Svan Funeral Dirges (Zär): Musical Acoustical Analysis of a New Collection of Field Recordings

Abstract

This paper is a companion paper to Mzhavanadze & Scherbaum (2020). Jointly, the two papers describe the results of an interdisciplinary study of three-voiced Svan funeral dirges, known as zär in Svan and zari in Georgian. In the present paper, to which we refer as paper 1, we analyze the musical acoustical properties of a new set of field recordings collected during an ethnomusicological field expedition to Georgia in 2016. The aim of the study is to investigate the tonal organization of eleven different performances of six different variants of zär, performed by singers from different villages. For some of the performances, we observe a strong gradual pitch rise of up to 100 cents per minute. The intra-variant differences in the performances of different groups of singers were observed to be remarkably different, including the use of significantly different harmonic tuning systems. In contrast, two subsequent performances of the Mest’ia variant of zär by a group of singers recorded in Zargǟsh were essentially identical. This demonstrates the widespread absence of improvisational elements in these two performances. One of the most interesting results of our analysis is the observation that the musical structure of zär, expressed, for example, in its ambitus, the complexity of its melodic progression, and its harmonic chord inventory, change systematically along the course of the Enguri valley.