Sutartinės, the especially ancient form of, often sacred, Lithuanian music, is enjoying a renaissance, mostly in Lithuania’s cities. Since UNESCO recognized these unique dissonant sounds originating from Lithuania’s Aukštaitija ‘Uplands’ ethnographic region as part of our Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2010, in-depth studies have flourished. This book presents the latest analogies discovered in distant examples of the genesis and ethnogenesis of foreign folk music examples, not only in neighboring lands but as far away as the Ainu subculture of Japan. It presents the latest findings and analyses of the hymns once said to be conveyed by laumės, mythical beings later demoted to witches during this music’s demise. This study supplements perceptions from Lithuanian and foreign ethno-musicologists with data from ethnology, archaeology, linguistics and other sciences and areas of scholarship, and thereby encourages even more studies in this field.

In recent decades, world music styles have been making increasing inroads into Western popular music, music theater, choral concerts, and even concert hall performances. So You Want to Sing World Music is an essential compendium of these genres and provides technical approaches to singing non-Western styles. Matthew Hoch gathers a cohort of expert performers and teachers to address singing styles from across the globe, including Tuvan throat singing, Celtic pop and traditional Irish singing, South African choral singing, Brazilian popular music genres, Hindustani classical singing, Native American vocal music, Mexican mariachi, Lithuanian sutartinės, Georgian polyphony, Egyptian vocal music, Persian āvāz, and Peking opera. Additional chapters offer resources for soloists and choral directors as well as primers on voice science, vocal health, and audio enhancement technology. The So You Want to Sing series is produced in partnership with the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Like all books in the series, So You Want to Sing World Music features online supplemental material on the NATS website. Please visit www.nats.org to access style-specific exercises, audio and video files, and additional resources.

In music making “in company”, the protagonists have to follow the rules of interaction and create the cohesion of “being together”. At the same time, they try to promote personal goals that depend on specific personal treasure troves of experience. These are continuously being modified also as a result of the exchange between individuals. The perspective of the “individuals in company” leads the emphasis of the investigations to the ways in which the acts of performance, interpretation and local discourse give shape to creative processes in multipart music making and to the definition of the individual, collective and collaborative dimensions in this context. Focusing on the “creators” rather than on the “produced object”, the studies included in this volume explore the diversity of the roles, powers, symbolism, meanings and values given to the “polyphony of voices” in secular and religious traditions based on extensive fieldwork experience. The contributors to this volume also consider the UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List in this context, as well as the role of local, national and international awards. By understanding “culture as a drug”, whose absorption is realised within interacting cells, culture appears as a cellular network and music as quite an efficient device for its functioning.

First published in 1994 in one volume. An A-Z of the music, musicians and discs. 2006 edition available as an e-book.