Triona Ni Siochain, Singing Ideas

Song is an experience, a “passing through”. Song is a social and artistic process with the capacity to
regenerate. Therefore song is more than just a text, orality is much more than just a precursor to
word on page, and its true potency lies in the moment of performance itself, in the very experience
of song and singing in body and emotion. Song was a realm of possibility. (3)

(Songs) can equally be understood as a social processes that have shaped history, as real-life
moments in time that may have determined personal persuasions, political developments or the
very way in which we interpret the world. (3)

The importance of singing for thought formation in society

Oral poetry was a superb medium for both political thought and political engagement.

Song titualizes the passing through of experience, articulating and re-presenting its formative power

Central role of the song in political engagement, in social expression and in negotiating power with
the society (9)

These living and historical traditions of orality, which tell of the re-creativity and contemporaneity of
oral tradition and of the vital relevance of song to power negotiations in society, will help us imagine
an alternative history of ideas that had as its core the performative force of song (9)

The songs are inherently prone to multiformity through re-creative transmission from singer to
singer, and from generation to generation (9)

Song provided a special medium by which the subaltern were allowed a voice that often was
recognized even by the powerful in society (10-11)

Often the subaltern was not allowed to speak dissent, they were allowed to sing dissent (11)

(song) is also linked to the development of anticolonial thought as the song travels through
generations of singers down to the postcolonial era (12)

Orality embodies, therefore, not just the ideas of the author , but the engagement of the singer and
the community giving us a sense of a living history of thought (12)

In contemporary oral tradition, song or oral poetry is often at the heart of political processes and
idea formation (13)

Song, therefore, can be seen to negotiate power, to intervene, to protest (14)

Orality does much more than preserve, rather it renews and re-creates and can be an extraordinary
force in challenging the status quo, political positions or, indeed, social norms. (15)

Song is therefore a regulatory force, a ‘counter-power’, used by the vulnerable to protect their
interests and make their case. (16)

It is essential not to discount the validity of songs in historical and social analysis due to this
multiformity integral to many oral forms, but embrace it. (19)

Where text is cold, song is hot. Where modern textual culture performs detachment, song performs
immediacy. (21)
Maire Bhui draw strongly from common formulas and themes, and that she is also represented as
having had a great ‘flood of speech’ (69) … an aestathic that is strongly associated with oral
formulaic composition
Albert B. Lord singer of tales

Introduction

Oral epic song is narrative poetry composed in a manner evolved over many generations by singers
of tales who did not know how to write; it conists of the building of metrical lines and half lines by
means of formulas and formulaic expressions and of the building of songs by the use of themes. (4)

By formula I mean “a group of words which is regularly employed under the same metrical
conditions to express a given essential Idea”. (Parry) (4)

By formulaic expression I denote a line or half line constructed on the pattern of the formulas. By
theme I refer to the repeated incidents and descriptive passages in the song (4)

Every performance is a separate song; for every performance is unique, and every performance
bears the signature of its poet singer. (4)

The singer of tales is at once the tradition and an individual creator. His manner of composition
differs from that used by a writer in that the oral poet makes no conscious effort to break the
traditional phrases and incidents; he is forced by the rapidity of composition in performance to use
these tradition elements (4)

His art consists not so much in learning through repetition the time worn formulas as in the ability to
compose and recompose the phrases for the idea of the moment on the pattern established by the
basic formulas. He is not a conscious iconoclast, but a traditional creative artist. His traditional style
also has individuality, and it is possible to distinguish the songs of one singer from those of another,
even when we have only the bare text (5)

What is important is not the oral performance but rather the composition during oral performance
(5)

Chapter two: singers performance and training

For the oral poet the moment of composition is the performance (13)

In the case og a literary poem there is a gap in time between composition and reading or
performance; in the case of the oral poem this gap does not exist, because composition and
performance are two aspects of the same moment. (13)

Singer, performer, composer, and poet are one under different aspects but at the same time. (13)

Singers who have memorized songs from these collections. In spite of authentic manner of
presentation, in spite of the fact that the songs themselves are often oral poems, we cannot
consider such singers as oral poets. They are mere performers (14)

The length of the song depends upon the audience. (17)

If we are fully aware that the singer is composing as he sings, the most striking element in the
performance itself is the speed with which he proceeds. (17)

No conflict between preserver of tradition and creative artist; it is rather one of the preservation of
tradition by the constant re-creation of it. (29)

Chapter three formulas

Definition of the “formula” as “a group of words which is regularly employed under the same
metrical conditions to express a given essential idea” (Parry) (30)

These “restrictive” elements he comes to know from much listening to the songs about him and
from being engrossed in their imaginative world. (32)

The singer of tales does not “memorize” formulas, any more than we as children “memorize”
language. He learns them by hearing them in other singers’ songs, and by habitual usage they
become part of his singing as well. (36)

The value to us of drawing up a number of substitution systems is that we immediately begin to see
that the singer has not had to learn a large number of separate formulas. The commonest ones
which he first uses set a basic pattern, and once he has the basic pattern firmly iin his grasp, he
needs only to substitute another word for the key one. (36)

He must make his feeling for the patterning of lines, which he has absorbed earlier, specific with
actual phrases and lines, and by the necessity of performance learn to adjust what he hears and
what he wants to say to these patterns. (37)

Two ways by which a phrase is produced; ine is by rememebering it, the other is through creating it
by analogy with other phrases (43)

Common stock of formulas known to all practitioners of the art of traditional narrative poetry
represents the most common and most useful idea in the poetry (49)

This common stock of formulas gives the traditional songs a homogeneity which strikes the listener
or reader as soon as he has heard or read more than one song and creates the impression that all
singers know all the same formulas. (49)

We have spoken only of single lines and their parts. In actuality, lines cannot be isolated from what
precedes them. The singer’s problem is to construct one line after another very rapidly. The need for
the “next” line is upon him even before he utters the final syllable of a line. There is urgency. To
meet it the singer builds patterns of sequences of lines, which we know of as the “parallelisms” of
oral style. (54)

The poetic grammar of oral epic is and must be based on the formula. It is a grammar of parataxis
and of frequently used and useful phrases. (65)

The singer’s mode of composition is dictated by the demands of performance at high speed, and he
depends upon inculcated habit and association of sounds, words, phrases, and lines. (65)

From the point of view of usefulness in composition, the formula means its essential idea; that is to
say, a noun-epiphet formula has the essential idea of its noun. The “drunken tavern” means “tavern”
(65)

The formula not only is stripped to its essential idea in the mind of the composing singer, but also is
denied some of the possibilities of aesthetic reference in context. (65-66)

Chapter four The theme

(Formulas) provide a means for telling a story in song and verse. The tale’s the thing. (68)
Anyone who reads through a collection of oral epic from any country is soon aware that the same
basic incidents and descriptions are met with time and again. (68)

I have called the groups of ideas regularly used in telling a tale in the formulaic style of traditional
songs the “themes” of the poetry. (68)

(the poet) absorbs a sense of the structure of these themes from his earliest days, just as he absorbs
the rhythms and patterns of the formulas, since the two go hand in hand. (69)

The theme, even though it be verbal, is not any fixed set of words, but a grouping of ideas. (69)

Some singers, of course, do not change their wording much from one singing to another, especially if
the song is one that they sing often (69)

In building a large theme the poet has a plan of it in his mind beyond the bare necessities of
narrative. There are elements of order and balance within themes (92)

Stronf force that keep themes together (98)

Chapter five songs and the song

The singer thinks of his song in terms of a flexible plan of themes, some of which are essential, some
of which are not. (99)

Any particular song is different in the mouth of each of its singers. (100)

In some respects the larger themes and the song are alinke. Their outward form and their specific
content are ever changing. (100)

Our real difficulty arises from the fact that, unlike the oral poet we are not accustomed to think in
terms of fluidity. We find it difficult to grasp something that is multiform.. It seems to us necessary
to construct an ideal text or to seek an original, and we remain dissatisfied with an ever changing
phenomenon. I believe that once we know the facts of oral composition we must cease trying to find
an original of any traditional song. From one point of view each performance is an original (100)

Actually, only the man with writing seems to worry about this, just as only he looks for the
nonexistent, illogical, and irrelevant “original” (100)

If we cease to expect verbal identity between different performances of the same song, whether
they be by different singers or by the same one, whether they be over a shorter or a longer period of
time, we are bound to notice that there are a few simple types of differences between them:
elaboration or simplification; the same thing told whith more ore less detail; different order in a
series; usually the revers order, but sometimes merely a different order. (119)

Chapter six writing and oral tradition

A written text can be made of the words of songs. The singer who dictated it was its “author”, and it
reflected a single moment in the tradition. It was unique. (124)

( the difference between the oral way of thought and the written way of thought. The transcription
became “the original” and the people outside of the tradition (singer and audience) see it as the
song). (125)
Bernard lortat – Jacob improvisation et modele: le chant a guitare sarde

S’improvise, et ce de façon specifique selon les endorits ou il est execute : la maison ; les bars,
exclusivement masculins au moins d’un cote du comptoir ; la place publique (68)

Quelles que soient les circostances, c’est toujours un petit groupe qui s’exprime sur une trame
musicale commune à laquelle chacun apporte sa propre variante mais… le nombre de ses membres
n’est pas strictement défini. (69)

Le nombre des chanteurs n’est jamais fixé d’avance ; ils se recrutent spontanément dans l’assistance
et chacun est invité à prendre son tour. Ce sont surtout des hommes, mais les femmes si elles en
trouvent le temps ou l’occasion, peuvent aussi chanter. (69)

Les rapports sociaux que le chant à guitare suscite sont l’exacte réplique de ceux qui s’éetablissent
dans un bar, lieu public ouvert et espace de connaissances et d’habitudes communes. (69)

Le groupe comprend nécessairement un guitariste. Il arrive que celui-ci prenne éegalement son tour
dans le caìhant, mais le fait est plutôt rare, et il est habituellement au service des chanteurs, même
si comme c’est toujours le cas, il sait aussi chanter. Il possède des compétences que les chanteurs
n’ont pas, notamment celle qui consiste a trouver dans l’istant sur son instrument les accords qui
s’harmniseront avec le chant de ses compagnons. (69)

Une des caractéristiques du chant à guitare est en effet que chacun y conserve, et y affirme, son
individualité. (69)

lE texte des chants est le produit d’une sélection plutôt que d’une improvisation. Chacun puise dans
un corpus poétique déjà constitué et souvent même publié (notamment dans les recueils de poésie
édités depuis le début du XIX siècle en Sardaigne même). Souvent le poème retenu est fragmenté en
distiques séparés que se distribuent les chanteurs présents. (69)

La gara, joute musicale au cours de laquelle les deux ou trois chanteurs invités, accompagnés d’un
guitariste, rivalisent d’imagination musicale et s’efforcent de faire reconnaitre la qualité de leur
prestation. (72)

Cette gara strictement musicale obéit à un principe d’alternance entre les protagonistes. La
distribution des distiques est régulière e il est exclu qu’un chanteur intervienne deux fois de suite ou
saute son tour. Dès lors, chaque variation improvisée est produite et reçue en fonction soit de ce qui
la précède dans la chaine, soit d’un archétype inscrit dans les mémoires, le modèle mère dont nous
parlions plus haut. Dans le premier case, une variation est appréciée par rapport à la précédente – et
le chanteur par rapport à son prédécesseur. Dans le deuxiem Cas, l’apprèciation ne sollicite pas la
mémoire immédiate mais dépend de règles esthétiques établies indépendamment d’exécutions
particulières. 72-73

Le canto in re, le plus répandu et celui par lequel commencent toujours les joutes musicales. 73

Le modèle mère n’est pas une forme totalement et pleinement constituée. … il s’agit plutôt d’un
ensemble de formes occasionnellement cristallisées en des exécutions particulières dans la bouche
des femmes et des enfants ou sous les doigts des guitaristes débutants. Cette cristallisation, produit
de forces dynamiques en état de stabilité provisoire et non amalgame de traits totalement soudés,
est assez fragile, le niveaux structuraux (metrique, mélodique, harmonique) qui entrent dans la
composition du modèle étant en interaction active. 73