As a young boy I would spend my summers on the Isle of Lewis staying on my Uncles’s croft and on a Sunday everyone had to don their best clothes and attend the local Free Kirk. The service was conducted in Gaelic so myself and my brother did not have a clue as to what was going on.
As no musical instruments were allowed in the Kirk (“spawn of satan” or some such reasoning), the psalms were sung unaccompanied by the congregation led by a “Precentor” (who recites the text emphasising the key parts of the melody). Our uncle would take regular turns in this role.
The sound is very haunting and it used to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Had been thinking about it at the weekend and that led me to searching and I found this site - has the same effect today as it did back then.
Try track 12.
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1 comment:
Very haunting, yet beautiful. It almost sounded native American in a way, too (track 12).
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