The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

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Žanna Pärtlas
melodic lines cannot be separated.
Anne Vabarna’s performance was compared with three more recent multi-channel recordings. One of
these is the narrative song sung by the singers from Mikitamäe and Värska villages and recorded in a studio in
1996 using a multi-channel tape-recorder (6-channel recording). <strong>The</strong> two other songs (both are <strong>The</strong> Grinding
Stone song) were performed by the Leiko and Kuldatsäuk choirs from Värska village in 2006 and recorded
digitally (9-channel recordings). <strong>The</strong> data concerning the three multi-channel recordings are taken from the
student work by Aare Tool, made under my supervision in 2009 (Tool, 2009). He analysed three melostrophes
from each song, which makes 72 tune variants in all. <strong>The</strong> tune version recorded in 1996 and 2006 differs
to some extent from that by Anne Vabarna, but they are similar enough to be compared. <strong>The</strong> generalized
transcription of the first melostrophe of <strong>The</strong> Grinding Stone song performed by the Leiko choir is provided
in ex. 4 (audio ex. 2).
For acoustic analysis the speech analysis program PRAAT was used. In the multi-channel recordings the
pitch of the tones was measured using the possibility, provided by the Praat software, to see an average pitch
for the selected area. For the purposes of measurement the most stable fragments of the tones were chosen.
<strong>The</strong> program can show the results in semitones in relation to the A note above middle C (i.e. 440 Hz). In the
case of non-multi-channel recording (it is “<strong>The</strong> Grinding Stone” song performed by Anne Vabarna’s duo),
the procedure of measurement was more complex. In this song the fundamental frequencies of the tones were
measured from the spectra, and the pitches in semitones were calculated using the program Microsoft Excel.
To find the average pitch of the tones each conditional eighth note was measured in two places; quarter notes
were measured in four places. In Anne Vabarna’s song 6 melostrophes were analysed.
As one can hear from audio examples 1 and 2, the tuning of Anne Vabarna’s duo and that of the
contemporary Setu choirs is significantly different. <strong>The</strong> song by the choir Leiko (audio ex. 2) sounds almost
diatonic. <strong>The</strong> tuning of Anne Vabarna’s duo (audio ex. 1) sounds very unusual because they use the one-threesemitone
mode. <strong>The</strong> results of the acoustical measurements confirm this impression.
<strong>The</strong> average intervals between adjacent scale notes in the four performances under consideration are
provided in the table (tab. 2). In the top row of the table, the “ideal” intervals of the one-three-semitone scale
and the usual names of the scale notes (in two alternative variants) are written. <strong>The</strong> second row comprises the
same information concerning the anhemitonic-diatonic scale. In the next rows, the corresponding average
intervals in the four songs analysed are shown.
It can be seen that the intervals between the adjacent scale notes are not exactly one and three semitones,
even in Anne Vabarna’s song. <strong>The</strong> lower interval, which should be theoretically a three-semitone interval, is
actually closer to the major third (3.7 semitones) and the upper “semitone” is 30 cents narrower than an equaltempered
semitone (0.7). <strong>The</strong> central trichord , which is the main object of analysis in this paper, consists of
the narrowed semitone (0.7) and enlarged three-semitone interval (3.2).
<strong>The</strong> average intervals in the other performances analysed differ far more from the “ideal” one-threesemitone
structure, and the scale of the song performed by the Kuldatsäuk choir (see the bottom row of the
table) is quite close to the diatonic scale G-A-B-C, especially if we speak about the central trichord (1.8 and
2.2). <strong>The</strong> performance by the choir Leiko confirms the earlier observation that the lower interval of the scale
tends to be wider than three semitones (3.6), although, in the recording from 1996 it is almost exactly three
semitones (2.9). <strong>The</strong> upper interval becomes very narrow in all recent recordings – about a quarter tone (0.5,
0.4, and 0.4). This can be partly explained by the mistakes of the killõ – the singer who performs the upper solo
part in the Setu songs. Nowadays it is quite difficult to find a really good killõ-singer.