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Приспивната песен в музикалнокултурното минало
Lullabies in music-cultural past

Author(s): Rossitsa Draganova
Subject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences, Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Customs / Folklore, Music, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
Published by: Институт за изследване на изкуствата, Българска академия на науките
Keywords: Lullaby; music culture; music genre; cradle song; ethnological specifics.

Summary/Abstract: Lullabies are defined mainly pertaining to the primary function behind them (soothing infants to send them to sleep), underscoring the universality, expressed in their popularity as a genre of the traditional songness of different peoples. The tempo, dynamics, the character of the tonal movement are accentuated as well as the repetition of certain melodic and rhythmic figures. Synonymously, ‘cradle song’ is used instead of the term, which is possible only in certain languages. The paper seeks to present and problematize information of its aspects and specifics related to the analysis of particular music-cultural fields. Accumulating data builds on the notions of lullabies facilitating the comprehensive understanding of this multilayered phenomenon, varying from type to type of the music culture within which they function: traditional culture, works by European composers, pop music, everyday practices, etc. Data and sources of the parameters, the specifics and the role of ‘hushabies’: tunes for sending children to sleep in Bulgarian folklore are also commented. The ‘extra-regional’ nature of this traditional phenomenon is underscored, as well as the fact that the performance of lullabies or improvising versions of those seem to repeat that age-old archaic moment, when speech and singing have been a syncretic whole, revealing the deep nature of lullabies as the matrix of a kind of song and other genres. Another discussion area is shaped by the popular examples of the Europium past, analysed by Ella de Schultz–Adaïewsky in her study La berceuse populaire. Essaie d’étude rythmique et ethnologique préparée, published in Rivista Musicale Italiano (RIM) quarterly, in issues of 1894, 1895 and 1897. In the process of analysing the aforementioned areas, the issue of the ethnological similarities and particularities​ of lullabies of the musical and cultural past of various nations is commented. Socially and culturally and in terms of the parameters of the musical genre, this study enriches the notions of the role of this phenomenon.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 21-35
  • Page Count: 15
  • Language: Bulgarian