Dainas Music of Latvia

Dainas are very short and it usually have only one or two stanzas, unrhymed and in a four-footed trochaic meter. Poetically, dainas worry themselves with the native mythology but, in difference to most similar types, do not have any famous heroes. The stories often turn around the pre-Christian deities like the moon god Meness, the sun goddess Saule and most notable, the life of the people, especially the three most important activities, which are birth, wedding and death (burial). The collection of the first danias was produced between 1894 and 1915 as Latvju Dainas by Krisjanis Barons.

source of picture: www.folkworld.de 

The musical backing to the village songs is played on different traditional instruments and the most important one is the kokle, which is a type of zither that is linked to the Finnish kantele. In the 1970s, musicians such as Valdis Muktupavels and Janis Porikis led a renewal in the kokle music and had only survived in the Courland/Kurzeme and Lettgallia/Latgale area. The community of Latvian-exile abroad, especially in the United States, has also kept kokle customs alive. In the past hundred years an original type of kokle was developed with many more cords, halftones levelers and other developments that increased the capabilities of the instrument to play not only modal music but also other point of view, displeased more traditional artists. This type of instrument is known as concert kokle. Though, there is recently only one concert kokle maker left, however he is to start training apprentices with the support of the Emirate Union grants.