Tervetuloa laulaa runolauluja meidän kanssa! Welcome and join us for some runolaulu.
Our VuoriVene Session is once per month and focuses on the runolaulu genre. What is runolaulu? It is the ancient folklore that was sung for at least 2000 years up until the early 1900s CE. You have likely heard of the Kalevala and its epic hero Väinämöinen. Did you know that the poetry used in the Kalevala was sung, not recited? The first runo I learned to sing was about Väinämöinen wounding his knee while carving a boat on a mountain so he could woo a maiden. How did he staunch the tide flowing from his knee? Come to a runolaulu session and find out!
Our sessions are on the First Saturday of the month at 11am – 1pm CT US time or klo19-21 Suomessa. Please join us when you can!
Zoom Meeting ID – VuoriVene
Meeting ID: 860 5100 7633
Passcode: 961454
Even if you don’t feel ready to sing, you can learn a lot about runolaulu by listening to other singers. You can even try singing along while on mute. We sing several simple traditional melodies – always trying to learn more melodies as we go. I began my journey learning these songs from professional runolaulu musicians at Sommelo Ethnomusic Festival in Kuhmo, Finland and from YouTube performers. Sometimes we are lucky to get one of my runolaulu friends from Finland or Japan to join us! Why Japan? Well that’s a whole other blog post.
We sing the selected text in Karelian or Finnish but the English translation is in a column next to it, so you can get a sense of the meaning. Through our research, we provide explanations of some of the concepts and ideas -myths, words that describe the scene or life of people back then, etc. Everyone is welcome to contribute their knowledge and improvisation! Do bring your own runos if you have ideas!