Mouth tunes

Subject: Mouth tunes
From: K~~
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 03:40 PM

A while back I was introduced to something called 'Hebredian Mouth Tunes' - a capella, quick time, short tunes usually in Gaelic. I have only beeen able to uncover a couple since then. Does anyone have any information or sources on these little gems. As ever, thanks bunches.

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From: Barry Finn
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 04:24 PM

I can't think of the name but recently a group of women recorded quite a bit of the mouth music heard it was supposed to be great. I beleive Talitha (Claypool Nelson) MacKenzie (maybe called solas or mouth music?) recorded something on mouth music a couple of years ago but have no idea as to weither I could recommend her CD or not. Barry

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From: emily rain
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 04:27 PM

mouth music, chin music, cheek music, gobbing, lilting, diddling, dandling, diddlage, purist singing, jigging, dowdling, puirt-a-beul, reel a bouche, turlutage, kan ha diskan... whew!

the styles grew up all over england, ireland, and scotland, came to the americas with the immigrants and continued to develop in all the places you find celtic music: appalachia, newfoundland, etc. it's meant to be vocal music for dancing when instruments aren't available. if you're familiar with the cross-over group "mouth music", you can find some good pieces, but they use it mostly to give character to their more modern sound.

i have a great cd/book called "celtic mouth music" that takes an ethnomusicological approach; it's got tracks of a variety of artists singing in a variety of styles, and lots of folklore and information on the traditions themselves. a nice place to start your research. it's put out by ellipsis arts: p.o. box 305, roslyn, NY 11576; e-mail [e-mail]

have fun!
emily

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From: Philippa
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 04:31 PM

There's some discussion of mouth music or 'puirt a' bheul' at previous threads. See for instance some of the contributions to musha ringum .. and puirt-a-bheul and nonsense songs

Joe O suggested real audio samples at mouth music

Claud Cockburn's article will give you useful information and there are some lyrics at George Seto's site

and maybe I've even triggered some appropriate green clickies here ??

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From: Philippa
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 04:34 PM

oh yes, I do believe Talitha's group is 'Mouth Music'. They show some African influence on the traditional puirt.
'Solas' is another band entirely

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 05:56 PM

So Rap is atonal mouth music...............OK...

Spaw

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From: Philippa
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 06:04 PM

Catspaw, Is that what you call regional humor ?

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From: Barry Finn
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 09:54 PM

Hi Philippa, I know there's another group called Solas (Egan & co.) but I thought that the title of Mouth Music's CD was called Solas, is this incorrect? African influence, mmm, what has she been up to since leaving America for Scotland? Barry

Subject: Talitha MacKenzie
From: Philippa
Date: 06 Sep 99 - 08:02 AM

Info. from the web:
MOUTH MUSIC (Talitha MacKenzie & Martin Swann) "Mouth Music," 1991 CD on Ryko Records
You're right, she has an album called "Solas" Mulligan
Hear Talitha sing a Serbian tune on RealAudial provided by Green Linnet There are also Gaelic songs on this compilation album

Barry, what's the 'Claypool Nelson' (her mid/surnames before MacKenzie?)?

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From:
Date: 06 Sep 99 - 11:26 AM

Hi. ~~, those seem to be a class of Gaelic songs called Port (Gaelic word meing tune), or Puirt (the plural) for short. The "official" phrase, is "Puirt-a-Beul", which means Tunes of the Mouth, or more colloquially, Mouth Music. There are several thoughts behind it, but the most common one, is that they were developed as a reaction to the (overt, if not official) banning of highland music and their instruments after the Battle of Culloden.

Other schools of thought maintain that they were around for a long time before that. Most Puirt are typically full of vocables, and are mostly nonsense words. The idea being that you want to maintain the rythm of the tune, to keep time for dancing. In recent past, it has not been used for dancing.

Many puirt singers seem (these days) to think the idea behind a puirt is to sing it as fast as they can.

Anyway there are plenty of puirt available in the Gaelic tradition, Scottish for sure and I would assume in Irish. For SCottish Gaelic, there are several books which have compiled Dance tunes, or Puirt. Two of them are Tog Fonn Volumes 1 and 2.

Òrain Puirt - Puirt Songs

For other songs in Gaelic, tentatively organized, the main Gaelic Songs page is at

George's Gaelic Songs

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From: Barry Finn
Date: 06 Sep 99 - 12:47 PM

Hi Philippa, yup, prior name before crossing the pond. Nelson being a marriage name. Used to sing with her back in the early 80's along with another M'catter, Scottish border boy, John Nolan, "HE DID NOT BITE HER". She mostly did sea shanties back then & then started into some Irish then she was bitten by a rare & strange Scottish bug from which there's no known cure & the last I knew she was still doing Scottish stuff but now I hear there's some other influence (African?) creeping in, did she find a cure or has she been twice bitten? Barry

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From: K~~
Date: 07 Sep 99 - 04:38 PM

Thanks George, Phillipa, Barry, et al.

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From: emily rain
Date: 07 Sep 99 - 05:26 PM

george -- where could a person purchase these volumes of which you speak, Tog Fonn?

Subject: RE: Mouth tunes
From:
Date: 07 Sep 99 - 09:25 PM

Emily, if you are in North America, contact

Siol Cultural Enterprises

If you are in Europe, I can get you a location there too.

To reiterate, the books are Tog Fonn, Volumes 1 and 2. Published by Taigh na Teud. Another set of books available are the Orain Nan Gaidheal, compiled by Bruce Campbell. They are published by Gairm. There are 3 volumes there. These aren't specifically dance tunes, but there are some puirt among the selection. The last book is called Do Ghinealach Eile and was published in Uist. There are forty songs there, many of them being Puirt. There is a broad mixture here, including lullabies as well as dance, love and other types of songs. I'll give you the ISBN since it doesn't give an address for Ealain Tir a' Mhurain the publsher. ISBN = 0-9526273-0-2. Except for the last one, I KNOW they have had all the other books available at Siol.

IF you want to e-mail me, I'll forward your request directly.