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voorzin

English translation: call (line)

15:14 Dec 27, 2005
Dutch to English translations [PRO]
Music
Dutch term or phrase: voorzin
I understand this is a type of responsorial singing, a style of singing in which a leader alternates with a chorus. But what's the best way to render "voorzin" in this specific example (I've also posted "nazin" as a separate question)?

De Frafra kennen eveneens een groot repertoire aan vrouwenliederen die ze paga yila noemen. Een voorzanger zingt de voorzin terwijl het koor antwoordt met de nazin. De gezangen komen homofoon of heterofoon voor.

In this example I've just glossed over it so far ("with the during player singing a line"):
De during-muzikant behoort tot een kaste van griots die een repertoire vertolken dat zowel historisch als actueel is. Hij wordt meestal begeleid door een siyarik-kalebas. De tekst wordt responsoriaal gezongen, waarbij de during-speler de voorzin zingt en de siyarik-speler antwoordt.
(during = one-string fiddle and siyarik = rattle)
MoiraB
France
Local time: 06:41
English translation:call (line)
Explanation:
Since this type of music is often referred to as 'call and response singing', I think it would be an option to translate 'voorzin' as 'call line'.

I've been able to find only one reference, though.

I'm not allowed to run the train/The whistle I can't blow/I'm not allowed to say how fast/the railroad train can go/I'm not allowed to shoot off steam/nor can I clang the bell/but let the damned train jump the track/and see who catches hell.
So went an example of the call-and-response singing of the gandy dancers, railroad workers responsible in a bygone era for keeping tracks straight by "lining them up" with sledgehammers. They sang as they swung, together in perfect rhythm, filling the days of hard labor with memorable, useful chants. The African-American gandy dancers sang chants about Jesus, tall tales of lewdness, coded gripes about the mean bosses and mean life on the railroad.

Gandy was the company that made the men's hammers and other tools, and the dance was the spectacle of their regular pounding and calling. As a boy growing up in Yorktown and New Bohemia, Va., Bryan Bowers went near the tracks and was instantly enraptured.

"The perfect synchronization of their swings with the heavy sledges as they called back answer lines to the call line was mesmerizing," he says. "I'd sit on the railroad tracks to watch and sing and swing my imaginary sledgehammer as they slowly worked their way down the track."
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/issues/1999-11-17/calendar/nd...
Selected response from:

vixen
Greece
Local time: 07:41
Grading comment
I've come across the phrase "call and response singing" quite often lately in researching African music so I think this fits in nicely. Thanks, everyone!
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
3 +4call (line)
vixen
4 +2protasis
Jack den Haan
4 +2lead phrase
Dave Calderhead


Discussion entries: 2





  

Answers


31 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +4
call (line)


Explanation:
Since this type of music is often referred to as 'call and response singing', I think it would be an option to translate 'voorzin' as 'call line'.

I've been able to find only one reference, though.

I'm not allowed to run the train/The whistle I can't blow/I'm not allowed to say how fast/the railroad train can go/I'm not allowed to shoot off steam/nor can I clang the bell/but let the damned train jump the track/and see who catches hell.
So went an example of the call-and-response singing of the gandy dancers, railroad workers responsible in a bygone era for keeping tracks straight by "lining them up" with sledgehammers. They sang as they swung, together in perfect rhythm, filling the days of hard labor with memorable, useful chants. The African-American gandy dancers sang chants about Jesus, tall tales of lewdness, coded gripes about the mean bosses and mean life on the railroad.

Gandy was the company that made the men's hammers and other tools, and the dance was the spectacle of their regular pounding and calling. As a boy growing up in Yorktown and New Bohemia, Va., Bryan Bowers went near the tracks and was instantly enraptured.

"The perfect synchronization of their swings with the heavy sledges as they called back answer lines to the call line was mesmerizing," he says. "I'd sit on the railroad tracks to watch and sing and swing my imaginary sledgehammer as they slowly worked their way down the track."
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/issues/1999-11-17/calendar/nd...


vixen
Greece
Local time: 07:41
Native speaker of: Dutch
PRO pts in category: 8
Grading comment
I've come across the phrase "call and response singing" quite often lately in researching African music so I think this fits in nicely. Thanks, everyone!

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Jack den Haan
1 hr
agree  Dave Calderhead: lots of Google hits - see www.divinedaughters.com/call_res/
1 hr
agree  Will Matter
2 hrs
agree  Saskia Steur (X)
2 hrs
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1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +2
protasis


Explanation:
I agree with Dave in this context and would use the term he suggests, but a more technical term, used in music as well as linguistics, is protasis. I happen to do quite a bit of (classical) singing myself -- in- and outside the bathroom ;-)

http://www.iscm.nl/gamin1997.php

One of the most prominent pieces in the festival was the so-called "Concerto grosso" for string quartet and orchestral groups by Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, born 1932 in Denmark. In spite of its instrumentation, it was neither a Concerto grosso nor a narrative piece, as it was announced to be, since the Tutti-Ripieni between the solo actions were missing, as was any sign of baroque inflection. One of the leading Skandinavian composers, Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, without any kind of romanticizing attitude, has abandoned developmental, variational or structural, serial writing. He inserts sections of the sounds resulting from procedures for cooperation between performers from the German string quartet, Mandelring-Quartett, and individual orchestral colors, arranging them paratactically next to one another. Sometimes even traditional harmonic sequences are used, however they do not produce a ***prostasis and apodosis*** in the traditional sense. Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen - known to older ISCM visitors since the 1970 festival in Basel - is still a great unknown in neighboring Germany, a discovery worth making at last.

http://www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/Webster/data/69.html
**Apodosis***
(||A*pod"o*sis) n. [L., fr. Gr. fr. to give back; from, back again + to give.] (Gram.) The consequent clause or conclusion in a conditional sentence, expressing the result, and thus distinguished from the protasis or clause which expresses a condition. Thus, in the sentence, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him," the former clause is the protasis, and the latter the apodosis.
Some grammarians extend the terms ***protasis and apodosis*** to the introductory clause and the concluding clause, even when the sentence is not conditional.


Jack den Haan
Netherlands
Local time: 06:41
Native speaker of: Native in DutchDutch, Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 20

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Dave Calderhead: OED says nothing about singing under protasis (:-{( but Google does produce some references with a singing context
9 mins
  -> Even the two-volume, five-kilogram Compact Oxford does not suggest a musical application of the term. Sigh...
agree  Will Matter
1 hr
  -> Thanks!
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13 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +2
lead phrase


Explanation:
the leading singer sings the lead phrase and the chorus responds with the response

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr 41 mins (2005-12-27 16:55:20 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

a couple of refs:

Friday 23rd June {Ricardo Lemvo} + The Planet + 23/06/2000
(afro-cuban crossed with soukous ... lots of big horns... male lead and response vocals) ... (central african-infulenced female a cappella rhythmic SONG) ...
www.abc.net.au/rn/music/planet/stories/s143169.htm

2001 Zimbabwean Music Festival
Learn lead and response singing, and hand clapping, to this traditional Shona song used to ask the spirits for protection when entering a dangerous forest. ...
www.zimfest.org/2001/singing.html - 9k


Dave Calderhead
Netherlands
Local time: 06:41
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 16

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Jack den Haan: But please see my response elsewhere. // Although I posted my answer before this comment, you seem to have received the latter sooner!
1 hr
  -> Thanks, Jack (:-{)> Can you give me a lead/clue?
agree  Saskia Steur (X)
1 hr
  -> Thanks, Saskia.(:-{)> and Season's Greetings, incidentally
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