From "Hickup over the Littany" (London Review of Books).
I don't remember ever seeing the spelling "hickup" before. If you'd asked me for a variant spelling of "hiccup," I'd have written "hiccough." It's not an American-vs.-English distinction: The OED presents "hiccup" as the main spelling... with "hiccough" secondary. The OED offers this ancient advice:
1626 It hath beene obserued by the Ancients, that Sneezing doth cease the Hiccough.
F. Bacon, Sylua Syluarum §686
By the way, before "hiccup," long ago, the English word for the unsettling spasms was "yex" — or "yox," "yucks," "yicks," "yecks," "yokes," "yesk." "Yucks" seems to have lasted:
1888 Why Tommy, you've a-got the yucks—drink some cold water.F. T. Elworthy, West Somerset Word-book at Yucks
"Yucks" is our word for laughs. Oddly enough, "yex" started out meaning a sob.
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19 comments:
Will the wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past?
Two possibilities come to mind. First there is a recent phenomenon with the letter K, using it where traditionally a C would be. This is related to the 20-year rise of X as a substitute and to add cache to marketing efforts (think of all the recent autos that have X in the model number or drug names that begin or end in X.
Second this looks like someone took the rhyming word pickup and decided to spell hiccup the same way, simply swapping out the leading letter. Either is quite possible in the current state of world affairs.
The styles, written about in 1517, would concern emotion and intent. Vocally, everyone would be the same. We know this because we have written music from that era that shows us scale and tone. Human larynxes haven't changed, which means we sang then as we sing now.
One sound from the past we will never hear again is that of the castrato.
Has this fellow missed the entire transgender fad sweeping the English-speaking world?
A fun read. I followed it to the 1902 recording of Alessandro Moreschi, one of the last castratos, singing Ave Maria. Eerie to hear a burly, grown man sing in the pure voice of a young boy or female soprano.
There's a similar debate about the way Ancient Greek drama was performed. The 1957 Oedipus Rex film attempts to recreate it, and it is also eerie. Don't blink or you'll miss William Shatner.
I think there's an old recording of castrati on the original instrument.
I was a groomsman in my sisters wedding, at which she cried copiously during the Ave Maria sung by a very close friend of the family, supposedly a near-operatic talent. Sung horribly. Painfully. Really unpleasantly. Up by the altar, only myself & her hubby were close enough to hear her response when he asked her, sotto voce, if she was OK. "I'm fine," she replied through her tears. "But that woman is going to sing again!" She was correct in crying. The sung Our Father was even more horrific.
Of such moments are great weddings made.
Wild Bill Hickup. The most dangerous gunmen in the Old west. Unless he was having hiccups.
500 years ago and it's pretty much a different language.
I wonder who was the first to do vibrato?
And we know what singers will sound like in the future if you've watched 'Fifth Element.'
"Or what does this résumé of national styles, written in 1517, tell us? 'The French sing; the Spaniards weepe; the Italians, which dwell about the Coasts of Genoa, caper with their Voyces; the others bark; but the Germanes ... doe howle like wolves.'"
So I am ethnically obligated to sing, weep, caper, and howl all at once (with some barking thrown in). No wonder my singing sounds like crap.
The success of the early music revolution has come from the fact that in creating an idealised view of the past it has appealed to contemporary audiences. I have no doubt that if we were really to re-create an evening with an 18th-century orchestra, or a service with a 16th-century choir, we would be horrified by the standard of performance, and disgusted by the smells.
I've often referred to this as pastopianism. While the human voice hasn't really changed, the article notes that much of the performance back then would be by what we would call 'amateurs' today. Bach, for example, worked with the church choirs and musicians he had to hand, not working professionals.
Tina Trent said...
"A fun read. I followed it to the 1902 recording of Alessandro Moreschi, one of the last castratos, singing Ave Maria. Eerie to hear a burly, grown man sing in the pure voice of a young boy or female soprano."
Here's a link on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjvfqnD0ws
The poster Javier Medina notes: "Cavaliere Moreschi singing. Here we can hear more ease his voice and how he can sing mostly in chest voice. That's a thing that today listeners can not understand. Castrati sang in CHEST VOICE not only head. Bernachi (another castrato) taught Farinelli how to sing 'colorature' in chest voice :D Modern sopranos and countertenors mostly uses just their head voice. The biggest problem I have find is "the mode" and I feel as Tosi said: "Modern singers" I am an ancient one... I do prefere this style so brave and sincere."
If you've heard classical and/or operatic French, Italian, Spanish and German singing, those words sound pretty accurate.
I don't think people sing differently today and from what they've sung in the past. Certainly there are characteristics unique to each country and culture, but for example in the English language church hymns the words and melodies have been established for a few hundred years and I'm pretty sure we sing them today pretty much the same they were sung back then. And those things that were sung then we're pretty much similar to the things that were sung before then.
" long ago, the English word for the unsettling spasms was "yex" — or "yox," "yucks," "yicks," "yecks," "yokes," "yesk."
Don't forget "yiokes!"
"Yoicks", I think was meant by loudogblog at 155.
IANA musicologist or musician, so can't really contest some of the points made, but I know enough to know that 'period' or 'authentic' performance is often in the eye or ear of the beholder.
If I could choose to spend one night in the past, it would probably be at some Beethoven piano concerto's first performance.
I strongly agree that the smells of the past would probably be the biggest shock. Perhaps some future team of Chrononauts will be selected to include supersmellers and anosmics.
Annnnd, thanks rhardin. Input as precise as the line it, and you, walk.
Grumpy IS the male version of hormonal.
I had mentioned here earlier, in the Cher new Christmas song post, how I thought the Pretenders version of 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' (1987) sounded sad. Upon subsequent listening, it occurred to me that Chrissie Hynde may have been attempting to be faithful to a reading of the text.
'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' is a sad song, that attempts to hide sadness.
A case of the Pretenders not pretending.
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