the two groups. Members of this study group teach courses in various Estonian universities: the University of Tartu, the Estonian Academy of Music, the Viljandi Culture Academy as well as in the Heino Eller Tartu High School of Music and abroad.

Main research problems

What is the role of traditional music in the preservation of national identity?

Can possible shifts of identity be detected in traditional music, which might be explained by the globalization of the contemporary world?

How are changes in musical tradition perceived and defined by active carriers of traditional music as well as by its consumers?

Reasearch results and output

A publication series called Töid etnomusikoloogia alalt (Working Papers in Ethnomusicology) was started in 2002. This series is expected to become the main output of the study group, directed to both addressees: scholars and the general public of Estonia. The first three issues deal with the functions of traditional music and with changes in its perception in contemporary society. Similar problems have been dealt with by the study group members in their other publications. Those scholarly publications are accompanied by audio CDs and video recordings.

Visual sound reproduction techniques form a necessary tool to be used both in the restoration of old recordings as well as in research. The so-called spectrographic representation of sound was made available already after World War 2; today it is accessible via specialized computer hard- and software like CSL (Computerized Speech Laboratory), Multi-Speech, Praat, etc. Sound analysis is used by the study group members in order to investigate the temporal structure of traditional music, changes in the sound quality due to bimusicality of certain tradition carriers, and properties of different vocal techniques. The latter question is important for both theory and pedagogical applications in the training of singers.

A recent study by Jaan Ross and Ilse Lehiste demonstrates how in the old Baltic Finnic folksongs, the so-called runic or Kalevala songs, speech and music as two separate sound systems mutually influence each other under conditions of co-existence. Triinu Ojamaa has studied different segmentation principles of the Samoyed musical tradition to be found in Siberia, and showed that cultural background plays a role in determination of how to divide a continuous acoustical signal into culturally relevant units. This kind of research has at least a double function: to mediate a particular musical tradition to the general ethnomusicological audience as well as to look into more fundamental laws of how speech and music are interconnected within the framework of singing, in other words - to try to answer the question of what singing actually is.

Alongside with the studies of music, some members of the group (Liina Saarlo and Mari Sarv, both doctoral students at the University of Tartu) also do research into the verbal texts of folksongs. The subject of the thesis by Mari Sarv is the regional characteristics of poetics in old Estonian folksongs, which concentrates on metrical and verse structural characteristics of this tradition. Her research is related to previously referred studies on text-and-tune relationship in the runic songs.

International contacts

Research of the study group "Poetical and musical folklore" generally follows the trends common to ethnomusicological studies in other European countries, regarding both methods and content. This has facilitated our integration into international research projects as well as professional organizations, such as the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology, etc. Since 2003 the study group participates in the project called "Citizens and Governance in Knowledge-Based Society" under the section "Music, National Identity, Ethnicity and Cultural Diversity in Europe". This project is aimed at coordinating research on popular music across Europe. In addition to the studies on authentic folk music, it focuses also on country music, jazz and rock, which from the Estonian perspective has been rather unusual. As to the cognitive musicology, the study group has in recent years developed contacts with the Department of Speech, Music and Hearing at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, with the Pavlov Institute of Physiology in St. Petersburg, Russia, and with the Ohio State University in Columbus, USA.

Publicatsions

Books:

Ross, J., Lehiste, I. The Temporal Structure of Estonian Runic Songs. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2001.
Ojamaa, T. Glissando nganassaani muusikas. Morfoloogiline, süntaktiline ja semantiline tasand [Glissando in Nganasan music: Morphological, syntactical and semantical levels]. Disseratationes Philologiae Uralicas Universitatis Tartuensis 5. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2000.
Sarv, V. Setu itkukultuur [The lament culture in Setu]. Ars Musicae Popularis 14. Tartu-Tampere: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum, Tampereen yliopiston kansanperinteen laitos, 2000.
Ojamaa, T., Rüütel, I. (koost. ja toim.). Pärimusmuusika muutuvas ühiskonnas 1. Töid etnomusikoloogia alalt 1 [Traditional music in changing society. Working Papers in Ethnomusicology]. Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum, 2002.

Articles:

Ojamaa, T. De quelques orientations nouvelles de la musique traditionelle nénetse. - Boreales. Revue du Centre de Recherches Inter-Nordiques, 82/85, 217-247, 2002.
Rüütel, I. Wedding Songs and Ceremonies of the Kihnu Island in Estonia. - The World of Music 3/2002: Traditional Music in Baltic Countries. Ed. Max Peter Bauman et al. Berlin: Verlag Wissenschaft und Bildung, 2003, 131-151.
Vissel, A. Estonian Herding Songs from the Perspective of Ethnic Relations. - The World of Music, 3. Ed. by M. P. Bauman. Berlin, 2002, 79-105.
Vurma, A., Ross, J. Priorities in voice training: Carrying power or tone quality? - Musicae Scientiae, 4 (1), 75-92, 2000.

CDs and CD-ROMs:

Eesti rahvamuusika antoloogia. Anthology of Estonian Traditional Music. Helisalvestusi Eesti Rahvaluule Arhiivist nr 3 [Recordings from the Estonian Folklore Archives]. Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum, EMKÜ, 2003.
Discovering Siberia: Songs of the Forest Nenets. Music of the Finno-Ugric Peoples 1. Koost. ja toim. T. Ojamaa. Tartu, 2002.
Kadripäev Kihnu saarel [St. Catherine's day on Kihnu island] 1997. Videofilm. I. Rüütel, E. Sinijärv, A. Vissel. Tartu, 2001.