If singing constitutes a fundamental part of Estonian national consciousness and was key in inspiring and fuelling political change, where does singing and music currently fit in in Estonian culture overall? If singing folk songs could uphold a revolution, then what might come of tranformations to traditional Estonian song and future manifestations of the Estonian national voice?
As a starter, sample these tunes by Mighty Windish musical group Collage. Active in the '70's, I was told that the group is once again in vogue (their music was being played on several separate visits to the same cafe). Apparently, these groovy ditties are 1970's reworkings of traditional folk songs.
To hear more, we checked out the celebrated Estonian Men's Choir last week at the Estonia Kontserdisaal (Concert Hall). The pieces -- in Norweigan, French and Latin -- were wonderful, complex and varied, some jolly, others haunting, many uplifting. We were so impressed, we snuck a vid. By the way, the choir is being led by Carl Hogset, from Norway.
Next day, we were in Tartu, in a guesthouse... with TV! A couple of full circuits through the satellite offerings churned up fantastic news, especially for the realiTV-starved. Eesti Otsib Superstaari was airing that night! We caught the last half hour or so, enough to wonder how the contestants were faring with the stoney-faced judges and grab a video sample to take home.
Estonians are clearly nuts for the show. The videos posted by Estonia's TV3 on YouTube have thousands of hits. Even my uploaded video, thrice removed -- with crap-quality intermittent picture and feedback buzz -- has already amassed over 800 YouTube views. It's one thing to re-folkify and classicize the Estonian national voice, but what will become of it once it done been American Idolized? Will the nation see its "superstaar" as a symbol of the Estonian musical character, as constituting its choral core, charged with the vocal maintainance of Estonia's political and cultural future? Not likely. As with the other "Idol" franchises worldwide, this "Singing Revolution" is more about local participation in global pop culture phenomena. More to the point, with a population of just 1.4 million (fewer than live on the Island of Montreal), Estonian young folk are tuning in to "Eesti otsib superstaari" to see themselves, and their friends and neighbours, on TV, doing the Jon Bon Jovi and Christina Aguilera impressions that, until then, they'd only been ballsy enough to perform in sauna anterooms on pitch-black polar evenings into vodka bottle mics. No one is heading to Hollywood with this yellow ticket. Try-outs have been held in 4 Estonian towns, Tallinn being one of them. Assuming that's where the rest of the show will unfold, for some finalists, the yellow ticket probably means bus fare down to the TV3 studio. On the episode I saw, the numbers on the contestants' pinnies were barely into the hundreds, and shots from "on deck" revealed near-empty rooms. No mallfuls of queued-up, pumped up teens, no stadiumfuls of hopefuls: statistically impossible. There is also a noticeable lack of typical post-Simon behaviour. No slamming doors, no vicious outbursts needing bleeping out, no howling, tear-streaked faces, no trembling huddles of the nauseous and the nervously broken down, no appeals to talk to the hand; such behaviours do not meld well with the Estonians' stoic, outwardly emotionless demeanor. In this sense, then, a distinct national character is emerging in Estonia's superstaar search. Who knows, maybe they'll pull some technological firsts for "Idol" as well -- after all, Estonia is the first nation in the world to have Internet voting in national elections. If I could only understand what was being said ...
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