Traditional
Music
Concerts & Festivals
Dances & Weddings
Classes & Workshops
Sound Samples & CDs
Travel Writing
Dance to Your Shadow
Excerpts
Scotland
Arctic Canada
Georgia Sea Islands
Wildlife Programs
Museum Programs
School Programs
Photography Classes
Research Projects
Wildlife Quiz
buy the CD
Wild Wood
The new CD
Dance To Your Shadow is a collaboration between Pam Swan and tradition bearers from around the world. It features mouth music from many cultures in Africa, Asia, Arctic Canada and the U.S. The album is due for release soon.
What is Mouth Music?
There's a kind of singing found in every culture-- rhythmic, traditional a cappella songs used during work, play, social gatherings, or for dancing when there are no instruments. The most widely used term for this rhythmic traditional a cappella singing is Mouth Music. For more information visit the
Mouth Music Page.
The Project
Pam has spent the past few years collecting, performing and teaching rhythmic traditional a cappella songs (mouth music) from cultures around the world. For this documentary CD, Pam contacted teachers and friends tradition bearers and asked them to record songs from their culture with her. The result is a CD called
Dance To Your Shadow.The process of studying and recording these wonderful traditional songs has been a great privilege, and Pam wishes to thank each of the amazing singers who contributed to the album, which will soon be ready for release.
Featured singers and their music:
Christine Primrose (Scotland, Isle of Lewis)
Scottish puirt-a-beul and waulking song (sound sample: Heman Dubh)
Julia Tsi-Tsi Chigamba (Zimbabwe)
Shona lullaby and harvest chant
Peggy Seeger (U.S.)
Appalachian epenthetic song
Madeleine Allakariallak (Arctic Canada, Nunavut)
Inuit pisiit and throat-singing (sound sample: Ulluk Suli Tauva)
Georgia Sea Islands Singers (U.S.)
African American slave songs (sound sample: Little Johnny Brown)
Wendell Brooks (U.S.)
Songs of the Underground Railroad (sound sample: Celia)
Laurie Lewis (U.S.)
Appalachian chin music
Paul Pena (Central Asia, Republic of Tuva)
Tuvan throat-singing
The Book
In the process of traveling around the world to study and record these songs, Pam got a rare glimpse into several cultures through their music. The result is a book called
Dance to Your Shadow: Chasing a Song Across the World.For more information visit the
Travel Writing page.
The Title
Dance To Your Shadow is the name of a piece of Scottish mouth music that started Pam on a quest to study rhythmic traditional a cappella songs around the world. The more she learned about the origin of this ancient Gaelic song (and its modern history) the more she came to understand the nature of traditional music and her place as a collector, singer and teacher of songs from other cultures.
Dance to Your Shadow is the title track of her new CD of mouth music around the world, and the title of her book about studying and recording traditional songs.
Travel Writing
Music as
a passport to explore cultures around the world
CD Project
The songs that inspired the book Dance to Your Shadow
Book a
Presentation
And demonstration of mouth music for your group or
event