Wedding vocal and ritual culture of Central Volyn: etnography and melotypology

Abstract

On the basis of a considerable number of musical and ethnographic materials (recorded by the author and taken from published and archival sources) from the little studied territory of Central Volhyn, the ethnographic features of the wedding and ritual tunes of the most common wedding melotypes are analyzed and described. During analyzing and determining of melotypology the methodological basis was the work of leading Lviv ethnomusicologists Bohdan Lukanyuk “Melotypology of wedding ladkankas and songs (based on Western Polissya and West Volyn)” [19]. It was defined that wedding melodies of Central Volyn is represented by ladkankas, songs and pryspivkas. Throughout all territory was recorded the existence of 7 ladkanka’s rhythm types in 12 varieties. The most common ladkanka’s melotype is tirade six syllabic ladkanka of binary rhythmic organization. Genre group of wedding songs are presented only by two melotypes. It also widely prevalent dedicated to marriage (also occasionally can be done in other circumstances) pryspivkas work, mainly in accentdynamic rhythm. An important feature of the wedding genre cycle is the existence preladkankas in the western part of Central Volyn (the villages of Dubensky and Zdolbunivsky districts). This study first attempts to describe wedding ethnograpy and main wedding tunes of the Central Volyn. In this article, researchers, teachers and all the persons interested in folk culture will find information that can be used for teaching ethnology courses in schools, secondary and higher education; local history, ethnology studies, and more.