Trallalero is a kind of polyphonic

Polyphony

In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....

 folk music from the Liguria

Liguria

Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:...

n region of Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

, in the north of Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. It is traditionally performed by men, though there are some female performers in the modern era. The name derives from the monosyllabic vocable

Vocable

In speech, a vocable is an utterance, term, or word that is capable of being spoken and recognized. A non-lexical vocable is used without semantic role or meaning, while structure of vocables is often considered apart from any meaning...

s (non-lexical vocalizations), tra-la-la.

Though nearly extinct in the 1950s, American musicologist

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

 Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

 and Diego Carpitella

Diego Carpitella

Diego Carpitella Italian professor of ethnomusicology at La Sapienza University in Rome. He is considered one of the greatest scholars of Italian folk music. Published extensively between 1949 and 1989. He collaborated with the Centro Nazionale Studi di Musica Popolare from 1952-58, collecting...

 recorded trallalero. Lomax later claimed he was blown away, and called it the most significant work in his long and storied career. Edward Neill worked to revitalize the tradition in the middle of the 20th century.

Trallalero groups consist of tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

, baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

 and bass parts, accompanied by a contralto

Contralto

Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

 and a singer whose voice imitates a guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 (chitarra). Nine singers is considered a normal line-up: one each of chitarra, tenor, contralto, baritone and five basses.

Group harmony in Liguria is historically associated with mountain villages, where two voices (usually a tenor and a baritone) sung over accompaniment by bass or drone

Drone (music)

In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...

. A repertoire of traditional songs evolved over time, and the style moved to the docks of Genoa, a noted port city. There, metal-workers, longshoremen and stevedores sang trallalero, with the practice peaking in the first three decades of the 20th century.

External links

• Mustrad.org.uk Review by Rod Stradling of trallalero recordings by Alan Lomax
  Alan Lomax
  Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
  
  , with much background information.