A musical quest to save Ukrainian folklore
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Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
British (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
mhm. Yeah, it was known as the breadbasket of Europe, thanks to its immense and fertile fields. Well, Ukraine still produces major grain exports, and those fertile fields have also been a fixture of life in its rural communities. Touched on for popular culture. But now more Ukrainians than ever are moving to the cities in search of more opportunities, and so peasant music is being left behind. But one musicologist is determined to save it. Hungarian Miklos both has been travelling through the Ukrainian countryside, recording folk songs for a new digital archive. Frederick Bernas has been on his trail a ramshackle community hall which feels like a time machine to the Soviet Union. A choir of nine women is belting out traditional tunes. The group from Village in the Chair Negev region, meets here regularly, but today they're performing in the glare of spotlights under the watchful eye of my glass, but but has done this more than 2000 times, setting up his camera to record the sounds of a culture which is slowly fading away. As he points out, the peasant of the Villager. Life is already disappeared from Europe and I think it's very important that you can still find this kind of lifestyle, this kind of people in the eastern part of Europe and I started, I thought that I come from one expedition and after coming again and again and again. And so really what? We see that there is so much information, and so I really don't know when we'll finish it all. His material is released by the Polyphony Project, a new digital archive. Its name refers to the complex polyphonic structure of traditional Ukrainian song forms. Yeah, but works with up to eight microphones that record individual voices. A special media player on the political website allows people to separate different parts of a song with lyrics provided no Ukrainian folk expert William Fetisov told me, That's a vital tool for making tunes easier to learn. Thanks for Michaela. What matters? We have now great collection of Ukrainian folklore that we can use for singing this approach of Nicolas that every singer have his own line. It's super approach because the real Ukrainian folklore, its all time, it's California. It's a mostly three lines, and it's very difficult to understand all the variants and melodies or what words are a song for every occasion religious holidays, seasons, the harvest, weddings, births, deaths and more. The words tell colourful tales of peasant life. Groups of female farmers often sing while they work in the fields, developing powerful voices. But during Soviet times, the education system favoured a vocal technique closer to European classical style, which still endures today. Mhm. In that era like now, the influence of foreign music has also made it difficult for village tradition to survive. And there's been an exodus of young people who move to cities and towns hoping to study your work. But involve chuck 40 year old quietly arena. Tymoshenko believes the polyphony project will make a real difference. It's a really great opportunity because people in our village are passing away and leaving. In 1986 more than 1500 people lived here. Today it's less than 500 to save. This tradition is very important for our next generation. For people like my youngest son, Art Chung, it is also an exchange because now the whole world will know about us. Zanny's Melo, though you hasn't music from the Ukraine Frederick Bernas on the trail of Musicologist Nicholas, both mhm mm