Posted on 09/15/2001 1:10:14 PM PDT by parsifal
Ululation - A Brief Introduction:
Like many Freepers I was distressed by pictures of the joyful Palestinian Hausfrau celebrating the recent terrorist attack. She was making a horrible noise called a "ululation." Since CNN and other news outlets will doubtless be bringing us many such scenes in the future, I thought it helpful to present some information, tidbits, and curiosities about this God-awful noise. Results from a brief web search follow:
How to Ululate: (http://www.cbc4kids.ca/general/kids-club/sounds-like-fun/slf-98-03-25/sound2/answer3.html)
The woman is making a vocal sound called "ululation". (OOL-yoo-LAY-shun). Here's how to do it: you open your mouth and move your tonque from side to side very quickly with a high, shrill sound. Or, you can sing "la,la,la,la over and over, very high and very fast. The woman making this sound was recorded at a village in the mountains of Morocco at the celebration called an ahwash. It was done in 1972 for the French Museum of Natural History. An ahwash is a big dance held to celebrate a wedding or other happy event. There are lots of drummers, and the men and women form half circles on either side of them. A man starts singing, the drummers begin, and then the women begin.
If you look up the word "ululation" in the dictionary it will say "wailing or howling". But it is more than that. Ululation is done in Africa and the Arabic world by women to express great happiness. The Arabic name for it is Zaghruta (zah-(C)HROOT-a)
Scientific Ululation Papers, An Abstract from one: (http://www.indiana.edu/~ethmusic/abstracts_43_3.html)
Joel Kuipers, "Ululations From the Weyewa Highlands (Sumba): Simultaneity, Audience Response, and Models of Cooperation"
Ululation -- a widespread but poorly described form of vocalization -- may be considered a culturally organized form of audience response. Rather than examining ululation as though it was a somewhat impoverished form of song -- with its limited referential content, and relatively simple pitch and intonational structure -- instead, this paper examines these cries for the ways in which they fit into the temporal, social and emotional structure of dialogic relations amongst performers in particular situations, and they ways in which these structures can be compared across genres. The paper concludes by analyzing the ways in which the participants make use of these expressive cries to interpret and construe their images of ritual participation.
Warriors Princesses Ululate: (http://www.jps.net/mythology/xenaica/Y.html)
"YIYIYIYIYI": In the early days of Xena, the Xenite's imitation of Xena's war cry. After two years of mystique, it was clarified by the 'Goddess of the Xenaverse', 9/29/97: "Really all they say, is 'ALALALALA', but very fast... a bastardization of an Arabic woman's cry...an all purpose ululation". This deafening sound is so intense, it often startles and frightens Xena's opponents (as well as talk show hosts). Xenites speculate that this ululation is Xena's instinctual attempt to evoke her dark side and change her fear into strength as she does battle. Lucy Lawless, Live: Regis & Kathie Lee, 9/29/97; The Xena Mailing Lists and Netforum, 1995-1997. See also, "battle cry".
Miscellaneous Reasons for Ululation: (http://www.africana.com/DailyArticles/index_20000731.htm)
Young Zulu girls in Willowfountain, South Africa line up to get tested. Woven mats covered with white sheets have been laid out in a secluded area. Each girl is instructed to take off her panties, lie down, and part her legs so that one of several mature women can look to see if the girl's hymen is intact; if it is, the "testers" celebrate with shouts of praise and ululation.
Ululation is Very Old: (http://www.csusm.edu/dsmall/text_birds/thunderpharm.html)
The Thunder: Perfect Mind: In 1945, the Gnostic Gospels were found in a red earthenware jar by a Bedouin villager. He had been digging for bird-lime fertilizer near Nag Hammadi, a town in upper Egypt, when he found the jar buried at the foot of a cliff. Inside were thirteen codices, made up of 52 texts, or tractates, written in the 2nd-4th century A.D.
Scholars surmise that the texts were deemed heretical, and that the codices were buried to protect them from destruction by the orthodox Christian authorities. One of the tractates, titled "The Thunder: Perfect Mind," is a paradoxical poem spoken in the voice of a divine feminine power. Some scholars surmise that Thunder's voice is Sophia's; others propose that hers is the voice of Eve. The following writing is inspired by "The Thunder: Perfect Mind," a text buried for over 1,600 years.
I am the incomprehensible silence
and the memory that will not be forgotten.
I am the voice whose sound is everywhere
and the speech that appears in many forms.
I am the utterance of my own name.
I am the one whom you have scattered,
and the one you have gathered together.
I am the ancient ululation
and the echo of the invisible world
I am the ancient ululation
and the invisible world of the echo.
I am the name of the sound
and the sound of the name.
I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one;
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the remembrance of things past
and the wonder that cannot be forgotten.
I am the unfathomable mystery
and the universe in a grain of sand.
I am the utterance of my own name.
I am knowledge and I am ignorance.
I am unlearned and you have learned from me.
I am the inexplicable light
and the heart that is broken open.
I am the thread whose strands are everywhere
and the lure beyond the ends of the earth.
I am the utterance of my own name.
I am the barren one.
I am the midwife and the one who does not bear.
I am the solace of my own labor.
I am the indelible image
and the voice that speaks in many tongues
I am the indelible image
and the tongue that speaks in many voices
I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and I am peace.
I am senseless and I am wise.
I am the incomprehensible epiphany
and the wonder than cannot be comprehended
I am the joy whose shout is everywhere
and the explosion at the core of my being.
I am the utterance of my own name.
I am compassionate and I am cruel.
I am the one whom they call Life,
and you have called Death.
In my weakness, do not forsake me,
and do not fear my power.
I am the inconsolable weeping
and the unforgettable fury of light
I am the inscrutable passion
and the mirror whose shards are everywhere.
I am the utterance of my own name.
I am the condemnation and the acquital.
I am the judgment and the resurrection.
I am the unpronounceable order
and the light upon the depths of the unspoken
I am the incandescent mystery
and the fragments scattered on the winds
I am a mute who does not speak;
great is my multitude of words.
And what you see outside of you,
you see inside of you;
it is visible and it is your garment
And what you see outside of you,
you see within;
it is invisible and it is your garment.
I am the infinite reverberation
and the longing whose flame is everywhere
I am the ineluctable memory
and the illimitable ocean without bound.
I am the utterance of my own name.
I am the incandescent dream.
I am the lake on fire.
I am going to burn the world.
Ulution can be Musical: http://hotwired.lycos.com/talk/club/special/transcripts/96-01-15.labarbara.html)
kadrey: You mentioned earlier that you started experimenting because you were working with jazz players. This mix of classical, jazz, world, etc. seems to lie at the heart of much modern music. Obviously the urge to improvise can come from jazz. Can you tell us about how these other forms of music affected you?
Joan La Barbara: I'm affected by a lot of different music. There has been a long tradition of using the voice as an instrument in jazz, so when I started experimenting with the voice I was naturally led in that direction. I've also been influenced by uses of the voice in various cultures, like the Inuit eskimo throat singers, pygmy chanting, etc..
popestyle: Wow. I've never heard of that stuff.
Joan La Barbara: The Inuit eskimo throat singers have been recorded on a label out of Canada. Pygmy music is available on different labels. Peking Opera singing is also fascinating. Inuiit singing is done only by women and is a kind of game. Two women stand facing each other and sing almost into each other's mouths, resonating their voices into each other's mouth and throat cavities. My description sounds a little weird but it's a great sound, very earthy. They sing on inhale and exhale so it's a constant, rhythmic sound. The game ends when the first one laughs....
In Tibetan overtone singing, the monks sing very low tones, chanting syllables as prayers and generating high, ringing overtones. It's a technique that is also done in Tuva and occurs in ancient Icelandic music. When I do it, I call it multiphonics (singing two or more pitches at the same time). David Hykes also does this technique and has a group called the Harmonics Choir.
kadrey: Your bio lists "circular singing, ululation and glottal clicks" as some of your signature techniques. Could you explain, one at a time, what each of these techniques is?
Joan La Barbara: Circular singing involves singing on the inhale as well as the exhale. Ululation is a fluttery sound, something like a horse whinny. Combined with cross-register singing, i.e., yodeling, it can be quite an incredible sound. And glottal clicks are sub-bass sounds and can be sung inhaling or exhaling. They're sometimes referred to as vocal fry. Actually, glottal clicks inhaled sound more like deathrattle.
kadrey: It sounds like you're a real scholar of vocal techniques. Have you traveled to some of these places to study with local teachers? Have they come to you?
Joan La Barbara: I learn a lot by listening to CDs. When I first started to do solo voice concerts, people would bring me cassettes of music from all over the world that they thought I would like or that they were reminded of when they heard me sing. I've traveled a lot, but not to all of the exotic places I draw my inspiration from. I did study Balinese Monkey Chant and some North Indian singing when I was at Cal Arts. I studied with I Nyoman Wenten at Cal Arts when I was teaching there in the '80s.
kadrey: So in many cases you're able to puzzle out these techniques simply by listening to them? That must require a terrific intimacy with the possibilities of the voice.
Joan La Barbara: When I first started exploring the possibilities of the voice, I taped a lot. Sometimes I would sing something and like the sound but not like how it felt to produce it. So I could go back and listen to the tapes, analyzing what the sound was, and figure out a technique for reproducing it at will.
Monkey Chant is done by humans in imitation of monkeys' sounds. It involves very rhythmic grunting and audible inhaled and exhaled sounds. Also, it involves non-notated music. In other words, you learn by imitating the teacher, not by reading anything on paper.
popestyle: In what context would that be performed?
Joan La Barbara: It's performed in large group music and dance festivals.
kadrey: Did the ritual aspect of the Monkey Chant get you interested in different performance areas with voice? Seeing the traditional Monkey Chant is quite spectacular.
Joan La Barbara: I've never been fortunate enough to see Monkey Chant performed live, only in films. The lessons at Cal Arts were done with a group of about 20 people.
popestyle: How old were the films that you saw?
Joan La Barbara: Very old.
kadrey: I think there is some Monkey Chant footage in the film Baraka, FYI.
Joan La Barbara: What's the film Baraka?
jutta: Baraka: by Koyaanisquatsi directors Ron Fricke and Mark Magdison, USA 1992, Documentary, available on Laserdisc.
Ululation Has Some Connection to Dinnerware: (http://www.frankperry.co.uk/Singing%20Bowls%20of%20Tibet.htm)
There are two main types of bowls, which I call YIN & YANG. They actually look very different: - Yin Bowls have the same thickness up their walls to the rim; whilst Yang Bowls have a thick Lip. These represent the Two Great Principles of MALE / FEMALE. There are also 2 ways to play ALL bowls - that is striking them or stroking them. With both Beaters and Wands the general rule is: - the larger the Bowl, the wider the stick! Using different sized wands will also affect the sound of the bowl by bringing out one or other of its overtones. Not all bowls produce the full range of overtones which make Tibetan bowls so unique!.
I began compiling my set of singing bowls in 1971 and have sorted through over 4,000 bowls in order to assemble this unique collection of over 230. So far I have found 45 basic types of Singing Bowls and some 23 supplementary types: For instance: - Yin Bowls, Yang Bowls, Ululation Bowls, Whistling Bowls, Water Bowls, Yoga Bowls, Jump Bowls, Fountain Bowls, Lingam Bowls, Pulse Bowls, and Purification or Cleansing Bowls (that's to say: space-cleansing or inner psychic cleansing - In Tibetan Tantric healing there are three types of 'ghosts'; inner, secret, and outer) etc. However, we can say that individual Bowls fall into one of Three basic Categories of Bowls: linking with the three Buddha Bodies - and the three major divisions in Buddhism that of: - Hinayana / Mahayana / Vajrayana-Tantrayana. That's to say: - Physical bowls - bowls which simply make a nice sound; Psychically charged bowls; and bowls dedicated to specific practices for the higher Tantric path.
Ancient Greeks May Have Ululated: (http://home.pon.net/rhinoceroslodge/dromena.htm)
The Sacrifice.
The Sacred Victims (To Hie ion) are brought forward. The Priest or Priestess touches each thing to be offered with the sacrificial knife.
Each one who is making an offering may say, as it is offered:
"Lambane kai heydou anathema mou,"or simply: "Accept and Delight in my Offering."
Each one may also add any particulars he or she feels necessary, such as requests or thanksgivings. When all offerings have been made, the Priest or Priestess says:
"Lambane kai heydou anathemata heymown."
Response:"Accept and Delight in Our Offerings."
In Ancient Times we are told that at "The Blow," that is, when the sacrificial knife struck the victim, the women ululated. It is appropriate in our own times for the women to do so after this last response, this having the effect of a kind of cheer. (For those who know more about television than ululation: that's the sound Xena makes!)
Martians Apparently Ululate: (World of the Worlds) (http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/warworlds/b1c15.html)
The St. George's Hill men, however, were better led or of a better mettle. Hidden by a pine wood as they were, they seem to have been quite unsuspected by the Martian nearest to them. They laid their guns as deliberately as if they had been on parade, and fired at about a thousand yards' range. The shells flashed all round him, and he was seen to advance a few paces, stagger, and go down. Everybody yelled together, and the guns were reloaded in frantic haste. The overthrown Martian set up a prolonged ululation, and immediately a second glittering giant, answering him, appeared over the trees to the south. It would seem that a leg of the tripod had been smashed by one of the shells. The whole of the second volley flew wide of the Martian on the ground, and, simultaneously, both his companions brought their Heat-Rays to bear on the battery. The ammunition blew up, the pine trees all about the guns flashed into fire, and only one or two of the men who were already running over the crest of the hill escaped. . .
The occasional howling of the Martians had ceased; they took up their positions in the huge crescent about their cylinders in absolute silence. It was a crescent with twelve miles between its horns. Never since the devising of gunpowder was the beginning of a battle so still. To us and to an observer about Ripley it would have had precisely the same effect--the Martians seemed in solitary possession of the darkling night, lit only as it was by the slender moon, the stars, the afterglow of the daylight, and the ruddy glare from St. George's Hill and the woods of P
Compulsory.
I played that call (not on high) and my dog just kept on sleeping.
g
We could measure the ululatory pitch frequencies immedeiately preceding and following B-52 strikes. Or, my favorite, various ululatory techniques of trans-national belly dancers.
Just wanted to note to you a related interesting FR thread: "Is Osama bin Laden the Present Day Leader of the Cult of the Assassins"
Also,:"At the peak of their [Templars] power and influence they were the most disciplined and formidable fighting force ever seen, respected even bytheir opposite numbers, the Hashishim, or Assassins of Islam. It was hardly by coincidence that one of the Templars' greatest centers of influence was at Troyes, where Chretiens' Le Conte del Graal first appeared...The Templars certainly had many clandestine contacts with both the Islamic and Arabian traditions." (from The Holy Grail by Malcolm Godwin.)
"lalalalalalalalal"
Can somebody else try this and check me out. My ears ain't so good anymore. (see Iron Butterfly, 1970s, headphones)
Strictly for purposes of constructive criticism, you understand. That's the kind of helpful person I am...
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