The Latvian folk-singing has preserved several ancient features. One such is the narrow-range traditional melodies - the highest sound is not much higher than the lowest one of the melody. Another is the use of such melodies, specific for particular festivities, where the singers combine the known texts (sometimes creating new variations of them!) into sequences on the spot. It is generally known that the basic finite text structure is a quatrain, while the singing style shows that the main building block of a song is a two-line structure. The melody is simple, as said above, but the performance consists of several parts:
There are also songs with individual melody and generally stable text structure, but these are considered
being of more recent origin, while the most of the traditional folk songs
(especially those known by the term daina) belong to the described
above type. Accounts of Latvians singing,
dating back to the 15th century, tend to mention the monotonous
character of these songs and the idea expressed in four lines,
thus indicating that they must have been
sung according to this pattern. The first published song might have been of the same type as well. Although
folklore sound recording cannot provide proof of equal age,
the existing recordings can prove that such a singing style has
been preserved until (at least) the last (i.e. 20th) century and in
places as far distant as the opposite ends of Latvia!
Here are some samples:
1. Alsunga suiti women, 1951;
2. Baltinava
ethnographic group, "