Category: Music

Linguistic adventures

By Simon

This week I have been speaking quite a bit of Irish. Even though I rarely speak it at home, it is usually there when I need it. When trying to understand songs or poems in Irish, I realise that there are plenty of gaps in my vocabulary, but I can at least get the gist of them.

On Monday night there was a little Russian-speaking corner in the pub made up of three Belarusians, a Bulgarian, and me. I was able to understand quite a bit of what the others were saying in Russian, and to join in occasionally.

Yesterday I learnt a bit about Finnish language and culture from the Finnish guy who is doing the harp course. He told me that Finns tend to be less talkative than people from other countries, but that there is a lot of non-verbal communication between them.

I have also had opportunities to speak a bit of German, and have learnt a bit about German musical terms. For example, in German musical notes are not A to G, but A to H – H refers to B, and B refers to B♭, which is slighly confusing to someone used to the English system.

Do musical notes have other names in your language, or in other languages you know?

Magic Café

By Simon

Circe's Diner

Tonight I will mainly be listening to the band Circe’s Diner at Blue Sky Café. I haven’t heard them before, but their reviews are good. Also playing tonight is the Ewan Macintyre band.

When I saw the name, I naturally wondered how to pronounce circe, and where the word came from.

According to Wikipedia, circe is pronounced (/ˈsɜːrsiː/ (sursee), and comes from the Greek Κίρκη (Kírkē) [kírkɛ͜ɛ]).

In Greek mythology Circe is a goddess of magic, or a nymph, witch, enchantress or sorceress, daughter of the sun god Helios, and Perse, an Oceanid nymph.

The Ewan Macintyre Band

Harmony-loving chorus

By Simon

Last night I went to an excellent concert at the Pontio Arts Centre featuring the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the brilliant harpsichordist, Mahan Esfahani.

As well as enjoying the concert, I started thinking about the word philharmonic – what it means, where it comes from, and why it features in the names of many orchestras.

According to Wiktionary, philharmonic means “appreciative of music, but especially to its performance” or “A full-size symphony orchestra”. It comes from the French, philharmonique, from the Italian filarmonico (loving harmony), from the Greek φίλος (phílos – dear, beloved) + αρμονικός (armonikós – harmonic, harmonious) [source].

The name philharmonic was adopted by the Royal Philharmonic Society, which was established in London on 6th February 1813 by a group of thirty professional musicians. Its aims were to promote performances of instrumental music, and to build an orchestra, which initially played at the Argyll Rooms on Regent Street. Before then there were no permanent orchestras in London. After the Society was formed, other orchestras started to the word philharmonic to their names.

The word orchestra comes from the Greek ὀρχήστρα (orchistra), which was the area in front of the stage in an ancient Greek theatre reserved for the chorus, and comes from the word ὀρχοῦμαι (orkhoûmai – to dance).

The word symphony (an extended piece of music of sophisticated structure, usually for orchestra) comes from the Old French simphonie (musical harmony; stringed instrument), from Latin symphonia (harmony, symphony; a kind of musical instrument), from Ancient Greek συμφωνία (sumphōnía – symphony; a concert of vocal or instrumental music; music; band, orchestra; type of musical instrument), from σῠν- (sun – with, together) +‎ φωνή (phōnḗ – sound) [source].

Tuning into languages

By Simon

Yesterday I did an interview on Skype with a student of linguistics in Germany who is writing a thesis about acquiring native-like pronunciation in foreign languages. I talked about the methods I used to try to do this – listening, mimicing, learning about the phonology of a language, recording my voice and comparing to native speakers, and so on.

While we were chatting, it occured to me that speaking a foreign language is somewhat like playing a musical instrument, or to singing in tune with others. It particularly resembles playing an instrument like a violin or a trombone, which require you to constantly monitor whether the notes you’re playing are in tune with each other, and with other instruments, if you’re playing in an orchestra or other group, and to make adjustments as necessary.

Your voice is your instrument, and learning to pronounce a foreign language is like tuning your instrument. It’s not something you can do once then forget – to acquire native-like pronunciation you need to do a lot of listening and make lots of little adjustments to your pronunciation. It also helps if you understand how the sounds are produced, especially ones that don’t occur in your mother tongue – studying phonetics and phonology can help.

Even if you know nothing about music, you can probably hear when an instrument or voice is very out of tune. It just sounds wrong and clashes with the other instruments / voices. Similarly if your pronunciation of a foreign language is very different from native speakers, i.e. you have a strong accent, it will sound odd to them, and they may have trouble understanding you. The closer you can get to native-like pronunciation, the easier it will be to communicate.

Do you aim for native-like pronunciation in languages you’re learning?

How to go about this?

A Hooley of Ukeists

By Simon

Ukulele Hooley

I’m having a great time at the Ukulele Hooley this weekend, so I thought I’d look into some ukulele-related words.

There are various possible words for people who play the ukulele:

– Ukulele player
– Uker
– Ukist
– Ukeist
– Ukulist
– Ukulelist
– Ukuleleist
– Ukulelian
– Uke-phreak
– Ukester
– Ukestrator
– Ukeleler

There are also words for things ukulele-related: ucal (based on duke/ducal), or ukel (based on yokel).

Sources: forum.ukuleleunderground.com and MetaFilter

Then there are some words, which I just made up, for what ukulele players do, i.e. play the ukulele: uke, ukelize, ukify. Can you come up with any others?

Me playing one of my songs in the open mic at the 2016 Ukulele Hooley

I sang one my songs, Spollagyn son tey / Chips for tea, in the open mic session last might (see photo above). I usually sing it unaccompanied, and messed it up a bit at the start, but it went okay after that. I was also singing it from memory, which is fine when I’m just singing, but when I’m play the ukulele at the same time, it’s a lot more challenging, and definitely needs more practice.

So what would you call a group of ukulele players?

A strum, a hooley, or something else?

Suggestions welcome.

Other collective words for musician can be found at: https://thesession.org/discussions/27892

If you’re in the Dublin area today, why not come along to a free concert in the People’s Park in Dún Laoghaire this afternoon from 12pm.

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig

By Simon

This week I am doing a course in Scottish Gaelic songs at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on the Isle of Skye. While all the songs I’m learning are in Gaelic, the class it taught mainly in English, so I don’t get to speak much Gaelic in class. Outside class there are plenty of opportunities to speak Gaelic with college staff and other students, who are doing courses in language, fiddle or step dancing.

This is my fifth visit to the college, and each time my Gaelic gets a bit better. I rarely speak it at home, apart from to myself, but do listen to online Gaelic radio and occasionally read things in Gaelic. I tend to mix Irish and Scottish Gaelic a bit as I know a lot more Irish, and if I don’t know how to say something in Scottish Gaelic I try it in Irish. Sometimes it works.

On the way here and in the college I’ve heard and/or spoken quite a few different languages – plenty of English and Gaelic, and also Spanish, Italian, French, Irish, Welsh, Mandarin, Japanese, Russian and German. So this is a good place to practice a variety of languages.

Scatting

By Simon

Last night I saw an excellent group called Rag Mama, a duo from England who live in France and play American music, particularly blues and jazz. One of the songs they sang was Cab Calloway’s Minie the Moocher, which includes some scat singing in the chorus.

Wikipedia defines scat singing as “vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all.” It dates back probably to the early 20th century in the USA. The word scat in this context is probably of imitative origin [source].

In other musical traditions, such as in West Africa and South India, percussive rhythms can be sung and different types of drum beats are associated with particular syllables, but there is little or no improvisation.

Waulking songs (òrain luaidh) in Scottish Gaelic use meaningless syllables or vocables in their choruses, but there seems to be only a relatively small selection to choose from. I’ll be learning some waulking songs next at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on the Isle of Skye, where I’m doing a course in Scottish Gaelic songs. Here are some I’ve learned before.

Does anything like scat singing exist in other musical traditions?

Dardledumdue

By Simon

Today I came across the wonderful word dardledumdue. It means “daydreamer” in East Anglian dialect (east of England), and its origin is uncertain. Perhaps it’s the type of nonsense words a daydreamer might sing or mumble while daydreaming [source].

It also sounds like the kinds of ‘words’ some Irish singers use when lilting – a way of singing tunes with made-up words.

Here’s an example:

Another example:

Does anything like this exist elsewhere?

Hajej, můj zlatoušku

By Simon

One of my harps

Dnes jsem se naučil Česká píseň: “Hajej, můj zlatoušku”. To je záznam melodii hrál na harfu:

To je záznam mě zpívat tuto píseň:

Today I started learning the Czech song, “Hajej, můj zlatoušku”, which I think is a lullaby, as the title means something like “Sleep now my little golden one”.

I recorded the tune on the harp, and also recorded myself singing it unaccompanied.

Here’s another recording I made of this song:

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/241783557″ params=”color=ff5500&inverse=false&auto_play=false&show_user=true” width=”100%” height=”20″ iframe=”true” /]

This song comes from the book Třetí Výběr Českých a Moravských Písní (The Third Choice of Czech and Moravian Songs) by Helena Hasilová and Jiří Hasil, which a Czech friend gave me a few years ago.

The words are:

Hajej, můj zlatoušku hajej a spi,
zamhouři maličky očičky svý;
hajej, dadej, nynej, malej!
zamhouři maličký očičky svý.

Hajej, můj andílku, hajej a spi,
matička kolíbá děťátko svý;
hajej, dadej, nynej, malej!
matička kolíbá děťátko svý.

Another recording of this song:

Here’s a translation:

Sleep, my little golden one, sleep.
Close your little eyes and sleep.

Sleep, my little angel, sleep.
Mummy is rocking her little child to sleep.

Thanks to Kája Beránková for help with the translation. Díky!

Flan cupboards

By Simon

A Welsh plygain song I’ve been learning recently with some friends (Carol y Swper) features the word fflangell in the line “Ein Meichiau a’n Meddyg dan fflangell Iddweig”.

We weren’t sure what it meant at first, and guessed that it was some kind of container for a flan or a flan cupboard. A fflan is a flan, and cell means cell or bower, and in compound words can mean a container or building. For example oergell (cold cell) is a fridge, rhewgell (frost/ice cell) is a freezer, and llyfrgell (book cell) is a library.

So we thought the line meant something like “Our arms and doctor under the Jewish flan cupboard.” Hilarity ensued. It actually means “Our Surety and Healer under the Jewish scourge.”

You can hear the whole song at:

We will be singing in a plygain service in Bangor cathedral starting at 7pm on Friday 15th January as Parti Min Menai.

Do you have any examples of mistranslated or misheard song lyrics?