The Forms of Interaction of the Folk Song Creativity and Instrumental Music (on the Example of Traditional Solo and Group Singing of the Peoples of the Caucasus)

Abstract

The article examines the interconnection of the vocal-choral and instrumental music in the traditional solo-and-group performance among the different peoples throughout the Caucasus (the Adyghians, Abkhazians, Osetians, Balkars and Karachays). The present problem range has not yet become a topic of special academic comprehension. In this connection,the aim of the article is to draw the attention of specialists towards studying it and defining the role of the instrumental strata within the standard texture of broadly disseminated song performance in the Caucasus region. The traditional regional type of texture of song composition includes two main strata: the solo declamatory presentment of the tune and the choral (i.e., ensemble) accompaniment existing in dialogic interaction with each other. Frequently, we can find a third stratum, as well — the instrumental, as a rule, existing in performance on a traditional bowed string instrument. As living folk music practice confirms, its participation in the solo-and-group singing is not a mandatory factor. The place and the role of the instrumental stratum in the examined folk musical material is determined in this article. The author highlights the main functions of all the textural strata, the parity of the first two lines of the song texture and the forms of their interaction, in which the traditional standard and self-sufficient structure of characteristic polyphonic singing of the peoples of the Northern Caucasus is reflected.

Keywords: ethnic culture, solo-and-group manner of performance, musical instrumental culture, instrumentalism, communicative folk music traditions