Carpe Diem #1509 Back to were we started ... Italy

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

We started our journey around the world on a quest for folkmusic in Italy and to make the circle complete (or closed) like a renga we will end our journey in Italy.

Italian folk music has a deep and complex history. Because national unification came late to the Italian peninsula, the traditional music of its many hundreds of cultures exhibit no homogeneous national character. Rather, each region and community possesses a unique musical tradition that reflects the history, language, and ethnic composition of that particular locale. These traditions reflect Italy's geographic position in southern Europe and in the centre of the Mediterranean; Celtic, Roma, and Slavic influences, as well as rough geography and the historic dominance of small city states, have all combined to allow diverse musical styles to coexist in close proximity.

Italian folk styles are very diverse, and include monophonic, polyphonic, and responsorial song, choral, instrumental and vocal music, and other styles. Choral singing and polyphonic song forms are primarily found in northern Italy, while south of Naples, solo singing is more common, and groups usually use unison singing in two or three parts carried by a single performer. Northern ballad-singing is syllabic, with a strict tempo and intelligible lyrics, while southern styles use a rubato tempo, and a strained, tense vocal style. Folk musicians use the dialect of their own regional tradition; this rejection of the standard Italian language in folk song is nearly universal. There is little perception of a common Italian folk tradition, and the country's folk music never became a national symbol.

Carnival of Venice

Italian folk songs include ballads, lyrical songs, lullabies and children's songs, seasonal songs based around holidays such as Christmas, life-cycle songs that celebrate weddings, baptisms and other important events, dance songs, cattle calls and occupational songs, tied to professions such as fishermen, shepherds and soldiers. Ballads (canti epico-lirici) and lyric songs (canti lirico-monostrofici) are two important categories. Ballads are most common in northern Italy, while lyric songs prevail further south. Ballads are closely tied to the English form, with some British ballads existing in exact correspondence with an Italian song. Other Italian ballads are more closely based on French models. Lyric songs are a diverse category that consist of lullabies, serenades and work songs, and are frequently improvised though based on a traditional repertoire.

Other Italian folk song traditions are less common than ballads and lyric songs. Strophic, religious laude, sometimes in Latin, are still occasionally performed, and epic songs are also known, especially those of the maggio celebration. Professional female singers perform dirges similar in style to those elsewhere in Europe. Yodeling exists in northern Italy, though it is most commonly associated with the folk musics of other Alpine nations. The Italian Carnival is associated with several song types, especially the Carnival of Bagolino, Brescia. Choirs and brass bands are a part of the mid-Lenten holiday, while the begging song tradition extends through many holidays throughout the year.

To end our journey around the world on our quest for folk music I have chosen the Carnival of Venice, as the above image shows. There is a wonderful piece of music titled "Carnival of Venice" by Paganini (1782-1840). And ... however this isn't really folkmusic ... it's a nice way to close this wonderful month.

But to give you all the opportunity to create your Japanese poetry based on folk music I also have a nice Italian folksong for your inspiration.

Make your choice, or maybe you dare to use both pieces of music ... it's up to you.

I ran through my archives and ran into a nice cascading haiku that fits this theme in a nice, but extraordinary way. I wrote this cascading haiku back in 2016 in response on a CDHK episode written by Hamish Managua Gunn.

Venice Carnival

dark green eyes

hidden behind a mask -

she's mysterious

she's mysterious

breathtaking glamorous mask

attractive force

attractive force

mystical and magical

who is she?

who is she?

thrills of unmasking at midnight

exposed to the world

exposed to the world

she turns into a man with

dark green eyes

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... this was the last episode of our wonderful journey around the world on a quest for folkmusic. I hope you all enjoyed this wonderful month, this journey ... thank you all for participating in this journey.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 6th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new weekend meditation later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #1508 Easter Island's music of the Rapa Nui

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Do you know Easter Island? That island with its hundreds of stone carved heads on pedastals? Welcome at the penultimate episode of this wonderful month in which we were on a journey around the world on a quest for folkmusic.

I am intrigued by Easter Island and its inhabitants that are Polynesian by origine, but have created their own culture on Easter Island. I love to tell you a little bit more about Easter Island's inhabitants, the Rapa Nui (people).

Easter Island

The Rapa Nui are the aboriginal Polynesian inhabitants of Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean. The easternmost Polynesian culture, the descendants of the original people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) make up about 60% of the current Rapa Nui population and have a significant portion of their population residing in mainland Chile. They speak both the traditional Rapa Nui language and the primary language of Chile, Spanish. At the 2002 census there were 3,304 island inhabitants—almost all living in the village of Hanga Roa. Hanga Roa is the main town, harbour and capital of Easter Island, a province of Chile. It is located in the southern part of the island's west coast, in the lowlands between the extinct volcanoes of Terevaka and Rano Kau.

Hanga Roa Harbour

What kind of music they have on Easter Island? Are their songs all about Easter? Or are their songs more Polynesian of nature. Let us explore that a little bit.

The music of Easter Island has a most distinctive Tahitian influence and comprises traditional singing and chanting. In this sense, every family forms a choir. Each of these groups views in imagination with the others in relating the life of the community and thus perpetuating the memory of the Rongorongo. In the past, these groups had come together each year to take part in the contest. Supposedly judged in an unbiased manner, the contest results in disputations and quarrels which can go on until the following year and the next contest.

In the early days, these groups were accompanied by the conch-shell trumpet with rhythm being provided by a dancer leaping on a thin stone slab set over a pit containing a large calabash resonator. It is also believed that in the early days stone castanets were also used. Unfortunately, none of these instruments remain in use today and singers are now accompanied by guitars. In common with other Polynesians, the traditional music also forms the basis for the dance.

Traditional Easter Island Dance (Rapanookee vona)

Contemporary Easter Island music tells stories about the arrival and departure of loved ones, the story of the new bride which praises marriage, the villages, the sunrise and the wind blowing on the island. There are also songs which are concerned with the past, the Rongorongo tradition which traces the history of the family from the very earliest times along with the song of the moai sculptures in which the rhythm is provided by the striking together of two stones, representing the sound of the sculptors of the giant statues at work in the quarries.

What a wonderful story this was. It felt almost as being there on that strange Easter Island with those nice Moai  statues. A mysterious island, but the music of this island is really gorgeous and I hoe you will like it as much as I did.

Well ... did you like the song? Did the music inspire you? It inspired me ...

Rapa Nui
mysterious land of the Moai
a new day rises

© Chèvrefeuille (experimental)

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 5th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our last episode of this month later on.

Carpe Diem #1507 Folk music of the Faroe Islands

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Yesterday we visited Argentina and listened to their wonderful Tango music and it was a joy. Today we will go further on our journey around the world on a quest for folkmusic. What will be our new destination? Well ... we will visit the Faroe Islands and one of their renown musicians is Eivor Palsdottir. I think we have had one of her songs earlier in our rich history. I think it was in a CD Special written by our Hamish Managua Gunn about Shaman Haiku, a kind of haiku inspired on the ancient rituals of the shaman. A nice CD Special to read again with a lot of wonderful "shaman"-haiku.

Awesome music from the Faroe Islands by renown singer Eivor. Enjoy listening and watching this beautiful music video.

Here is a "shaman"-haiku from my archives:

sound of the earth
an eagle points the path of the shaman
finally free

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 4th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our penultimate episode later on.

Don't forget our 2nd edition of the Troiku Kukai. You can find the link to it at the left of our Kai. This Troiku Kukai runs until September 15th at 10:00 PM (CEST).

Carpe Diem #1506 Tango ... passionate music from Argentina

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a journey this month is. We have visited wonderful places and listened to wonderful folkmusic. I remember that we had a few of these folkmusic episodes in our rich history and maybe you can remember this episode: Tango (Argentina) (published on February 6th 2013)

And as the title of this episode already reveals that's the country we are going to visit today. I am not a great dancer and for sure I am not a Tango dancer, but I love the dance and the music used for it. It sounds great and the Tango looks so sensual, romantic and passionate that I just have to listen and enjoy Tango dancers.

passionate
the love of my life seduces me
I am on fire

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... maybe you are into Tango now ... I hope it will inspire you to create haiku, tanka or other form of Japanese poetry.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 3rd at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our next episode later on.

Carpe Diem #1505 Haku Mele, the music of Hawaii

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the first episode of the last week of August, the month in which we were on a journey around the world on a quest for folk music. We have visited all regions of the world, but today we will visit Hawaii, a wonderful state of the US, and a wonderful island I think. I have never been there, but I have seen wonderful images of this unique island.

Hawaii

Hawaiian folk music includes several varieties of chanting (mele) and music meant for highly ritualized dance (hula). Traditional Hawaiian music and dance was functional, used to express praise, communicate genealogy and mythology, and accompany games, festivals and other secular events. The Hawaiian language has no word that translates precisely as music, but a diverse vocabulary exists to describe rhythms, instruments, styles and elements of voice production. Hawaiian folk music is simple in melody and rhythm, but is "complex and rich" in the "poetry, accompanying mimetic dance (hula), and subtleties of vocal styles... even in the attenuated forms in which they survive today".

The chant (mele) is typically accompanied by an ipu heke (a double gourd) and/or pahu (sharkskin covered drum). Some dances require dancers to utilize hula implements such as an ipu (single gourd), ʻiliʻili (waterworn lava stone castanets),ʻuliʻuli (feathered gourd rattles), pu`ʻli (split bamboo sticks) or kalaʻau (rhythm sticks). The older, formal kind of hula is called kahiko, while the modern version is ʻauana. There are also religious chants called ʻoli; when accompanied by dancing and drums, it is called mele hula pahu.

In the pre-contact Hawaiian language, the word mele referred to any kind of poetic expression, though it now translates as song. The two kinds of Hawaiian chanting were mele oli and mele hula. The first were a cappella individual songs, while the latter were accompanied dance music performed by a group. The chanters were known as haku mele and were highly trained composers and performers. Some kinds of chants express emotions like angst and affection, or request a favor from another person. Other chants are for specific purposes like naming, (mele inoa), prayer (mele pule), surfing (mele he'e nalu) and genealogical recitations (mele koihonua). Mele chants were governed by strict rules, and were performed in a number of styles include the rapid kepakepa and the enunciate koihonua. (Source: wikipedia)

Wow ...! What a wonderful music this is. I could easily imagine Hawaii and being there. Really I enjoyed this music.

waves
while volcanoes erupt
mele pule

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I am a little bit late with this episode, but ... I think you don't have a problem with that.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 2nd at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on.

Carpe Diem #1503 The Music of the Inuit

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

This will be again a small episode I think, but it's a nice one too I think. Today I have a nice piece of folkmusic from the Inuit, a race living in the Northern parts of Canada and Greenland. I am late with this episode because I had a very busy evening shift at work. So my excuses for being this late with publishing.

The above Inuit song is titled "Sedna". Sedna is the Inuit Goddess of the Sea. Listen to this beautiful music with respect for Sedna.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 29th at noon (CEST). I hope to publish our next episode later on if work isn't to busy I hope.

Carpe Diem #1501 Rimur, folkmusic from Iceland

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Today we arrive at Iceland on our quest around the world for folkmusic. The music of Iceland can be traced back to the 14th century. The "oldest" known folkmusic of Iceland is the so called Rimur. What is Rimur? Let me tell you a little about it.

Rímur is a type of epic vocal poem, with fixed diatonic melodies. Rímur melodies (rímnalög, kvæðalög, stemmur) are often standard, and found throughout the country. These epic poems are written in a narrative style, using elements of Icelandic literature and folklore. The performers were lauded for their ability to tell a story in verses. A rímur verse is made up of trochaic lines which use literary techniques such as rhyme and alliteration. There are between two and four lines with a pattern of syllabic stress and alliteration. Music author Hreinn Steingrímsson describes rímur this way:

[...] "The four-line metres are a combination of two couplets with four stressed syllables in the first line of each, and two such syllables (first and third, second and third, or third and fourth) alliterate with the first stressed syllable of the second line."[...]

The earliest known text of a rímur dates to the 14th century; for the subsequent six hundred years, the rímur texts were the most prolifically produced form of Icelandic literature. Rímur melodies date back to publications by folklorist Ólafur Davíðsson and were then collected in the first Icelandic folk music collection, Íslenzk þjóðlög, by Bjarni Þorsteinsson.

Rímur, specially the short four-line metres form "ferskeytla", is still very popular today in Iceland in most social groups. It is common to put together a ríma (setja saman stöku) about current events usually in the form of a joke or ridicule. These short rhymes tend to proliferate via email. It is also common during parties that a guest may say a ríma that he has learned or composed as a form of a joke, often an insult. Skill at composing rímur is often an admired skill.

A common game is to tell the first part ("fyrri partur", the first two lines) of a ríma, and for others to complete the third and fourth lines (to "botna"), each in their own way. The one whose "botn" is the cleverest wins. This game can become a serious competition (known as "kveðast á") when two or more who are particularly skilled at composing rímur come together. It is an informal rule that if one is ridiculed or even insulted with a ríma he must answer back in kind; any other form of answer is invalid.

Icelandic landscape

The above explanation of the game with rima sounds great and in a way looks similar with Tan Renga or Renga. Two nice Japanese poetry forms created by two (or more) haiku poets.

I hoped to find an example of this rami, but I didn't succeed. Therefore I love to share a nice Icelandic poem by Jonas Hallgrimmson:

Serene and warm, now southern winds come streaming
     to waken all the billows on the ocean,
     who crowd toward Iceland with an urgent motion —
     isle of my birth! where sand and surf are gleaming.

Oh waves and winds! embrace with bold caresses
     the bluffs of home with all their seabirds calling!
     Lovingly, waves, salute the boats out trawling!
     Lightly, oh winds, kiss glowing cheeks and tresses!

Herald of spring! oh faithful thrush, who flies
     fathomless heaven to reach our valleys, bearing
     cargoes of song to sing the hills above:

there, if you meet an angel with bright eyes
     under the neat, red-tasseled cap she's wearing,
     greet her devoutly! That's the girl I love.

© Jonas Hallgrimmson

What a wonderful poem this is, but not really my "cup of tea". I am not a big fan of creating this kind of poetry, but I love reading poetry in all its wonderful ways.

seabirds cry without tears
waves caressing the shore
a warm embrace

© Chèvrefeuille (experimental)

What a wonderful music ... really amazing and I hope you liked it too. I hope this music will inspire you.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 27th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our next episode later on.

Carpe Diem #1488 The Soul of Portugal (Fado)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

August has started with a "bang". Yesterday I published our first episode of our new month in which we will travel around the world to find folkmusic of all kinds. We started in Southern Italy and today we will travel on to Portugal, because Portugal is the place for you if you like Fado.

Fado ("destiny, fate") is a music genre that can be traced to the 1820s in Lisbon, Portugal, but probably has much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar Rui Vieira Nery states that "the only reliable information on the history of Fado was orally transmitted and goes back to the 1820s and 1830s at best. But even that information was frequently modified within the generational transmission process that made it reach us today."

Although the origins are difficult to trace, today fado is commonly regarded as simply a form of song which can be about anything, but must follow a certain traditional structure. In popular belief, fado is a form of music characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics, often about the sea or the life of the poor, and infused with a sentiment of resignation, fatefulness and melancholia. This is loosely captured by the Portuguese word saudade, or "longing", symbolizing a feeling of loss (a permanent, irreparable loss and its consequent lifelong damage). This is similar to the character of several musical genres in Portuguese ex-colonies such as morna from Cape Verde, which may be historically linked to fado in its earlier form but has retained its rhythmic heritage. This connection to the music of a historic Portuguese urban and maritime proletariat (sailors, dock workers, port traders and other working-class people in general) can also be found in Brazilian modinha and Indonesian kroncong, although all these music genres subsequently developed their own independent traditions. (Source: Wikipedia)

One of Portugal's most famous Fado-singers is Amalia Rodriques, so I love to share a Fado song by her. Enjoy!

tears flow
memories of lost love
my soul hurts

© Chèvrefeuille

Isn't that the emotion, the feeling while listening to Fado? 

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 8th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. 

Carpe Diem #1487 Dance of the Spider (Tarantella)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome a the first episode of our new month of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. July was about Imagination Without Limits and that month was a joy, but this month, August 2018, will be an adventure I think. I will take you on a journey around the world on a quest for folkmusic.

Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century, but is often applied to music older than that. Some types of folk music are also called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles.

Women dancing the Tarantella (By Apollon Mokritsky - Old Picture, Public Domain)

So this month will be a joyful one, because we will discover wonderful music. In every episode I will try to give you some background on the music and a musical video to inspire you. Let us start with this virtual journey around the world in search of folkmusic in Southern Italy with the Tarantella.

Let me tell you a little bit of the background of the Tarantella:

Tarantella is a group of various folk dances characterized by a fast upbeat tempo, usually in 6

₈ time (sometimes ¹⁸
₈ or ⁴
₄), accompanied by tambourines. It is among the most recognized forms of traditional southern Italian music.

In the Italian province of Taranto, Apulia, the bite of a locally common type of wolf spider, named "tarantula" after the region, was popularly believed to be highly venomous and to lead to a hysterical condition known as tarantism. This became known as the Tarantella.

Tarantism, as a ritual, has roots in the ancient Greek myths. Reportedly, victims who had collapsed or were convulsing would begin to dance with appropriate music and be revived as if a tarantula had bitten them. The music used to treat dancing mania appears to be similar to that used in the case of tarantism though little is known about either. Justus Hecker (1795–1850), describes in his work Epidemics of the Middle Ages:

[...] "A convulsion infuriated the human frame [...]. Entire communities of people would join hands, dance, leap, scream, and shake for hours [...]. Music appeared to be the only means of combating the strange epidemic [...] lively, shrill tunes, played on trumpets and fifes, excited the dancers; soft, calm harmonies, graduated from fast to slow, high to low, prove efficacious for the cure." [...]

The music used against spider bites featured drums and clarinets, was matched to the pace of the victim, and is only weakly connected to its later depiction in the tarantellas of Chopin, Liszt, Rossini, and Heller.

While most serious proponents speculated as to the direct physical benefits of the dancing rather than the power of the music a mid-18th century medical textbook gets the prevailing story backwards describing that tarantulas will be compelled to dance by violin music. It was thought that the Lycosa tarantula wolf spider had lent the name "tarantula" to an unrelated family of spiders, having been the species associated with Taranto, but since L. tarantula is not inherently deadly, the highly venomous Mediterranean black widow, Latrodectus tredecimguttatus, may have been the species originally associated with Taranto's manual grain harvest.

The above video shows you the Tarantella as it is performed in Apulia Italy as a kind of healing dance after a woman is bitten by a wolfspider (as legends tell us). It sounds awesome and I can imagine that this up tempo music makes the woman sweat a lot. Legend tells that through sweating the venomous poison of the Wolfspider is leaving the body and makes the woman healthy again. That's why the Tarantella is also called "Dance of the Spider".

cobweb trembles
a spider crawls to its prey
nimble dancer

© Chèvrefeuille

I hope you did like this episode and that it will inspire you to create Japanese poetry.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until August 7th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our next episode, Fado, later on. For now ... have fun!

PS.: I hope to publish our August prompt-list later this week.