- Category
- Learning traditional music
- Reading time
- 5 min
- Sources
- Source-based explanation; editorial exercises identified separately
A call, a raliavimas and a song are not interchangeable
Explore herding repertoire by function: addressing an animal, calling or signalling, raliavimas singing, driving animals home and night herding. These headings help you search; the actual vocal behaviour still has to be heard in the recording.
The LNKC bibliography divides the repertoire in “Aukštaičių dainos. Šiaurės Rytų Lietuva: Autentiškas folkloras,” prepared by Genovaitė Četkauskaitė (1998), into such groups. The edition comprises three cassettes and a 304-page notation book. A bibliography is not the audio file itself.
Two traceable signal examples
Track 12 is “Kiaula, dribk” and track 13 is “Ūs birrr telek telek telek.” Both are classified as calls/signals and performed by Emilija Keršienė–Petkevičiūtė from Skuoliai, Šešuoliai area, Ukmergė district, recorded in 1975.
These details support an exact library or archive enquiry: edition, track, performer, place and year. A brief title cannot reliably supply the complete text, pitch, tempo or duration. We therefore do not add a generated melody and label it authentic.
Compare a signal with raliavimas singing
In the same edition, tracks 14–18 are raliavimai, while 19–20 accompany driving animals home. Choose one recording from different groups and preserve each exact number. The syllables “ralio” or “ū” alone do not establish the complete function.
When listening, note whether sounds are sustained evenly, whether a melodic phrase returns and whether the text behaves like a brief address. These are our analytical questions, not assumed rules for every signal. Answer from the sound, not its illustration or title.
Make a useful recording card
Use fields for original title, source genre, performer, place, year, collection and track number, audio location and notation location. Separately mark what you have personally heard and what is known only from the catalogue.
If you devise a calling activity for a classroom, label it a contemporary exercise. Agree on two short signals of your own and test whether the group can distinguish them. Do not attribute them to the Skuoliai performer or describe them as an archival reconstruction.
Why there is no authentic-audio player here
Verified catalogue information does not establish permission to host a recording elsewhere. At present we provide an exact route to the edition. The actual track, its correspondence to the catalogue number and reuse conditions must be checked before a player is published.
For a wider study of herding-song genres, consult volume XXV of the Lithuanian Folk Song Book. This page is a guide to traceable signals and listening work, not a complete song edition or a lesson in traditional calling technique.
