An ethnomusical analysis: Albanian highland songs

Abstract

Albanian folklore is very rich in genres and different types of folklore. Among them a special place is occupied by the creations of the Albanian oral epic. In this paper we will treat the songs of songs of mountaineers or, as they are popularly known as highland songs. They are folk creations with a spread not in all Albanian territories. They are mostly practiced in the northern folklore areas and have their own independence, conditioned or determined by the specifics of the way of practice. During our work we can summarize the main features and characteristics of mountainers or highland songs. In addition to the treatments and arguments of the theoretical plan, a number of concrete analyzes will be realized and argumented on our conclusion. We believe that in this way, not as an aim in itself, the spaces of this special type of Albanian folklore will become clearer, more complete and in a more general plan. To reach such a definition, we start from the fact that the poetics of these songs is quite distinct and special, in relation to all other types of Albanian historical songs in general. Among other things, for this type of song we would distinguish the way of singing, which is completely different and unrepeatable in general in all other types of historical songs, poetic structure, shortness of poetry or with so many reduced verses, but also with the lack of pronunciation, and therefore of understanding in many cases of the poetic text.