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The Slovene Land in Songs and Words
by Dr. Zmaga Kumer
Excerpted from Rodna Gruda, English Section January 1984
Every Tuesday evening, for the last 15 years there has been
a programme entitled "Slovenska zemlja v pesmi in besedi"
("The Slovene Land in Songs and Words") on Radio Ljubljana.
This programme, with its characteristic introductory tune from
Bela krajina, is full of folk songs from all parts of Slovenia
and has gained great popularity. Some people think that it is
only on account of this programme that live recordings are made
at one end of Slovenia or the other and frequently ask, after
the recording has been made: "When will we be on the air?"
Of course, they don't know that the collecting of folk songs
in Slovenia is carried out in two ways. On the one hand there
are the two radio editors of this programme, and on the other
hand the associates of the former Institute for Musical Ethnology,
which is now the Section for Musical Ethnology at the Institute
for Slovene Ethnology of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and
Arts in Ljubljana.
When the idea for this program was first conceived, in 1966,
Radio Ljubljana did not have any staff specially allocated to
folk music, so it was agreed that those who had thought up the
programme should carry out the necessary work themselves. It
wasn't any easy job since the preparation of a 30 minute programme
demands a lot of time. However, we were always short of time
as the cooperation with Radio Ljubljana was only one of our
marginal activities. Of course, we never underestimated its
importance, but we couldn't allow it to interfere with our basic
work.
When, 50 years ago - in 1934 the Institute for Folklore was
established within the framework of Glasbena Matica, France
Marolt, its initiator and director for many years, defined the
latter's three main tasks: the collection, research and publishing
of the heritage of folk music and dance from all parts of the
Slovene ethnic territory, In other words, the collection of
this material represents the preparation of the latter for scientific
research into everything which we Slovenes sing, play and dance,
whereas the aim of our work is the publishing of findings in
the form of treatises as well as of the collected material itself
in a modem way. Today we have not only printed collections of
songs with their tunes and descriptions of dancing, but also
gramophone records, cassettes as well as, to a lesser extent,
radio and T. V. programmes. My acquaintances have often asked
me: "How do you actually go about your collecting? How
do you decide which place you are going to visit and how do
you then find the singers you are looking for?" On the
other hand, the singers taking part in the live recordings usually
ask: "What are you now going to do with the recordings
you've made?" Let me answer these questions in a brief
and simple manner.
Whether the collecting of songs is successful or not depends
not only on the memory of the singer, but also, to a great extent,
on the collector's knowledge, whether he or she has set out
to do research in a certain smaller area or to collect songs
of a certain kind from all parts of Slovenia. In the first case
one must, before setting out, find out as much as possible about
the circumstances in which the inhabitants of a particular area
live, about their customs and traditions, and about their everyday
life. One must also find out what one can about any pecularities
associated with local holidays. The main source of income for
the local inhabitants is certainly an important factor which
has to be taken into account when going to any particular area.
It may be an agricultural area, or else an area well-known for
its vineyards, or an old settlement known for its craftsmen,
which has grown up into an industrial centre. You can be fairly
sure of success if visiting an area where the local inhabitants
are keen on old traditions (which certainly does not neccessarily
mean that they are backward or oldfashioned in their outlooks).
On the other hand success is less likely if one is investigating
an area where the local people want to be modem at any price,
or if the village, for historic reasons (e. g. forced resettlement
during the last war) no longer has its original inhabitants,
but is populated predominantly by new-comers.
One should also know whether anyone has collected songs in
that particular place, whether by any chance some findings have
already been published about which songs used to be sung there,
etc. Even good singers will be at a loss if you ask them, suddenly,
to sing something. Every one of them will first say that he
doesn't know anything about it, that he's forgotten all the
songs he ever knew, and it's ages since he last sang a song.
Singers aren't like machines on which you press the button to
make them work. A song starts only if the gathered company or
individual is suitably disposed. For' instance, if the subject
of the conversation turns to old times, how weddings used to
be celebrated, what customs were practiced when somebody died,
how people used to make merry at harvest time or when the grape
picking was finished. Those were the main occasions when songs
could be heard in all parts of Slovenia. An experienced collector
will know how to ask directly about such occasions and he will
remind the singers of similar cases elsewhere, by mentioning
either the first few words or notes of the song, and sometimes
by recalling the content of the song. Clearly one must have
a very good knowledge of our folk culture if one wants to find
out what songs people still sing today, which songs they remember
from their youth, which songs they have probably already abandoned
and which songs might be created anew.
Of course, it is not enough just to make recordings of the
words and the tune. It would certainly be wrong if one satisfied
oneself with the singing of the first verse, and then had the
other verses dictated. Why? Because it is the tune which stimulates
the memory. If the tune is lacking then there is trouble in
remembering the words ' and the form of the verse often goes
wrong and the rhythm is lost. It quite often happens that at
the start a singer knows only a few verses of a song but when
he starts singing, he is able to sing the whole song without
difficulty. Sometimes people don't want to tell their names
or their place and date of birth, saying that such trifles are
unimportant. However, a recording without data about the singer
is just as incomplete as when we don't know on what occasion
some song is sung. The collector must find our where and from
whom the singer first heard the song, since it certainly matters
whether the song is generally known, or a characteristic of
that particular place, or whether the singer has brought it
from elsewhere and nobody but him knows it. Sometimes it is
very difficult to persuade singers to sing a song which "everybody
knows" and which "is continually to be heard on the
radio", ie. "you've already got it". We must
be interested in generally known songs and mustn't be like children
who only want to pick the raisins out of the nut roll. We must
accept the whole piece of cake which we are offered, since by
picking out only the exceptionally interesting items we might
get an entirely false picture of the musical heritage of a particular
place or area. We must record all the songs that people sing,
gay songs and sad songs, religious songs and love songs, serious
songs and frivolous songs, old songs and new songs, generally-known
and hardly-known songs, as well as of course all the important
data related to them.
It is best if the singers sing them as far as possible "po
domace", in the local way. Some people feel embarassed
when they use their local dialect and make apologies for not
knowing "proper Slovene". As if it were wrong to speak
in dialect, as if a dialect were inferior to standard Slovene.
On the contrary, the speech of the local people is rich, imaginative,
full of picturesque expressions and metaphors. In comparison
with the latter, standard Slovene as it is spoken and written
today. with its mass of foreign words and unnecessary complexity,
is a really mixed-bag, which produces speeches that one can't
make head or tail of.
How do we find our singers? Sometimes somebody writes to us,
inviting us to visit him or her. These are usually listeners
of the Tuesday evening programme, who come from towns or villages
that we have not yet visited. Otherwise we try to find out something
about the area we intend to visit by asking an acquaintance
who comes from that area. Sometimes it is only vhen we reach
the area we intend to study that we start looking for singers.
One can always find somebody who would like to know what we
have come there for, and whether we are looking for somebody
in particular. And then we tell them what we are looking for.
In the first years after the Second World War, when our work
was not so well-known, we often found ourselves in an amusing
position. I well remember how I-as a young student-once accompanied
Toncka Marolt along the valley of the River Soca, which we walked
along on foot, each carrying a small travelling-bag. In one
of the villages one of the local women, leaning out of a window
in the upper storey of a house, hurried to answer our polite
greeting with the words: "We're not going to buy anything,
nothing at all!" She had thought that we were trying to
sell something. Why should we be wandering around the villages
otherwise? We seemed suspect to all the guard-dogs, too, who
barked fiercely at us as we passed them. In those days it was
difficult to find overnight accomodation, and there was practically
nothing to be obtained in the way of food in the local inns.
I can well remember how, in January 1955, 1 was travelling for
the first time with a gramophone in Bela krajina. Together with
a woman colleague, we spent the night in an icily cold room
over the door entrance, only to find in the morning that the
glass in the window was quite broken. The first tape-recorders
were much heavier than those available today, and one's arms
and shoulders began to ache when one had to carry such a load
for hours on end. This was of course in addition to one's personal
luggage and camera, and if it came on to rain then one had to
walk in an impermeable cape, which let in the damp at the seams.
But those are certainly good days to remember. 'You never really
get to know an area if you don't walk over it, from one end
to the other. We always used to walk on foot at least to the
nearby villages from the place where we were staying. We were
returning home one night, having made a recording of the singing
of the village lads in Tuhinjska Valley, when, in the light
of the full moon, we started singing ourselves, quite involuntarily.
Once, when a women colleague of mine and I had been making some
recordings in Loska dolina, the lads who had been singing for
us came and sang a serenade as they had just got nicely warmed
up in their singing. When we were recording some wedding songs
at Sentanel above the Meziska Valley, at a real wedding, afterwards
the guests gathered together in front of the house, where you
could see the whole of the Podjuna plain in front of you, as
if it was in the palm of your hand. One certainly couldn't help
being moved when, all of a sudden, the following song, sung
in perfect harmony, began:
Bom zapustil Libuce,
to ravno polje...
One never forgets such experiences, and there have been many
such. Even now, when we dash about on field trips by car, our
Slovene songs always have their particular charm. We are always
moved by them and we never accept them just as goods to be collected.
These songs are a real art, which reach to the heart and are
not to be understood by logic alone.
When we get home from our field trips, we have to put numbers
on our tapes, as well as on the individual recordings. Then
the tunes have to be written down as notes, with the words of
the song written in carefully underneath. Then all other data
about the song and its singer have to be written on the folder.
Every recording gets a special filing-card, in five copies,
on which is written the serial number of the recording, the
place and district where the recording was made, an indication
of the type of song, the title of the song, the start of the
words and tune, a record of the number of stanzas and verses,
the complete tune written down by means of letters, and finally
the name of the singer or singers and the time and date of the
recording. All these data are very important if we want to find
one particular song in a collection which contains ten thousand
songs. The filing-cards are placed in the file according to
their serial numbers, according to the place where the recordings
were made, according to the type of song, and according to the
start of the words of the song and of the tune, for these are
what most visitors to our institute ask about. Of course we
researchers, ourselves, save a lot of time during our work if
our archives are properly arranged.
Of course the collecting, putting into order and research into
folk songs is very interesting work which brings one a lot of
satisfaction. It also gives one a feeling of happiness, since
the work brings one, apart from technically interesting material,
a lot of valuable contacts with ordinary people. On the other
hand the work is very demanding. To carry it out properly one
needs extensive knowledge of the field, as well as plenty of
determination and patience, and an ability to converse easily
with people. One also has to be able to adapt oneself quickly
to different circumstances, and to possess a lot of warmth and
sensitivity for the feelings of one's fellowman. Of course this
work has a final purpose of its own. The findings of our work
help to discover the roots of Slovene culture, and those characteristics
which differentiate us from other nations, as well as those
which we have in common with other nations. If we are to continue
in existence as a nation then we must not Overlook, forget about
or make fun of our roots. We must stick closely to them, with
love, we must try our best to maintain them well and to build
them up further, and in this way to make, by means of our own
special characteristics and not by equalizing them with those
of other nations, a contribution to the culture of the whole
world in which we live.
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