Folk Names of the Song Melody and Its Characteristics

The article is devoted to the consideration of Russian folk terminology related to the song tune. It is based on materials from field studies in different regions of Russia, publications on Russian musical folklore and dialect dictionaries. The names of the song melody are associated with singing (raspev, propev, golos), with speech, speaking as the process closest in its physiological features to singing, in which the voice also participates (rech’, slovo, esak), with a written record of the melody (stroka) among Russian Old Believers. Moreover, the tune is thought of by folk singers as the basis of the song, its most important part, which can be colored with all sorts of voice branches, or compared to a stream of water (golos rastekaet). Song melodies differ in the direction of movement in one direction or another (sklon — from “tilt in any direction”; vyvod, vyvodka — from ‘lead along a certain path’); in spatio-temporal parameters (dlinnyj or dolgij golos and koroten’kij golos); in intensity of movement (for example, lezhachij (recumbent) motive, “ne bodryj” (not peppy); by emotional coloring (veselyj (cheerful), skuchnyj (dull), obidchivyj (susceptible); as well as by attachment to the rite or season (svad’bishnyj (wedding) or vosennyj (autumn) voice); by gender and age status of performers (mushchinskij (masculine), starushechij (old woman) voice), and by belonging to a certain local tradition (Verkhovsky and Nizovsky tunes, respectively, in the upper or lower reaches of the river), etc.