The slow songs or table songs of the Lovara, mesaljake gila, are characterised by impressive poetry. They refer to the essential aspects of the singers' lives, thus expressing experiences and feelings and telling stories to the listeners, typically the family. The songs function as the cultural and historical memory of the Lovara and provide information about the everyday life of the ancestors, the group's own values and rules of the moral and honour code and the fates of individuals. The texts are full of poetic stylistic devices and idioms but also allow for spontaneously inserted and altered verses. (See: The Lovari Songs) They therefore also have an improvisational character. The verses of the slow songs each consist of four lines of six to eight syllables, to which characteristic filler syllables such as jaj, joj, aj, de are commonly added.

Another typical feature of loke gila is the emphasis on the actual events of the song content. This is also evident in the field research recordings with the singer Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos, who often affirms the 'true events' of the songs.

The slow songs are traditionally told from a male first-person perspective. This can be seen in both grammatical and content-related characteristics. When Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos sings, she adopts the narrative perspective of the respective song, i.e., the 'male point of view'. However, it is not the gender of the narrator that is of primary importance, but rather the event itself and the feelings associated with it.

Musical Structure

The musical structure of the slow songs is characterised by framework tones that always remain the same. The intermediate notes can vary. Improvisation is an essential element of the slow songs of the Lovara. The significance of the line-ending tones can be seen on the one hand from their length in the songs, which are all sung free-rhythmically (parlando-rubato), and on the other hand from the strong vibrato with which the singer performs them.

A particularly striking characteristic of the slow Lovara songs is the handling of the final note. The final note, almost always the melodic 1st, is introduced either by the melodic 7th or the 2nd. This is done in such a way that the preceding note is sustained for a long time and sung in a decrescendo, followed by a pause, after which the final note sounds very softly, often breathy. In the performance, one has the impression that it does not belong to the song at all if one is not familiar with this way of singing. The pause before the final note is a meaningful element, a characteristic of these songs and an essential part of the performance.

Sources and further information:

• Hemetek, Ursula. Mosaik der Klänge. Musik der ethnischen und religiösen Minderheiten in Österreich. Wien: Böhlau, 2001.
• Hemetek, Ursula: Comparison of Žo-tar mange žo-tar and Tu gelan tar a lumasa, a slow song and a new song; In: Amare gila - Unsere Lieder – Our Songs. Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos u.a., eine Dokumentation der Lovaraliedkultur in Österreich. CD mit Begleitheft. In der Reihe: Tondokumente zur Volksmusik in Österreich Vol.4, März 1994, Neuauflage 1998. PDF