Tag: harmonics

Old Tunes on Spruce

Old Tunes on Spruce is from the collection Mouth Quill—Poems with Ancestral Roots. The video version includes my reading of it. A PDF of the text is available below.

Estonian Terms: Kannel – a zither, first played by the God of Music and Poetry; Kukukuu and pillilil – bird chatter in Estonian runic song verses

Some Reflections about Old Tunes on Spruce

The “lap harp made of spruce” in this poem refers to a kannel. This is a beloved instrument, embedded in Estonian mythology, and is the instrument played by Vanemuine, the God of Music. Soundboards of this instrument have often been made of spruce.  

I describe plucked tones clustering and rising. From the perspective of acoustics, when a string is plucked freely and reverberates it plays not only the fundamental tone, but also overtones are created, and they mingle and rise into the air. These clusters are sometimes harmonious and sometimes discordant—here, they symbolize the disparate experiences that came to me from the archaic songs: the beauty (beautiful melodies and sounds, scales, rhythms) but then, later, the realization of historical horrors (like the cattle trains that many, including in my own family, were piled and that led to Siberian suffering or death.)

Runic songs are filled with the onomatopoeia of bird sounds

Later, I came to realize that the songs and sounds are not just my own, but an ancestral soundscape. The bird chatter Kukukuu, pillilill, vaak vaak vaa comes from a runic song Lind Lohutab (The Bird’s Consoling) and Iki Iki Mina Vaene. I have enjoyed singing this song with its many verses and variations, depending on the originating parish and singer.

As a writer, where to begin in trying to understand an original source song like this? Being fluent in Estonian, many words were familiar to me, but many were not, and not to my contemporaries either. Searching for the meaning of the word Iki, I wrote to the Estonian Language Institute, which also led me to dictionaries that contain dialects and archaic language. They explained that Iki here is in a dialect and means “to cry.”

Sap forming from a tree

My poem ends with sap forming, a process that occurs when wood is injured, bringing to mind historical injuries, the wounds of our people. Here, sap is symbolic as a vessel containing both pain and beauty .

Old Tunes as Spruce_Kaja WeeksDownload

Voices (Song Festival, Tallinn, Estonia)

 

Estonian World Kaja Weeks Voices Poem

A version of the poem “Voices” was first published by the online journal Estonian World.

Kaja Weeks: Estonian singing voices in a poem


Voices (Song Festival, Tallinn, Estonia)

Song-Mother’s voices,
sounds of ancestors once slipped from tongue to air—
ribbon-like, still unfurling.

On the edge of the sea
a silver shell holds thousands, singers who face
thousands more on a grassy gentle rise. All inhale.

Though the hour nears midnight
sun skims waters of the Baltic Sea,
flames in the tower-torch leap high.

The singing will not stop,
Lee—  lee— lo, the sounds form Leelo!
Each ancient syllable earned with sweat and love.

A conductor, peering from within a laurel wreath
clasps his chest, lowers his head,
bows to the choir who has honored song.

The watchers become the singers,
the standing levitate,
the air is alive.

Swirling round, melodies rustle, loosen hair,
saying: we are a living sound—sing us speak us hear us.
Song-Mother’s voices—Hääli imedänne!

 

* Hääli imedänne – Means “magical voices” in old Estonian
* Leelo – The old Estonian word meaning “song,” and the title of an actual song

Author’s Note: Voices is a poem from a chapbook manuscript (in progress) in which writings reflect both the trauma and beauty of Estonian culture and history as it rooted in my personal journey and identity.

 

Songs from my ancestral heritage have been a central part of my life. As a young child I was mesmerized by very old runic songs, called regilaulud—including shepherd’s calls (helletused). These came to me by way of the songstress Ellen Parve Valdsaar, an Estonian refugee whose magical interpretations left a lasting impression upon me. I also heard and sang much choral music, mostly in the a cappella tradition that allows voices to meld within wonderful, enlivening resonance. The poem, Voices, celebrates the height of such a continued tradition, the Estonian Song Festival, first begun in 1869. It is now held in Tallinn every five years and is designated a UNESCO “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” Click here to hear a refrain from the song, “Leelo” (the old word for “song”) as sung at the 2014 Estonian Song Festival in Tallinn. (In “Leelo” composed by Mart Saar with text from traditional folkverse, the singers plead, “What are these reins, these ropes that bind us?” The antidote, they answer, is “Song! Song! Song!”)

Even as the child of Estonian refugees to America, I understood the transcendent qualities of this music rooted in antiquity. In the 1970’s, as a college music student, I created a small vocal ensemble named Kannel (Zither) which performed mostly traditional Estonian music. Today, I sing with the Baltimore-Washington Estonian Singers (BWES), including in our performance for the capital area’s 100th Anniversary of the Republic of Estonia.

Kaja ja Iira EV100

Ira Reiman and Kaja Weeks in traditional Estonian folk costumes, singing as members of BWES at Washington DC- Celebration of 100th Year of Republic of Estonia. February 2018

Kannel Kaja Parming Lektor 1977 NY
Kaja Parming delivering lecture about old Estonian folk music, New York, 1977.

Kannel 1977 NY
Ensemble Kannel performing in an evening of Lecture and Old Estonian Folk Songs. (Pictured in lower photo, left to right) Ursula Brady; Kaja Parming (Founder/Director); Talvi Laev; Tiia Papp; Angela Dupin; Kersti Tannberg. New York, 1977.

Kannel Toronto 1971

Kannel in Toronto, 1971 (Pictured from Left to Right) Tina Karm; Angela Dupin; Anneliis Elmend; Ursula Brady; Kaie Põhi; Kaja Parming (Founder/Director); Anne Pleer. 

Whisper, Weep or Shimmer

What makes a sound unique – her voice recognizably different than mine, a violin from a harp, leaf shudder from wind – is carried in vibrations and their overtones. The complexity of harmonics, their patterns, intensity, onset and decline bring beauty, mystery or clanging noises that make up our soundscapes, literally and figuratively – in thought and word.

I have always been captivated by these configurations. Whether with my singing voice, with vowels that whisper, weep or shimmer or with words that infer thoughts of all that is unsaid – this is the play on waves and the spaces in between.