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Post by Mātōnya on May 6, 2019 22:26:04 GMT
If you like folk music/world music as I do, please post things for me to listen to! I listen to a lot of Latvian traditional music and Welsh traditional music, so I'll start by posting a tautas dziesma (Latvian folk song).
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Post by EB on May 6, 2019 23:17:55 GMT
I do love Wardruna.
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Post by Mātōnya on May 7, 2019 0:06:54 GMT
Oh yes, more Scandinavian stuff for me, please! I don't know much about that tradition. |
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Post by Mātōnya on May 8, 2019 12:31:04 GMT
Here's some more Latvian folk music for you morning. I really like both of these groups, Auļi and Tautumeitas. Auļi is primarily an instrumental group and Tautumeitas is a female choir, but they collaborate often.
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Post by fdc on May 9, 2019 7:44:48 GMT
Here's something you will like, Maeve. A celtic metal album that begins with a kind of appeal to the history and religion of the Helvetic people. There is also an epilogue of the same sort.
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Post by Mātōnya on May 9, 2019 9:36:00 GMT
Yay! You can always win me over with bagpipes.
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Post by Mātōnya on May 10, 2019 14:02:39 GMT
I have a passion for plucked strings, especially zither and harp. Here's a nice performance on the kokle (Baltic psaltery).
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Post by Mātōnya on May 11, 2019 14:48:51 GMT
Here's another one from Tautumeitas and Auļi.
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Post by Mātōnya on May 12, 2019 10:32:25 GMT
This is actually a Finnish song, not a Latvian one, but a quick story about it. For one, the main instrument is the Finnish kantale, which is related to the Latvian kokle (plucked zither) that you heard in some of the songs above. But more about the band itself, it's Loituma, the Finnish folk band made popular by the internet meme "leek spin". I had an album by Loituma way back in the 90s, and I remember the first time someone showed me "leek spin" that I was pretty impressed that even an obscure little Finnish folk trio could become a meme. But I really love the kantele as an instrument, the cousin of the Latvian kokle/kūkles and Lithuanian kanklės.
This is my favorite little tune to show my students when I explain what the Mixolydian mode is as well. Another thing you can find in the lyrics are references to the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic that contains many Finnish cultural myths, as well as an attitude that is perhaps a characteristic grimly Finnish outlook on the world (perhaps best exemplified by the concept of sisu in the Finnish language).
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gab
New Member
Posts: 5 
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Post by gab on May 12, 2019 16:16:51 GMT
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Post by Mātōnya on May 14, 2019 11:12:18 GMT
Time to watch a video about a terrifying folk tradition in Latgale.
Basically, people dress up in scary masks at Shrovetide (February) and try to steal your daughters and you have to bribe them to make them go away. Kind of like wassailing during Christmas, people coming around in costume looking for food and drink.
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Post by Mātōnya on May 16, 2019 15:12:41 GMT
Here's a nice sounding tune. It's basically talking about the long feuds between Russians and Baltic tribes. Because of the more modern conquest of Latvia by the Soviet Union and the minority Russian population throughout much of Latvia today (especially the Latgale region), these kinds of lyrics come across as dogwhistling a kind of nationalism that would see ethnic Russians expelled, and so that makes me uncomfortable. It's kind of a "Latvia for Baltic peoples!" anthem and it can be used for this kind of rhetoric. This is a quite a problem in the folk music community in general. A lot of the folk groups are ultranationalists, or in the very least, tend to fuel the fire for nationalists and racists and are appropriated for that use. Latvians see the Russians as conquerors and oppressors, and so there's an argument to be had that music like this is similar to the music we find in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales telling the English to go away and leave them to their traditions, but I'm not sure it's apt for the relationship between Latvians and Russians today, especially since ethnic Russians have lived in the Latgale for so many generations and many were probably themselves victims of forced relocation programs under the Soviets. Edit: I wanted to add that the symbol on the drum is not a swastika even though it features prominently in the cinematography of the video and would lend credence to the nationalistic overtones I pointed out above. This symbol has existed in the Baltic region for perhaps thousands of years and has a similar meaning to the swastika in India and other lands further east. In fact, they probably have the same origin. (The Baltic tribes were basically practicing an Indo-European religion similar to Hinduism before their Christianization by German-speaking crusaders in the 14th century, and the Baltic languages are themselves satem Indo-European languages that are remarkably similar to Sanskrit.) The symbol is called the ugunskrusts in Latvian and represents the sun goddess Saule (just like in Hinduism) or sometimes the storm god Pērkons. lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugunskrusts_(zīme) |
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