Subject: RE: lilting / diddling / jigging / tuning
From:
Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 11:41 AM
From Ist edition of 'The Companion to Irish Traditional Music (different in 2nd edition)
Jim Carroll
Lilting.
Lilting is one of the terms used in Ireland for a music style known as vocalisation. Its typical sound-structure has been adopted as the colloquial term ‘diddley-dee’ to denote (and often trivialise) traditional music. Lilting has been largely over¬looked in the consideration of Irish music, perhaps because it has been so widespread
Forms.
Lilting has four main forms:
1. A memory aid for musicians. This is one of the most common uses of lilting. It can be used between musicians when they are talking about a tune, or in the teaching of a traditional tune. A teacher may encourage a pupil to learn to lilt a tune before learning to play it on an instrument, or during the learning of a tune the teacher may lilt it along with the hesitant playing of the pupil to encourage her or him along.
2. To supply music for dancing. Musicians often ascribe the origin of lilting to the need for music for dancing. Although lilting probably existed in
lilting. Lilting is one of the terms used m Ireland for a musical style known vocalisation. Its typical sound-structure hm been adopted as the colloquial term ‘diddle dee’ to denote (and often trivialise) traditional music. ‘Vocalisation’ is found in many musical cultures throughout the world, referring to the use of what has been termed ‘nonsense words', ‘meaningless syllables’, ‘non-lexical syllables': or ‘obsolete words’. In Ireland, the terms diddling, dydilling, puss music, mouth music, gob music, humming and jigging are some of the other
Terms used, though lilting is the most common term. An example from another Western musical culture is scat singing in jazz music, where syllables are used to communicate a melodic and/or rhythmic pattern, the choice and placing of syllables reflecting tone, colour, rhythmic pattern and other features of musical instruments. These functions are also present in lilting.
In Ghana, onomatopoeic syllables are used by drummers to communicate rhythm and pitch of a particular beat. Players of the tabla in Indian classical music use syllables to represent a stroke executed in a certain way. Successive stokes which make up standard rhythmic patterns are represented by syllables grouped together. Within the piping tradition in Scotland, a system of sung syllables or vocables was used, called ‘canntaireacht’, as an alternative to written notation. Within this, each syllable had a specific musical meaning. Non-lexical syllables are also used in musical cultures as diverse as Cantonese opera and Navajo ceremonial music.
Lilting has been largely overlooked in the consideration of Irish music, perhaps because it has been so widespread. Indeed, a common colloquial term used to describe Irish instrumental music is ‘diddilee-eye music’ which refers to lilting. Lilting may be identified in four main forms:
1. A memory aid for musicians. This is one of the most common uses of lilting. It can be used between musicians when they are talking about a tune, or in the teaching of a traditional tune. A teacher may encourage a pupil to learn to lilt a tune before learning to play it on an instrument, or during the learning of a tune, the teacher may lilt it along with the hesitant playing of the pupil to encourage her or him along.
2- To supply music for dancing. Musicians often ascribe the origin of lilting to the need for music for dancing. Although lilting probably existed in itself previously, there is no doubt it much importance in providing music for house dance, particularly in rural areas. It may also be that a shortage of musical instruments, or difficulty in getting repairs done to instruments would mean the services of a lilter would be called on to provide music. Whistling could also be used for this purpose.
3. A novelty item, e. g., so-called nonsense syllables as a refrain within a song, or in conjunction with an instrumental performance. Many examples exist of lilting as a refrain within a song text, as a chorus or otherwise both in Irish and English language texts. An excellent example in the collection of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, Dublin was performed by Colum Ó Ciabháin in Connemara in the 1940s, and was recorded for the BBC by Séamus Ennis. Entitled Port na Gibóige’, this comprises a spoken text in Irish which relates a story interspersed with lilting.
4. A refined recital form. As the social function of lilting as a means of providing music for dance has declined through time, there has been a rise in popularity of lilting as a form in itself. It may be used by a singer as an alternative for songs, or by a musician in a session as a novelty item. Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann has a separate competition for lilting in its annual fleadhanna.
Although listening might give an initial impression of abstract use of syllables, analysis of features such as type of syllables used and their place within a particular phrase of music suggests that lilting conforms to an unconscious set of rules. It is an area awaiting further academic investigation. (AMA)
Lilting sounds are very much the speciality of the individual. Thus there may be ‘Dubbley- dam’, ‘rupptley-tam’, ‘Row de doh’, ‘Dum de doodley dum’, ‘dithery-didle’, ‘dahm-tee- damtery’, ‘Hoor-ee-diddley’, and so on. Some lilters will mimic instruments - such as banjo (dinker-danka, dinka-diddely) or bodhrán (rupp-buppety, buppety-bup), or in slower tunes the flute/fiddle by using vowel sounds only. Lilting may well have come from a functional substitution for instrument, but while there are many expert lilters who address themselves to particular tunes as conscientiously as an instrumentalist, today there are also many who treat it as a high-novelty performance. Bobby Gardiner’s The Clare Shout takes most of his signals from skin-tensioned bodhrán, applying melody to a percussive interpretation of the tunes. This is not remarkable, consider¬ing his expertise is on dance-rhythmic melodeon. He also bends, stretches and slurs notes in the manner of a sean-nós singer. Tim Lyons of Co. Cork is a fine lilter of complex ornamentation akin to instrumental music. This talent stems from his expertise both as a singer and accordionist, and may relate to the fact that he played harmonica in his younger days. Rhythmically, the syllabic structure of lilting follows the course of a tune’s time-signature: Die-dlee-iye, die-dlee-iye corresponding to a bar in 6/8 time, Dump-tee-dith-ery, dan-tee- dith-ery corresponding to a bar in 4/4 reel time.
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