PRECOMP Entry #3

PREFACE
March 2013 other possible titles: Barditus | Halfdan Bard | Hávamál-Charm 

Concepts to consider and address in up-coming blog entries:
Of so-called Celtic culture
1) Celtic ritual traditions (Bardic/Druidic)
2) The Thor-like hero Halfdan
3) The Hávamál    
4) Sean-nós songs of Ireland
5) Caoineadh Songs of Ireland

THE BARDITUS ACCORDING TO O'HARRIS
I have continued to read, listen and watch, piecing together fragments of the history of the warrior musics of the Celts of Antiquity. Inamongst the various online resources I have utilized I have come across a web-forum chat, including some information and references, pertaining to my interest:

http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/voluspa_studies/message/682

Thanks to the research and translations of independent researcher Carla O'Harris, I now have additional sources, from the annals of military history, that suggest to the sound of Ancient Celtic music.

They chiefly study a tone fierce and harsh, with a broken and unequal murmur,
and therefore apply their shields to their mouths, whence the voice may by
rebounding swell with greater fulness and force. 

(Germania 3, Thomas Gordon translation.)

I am fascinated by three things here:

1) This notion of studying a tone (agreeing upon a tone perhaps?)
2) The sounding nature of a broken, (unperiodic?) murmur
3) The use of a shield as an amplification device

O'Harris presents some interesting information pertaining to the subject-matter/text of the Barditus:

Tell(s) of..."Hercules" : either Thor or the Thor-like hero Halfdan whom Saxo speaks as one of the early patriarchs who carried and fought with a club, and that him above all other heroes they sing
about as they are marching into battle. 

Here we have Hero-worship as the stuff of inspiration. Tales of the club-swinging ferocious warrior, may have been recited as the warrior frenzied themselves before battle. This same passage of the Tacitus was discuss in the first blog entry of this series.

O'Harris translates a passage of the Tacitus except (Germania 3)

"...nec tam vocis ille quam virtutis concentus videtur."

"Nor does it appear to be so much a voice/tone as the strength of
singing-together." (O'Harris).

The noise-based quality of the chant, as experienced by the Roman, appears to be of the most striking of the chants qualities. That it is referred to as "musical" seems contentious, however, there is a clear pre-determination, purpose and community about this noise making.

In another post, O'Harris translates from the same Tacitus, this seems to be backed-up by a Norse poem, the Hávamál:

From the description of Ammianus Paulus:
(The Barditus) ...began in a low voice and preserved its subdued colour, but the sound gradually increased, and at a distance it resembled the roar of the breakers of the sea.
http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/voluspa_studies/message/683


In her blogpost, O'Harris makes a case for the sound of Barditus as similar to the musical aesthetic of Tibetan throat-singing. Whilst the case is well made that THIS notion of singing would be very different to what is now known to the Western musical tradition, I think it would be unlikely that the Barditus' sounding aesthetic would resemble a tradition from Tibet. If we look to our own traditions, vocal traditions, that are uniquely European, thrive in contemporary/folk traditions.

In my humble musical experience, I ponder the current state of the following, and how these traditions are linked to our ancestors:

1) Appalachian folk singing
2) Coarse vocal techniques in Scandinavian Metal genres
3) Balkan choral music

All of these, have ancestral links to a Celtic/Germanic past-time.  I will draw upon these for inspiration towards the expressive qualities of these contemporary-adaptation of the "Barditus".

NEW WARRIOR WORDS
Extracted from this weeks readings and texts, some new words will be added to the Barditus/Trombonicus word-hoard.

VIRTUTIS                        [latin] -          with vigour
CONCENTUS                  [latin] -          with togetherness
FRACTUM                       [latin] -          broken or subdued
ASPERITAS                     [latin] -          with harshness, roughness
MURMUR                        [latin] -          with harshness, roughness


CONCLUSIONS
The wealth of historical information is tantalizing, the musical possibilities, astounding. I am excited to draw all of these components together, in order to develop a cohesive and convincing whole.

This is what I will settle on:

1)  There will be a sustained unified vocalisation (as described above)
2)  There hero-worship poetry (as described above/possibly taken from the Hávamál)
3)  There will be a toneless (noise-based) vocalisation like the crashing of waves (as described above)
4)  There will be the sounds of "dreaded women" (as described in Tacitus' Histories book IV)
5)  All vocalisations will be accompanied by the striking of metal objects (as described in Silius Italicus)

SUPPLEMENTAL MEDIA

Since the last entry, I have posted the first of the Trombonicus Podcasts. These soundcloud files will be the only sounding guide to the preparation of/and performance of this adaptation of Ancient Celtic warrior music. There will be a series of podcasts for vocalisation as well as trombone-tone production.

You can listen to Trombone instructional part #1, here:   
http://trombonicuspodcasts.blogspot.com/ 

FINAL THOUGHTS
The coming editions will be lighter on the research and source listing, moving towards an instructional record for performance of this contemporary adaptation of the "Barditus" or working title "Trombonicus".

MARK OLIVEIRO