rockabye baby

December 21, 2002 9:57 AM

Lelo ledung, pu'va pu'va, eh-e... In honor of the shortest day of the year: Lullabies from around the world. Midis and mp3s, from Bangladesh to Turkey, to send you off to dreamland, wherever it may be.
posted by amberglow (15 comments total)

My fav, from Indonesia (wav)
posted by amberglow at 9:59 AM on December 21, 2002

Ah, you loveable old rogue.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 10:01 AM on December 21, 2002

Wait... the winter solstice marks the beginning of winter? Surely it should be the middle, no?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 10:04 AM on December 21, 2002

Pretty_Generic - i've had that conversation with astronomers (who you might think no something about this kind of thing) and there doesn't seem to be much consensus. the argument for having seasons centred on the solstices seem obvious to me, but the reply is that the temperature (and so the "real seasons") on earth lag - while you (here it's the longest day of the year) are tilted most strongly away from the sun today, the northern heisphere will continue to cool for some time yet, so "mid winter" is still to come. i'm not 100% convinced (is the lag really 1.5 months?), but it's certainly going to get a lot hotter here before the end of summer...
posted by andrew cooke at 10:23 AM on December 21, 2002

My fav, from Indonesia (wav)

A very nice noise indeed, but somehow not my idea of a lullaby -- too lively.
posted by JanetLand at 10:37 AM on December 21, 2002

ok, that's it...I need a nap.

nice stuff, amberglow!
posted by madamjujujive at 10:43 AM on December 21, 2002

Y'know, my parents' anniversary is today. Took me years to figure out why.
posted by yerfatma at 10:54 AM on December 21, 2002

I wonder what makes a lullaby, mathematically? You'd think it would be frequencies that have the simplest relationships and so ... require the least waking thought to appreciate. But some of these seem to be harmonically pretty complex.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 11:06 AM on December 21, 2002

Andrew, how's midsummer?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 11:08 AM on December 21, 2002

Groovy links Amberglow! I'm loading them into the player for the next time the baby gets a little colicky. :)
posted by dejah420 at 12:36 PM on December 21, 2002

anything to help, dejah! (and they're good for your rest too!) : >
posted by amberglow at 1:03 PM on December 21, 2002

how's midsummer? pretty good thanks. just been out in the garden rebuilding my bike's front wheel wearing nothing but my undies (which may be a little more information than you need to know right now). how's the cold and miserable midwinter? ;-) (or were you asking whether the same problem with seasons exists? - it does).
posted by andrew cooke at 2:12 PM on December 21, 2002

On the definition of winter, I personally go with the tradition of defining it by months (which makes it a lot easier as well as fitting NYC weather better); to quote the Weather Almanac: "If we define winter solely by the coldest quarter of the year, the starting date would vary greatly with location in the Northern Hemisphere. Thus, meteorologists and climatologists generally consider December-January-February as the winter months."

A couple of other sites that may help think about it: Bad Astronomy and the synopsis "Determination of Climatological Seasons for the East Coast of the U.S. Using a Air Mass Based Classification"

Oh, and great post, amberglow!
posted by languagehat at 5:28 PM on December 21, 2002

how's the cold and miserable midwinter?

That's a leading question! Accurate though.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 5:38 PM on December 21, 2002

wish they had more of them, here's the one my mother used to sing by Alice Tegner:

Sov du lilla videung
än så är det vinter
Än så sova björk och ljung
ros och hyacinter
Än så är det långt till vår
innan rönn i blomma står
Sov du lilla vide
än så är det vinter.

Solskensöga ser på dig,
solskensfamn dig vaggar.
Snart blir grönt på skogens stig,
och var blomma flaggar.
Än en liten solskensbön:
vide liten blir så grön.
Solskensöga ser dig.
Skolskensfamn dig vaggar.

yerfatma - funny...
posted by dabitch at 3:15 PM on December 22, 2002