Over at 80+1 I just published my interview with Gabriela Golder of the Arrorró project to document and analyze as many lullabies from around the world as possible. Head on over and you can watch both Georgia and me singing lullabies. Here’s a teaser:

I sat down with Golder at El Hipopotamo in the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires to learn more about what has been discovered in the 200 videos that have already been recorded, and how the project will evolve over the next two months leading up to its simultaneous live exhibition in Buenos Aires and Linz. Our conversation was in Spanish, but I have added English sub-titles to the video:

Just like with recipes, folk stories, and fashion, it is fascinating to observe how the verses and melodies of lullabies adapt as they travel across cultures and what those adaptations reveal about each culture. As Golder mentions in the video, when she asked a Korean shop owner here in Buenos Aires what lullabies she sang to her children, the shopkeeper’s simple response was, “I don’t.” Indeed, a cursory search on Google doesn’t elicit much other than a shaky cell phone video of a sweet grandfather humming a Korean folk lullaby to his newborn grandson and, via Wikipedia, a piano version of Ja Jang Ga. Digging a little deeper, however, I discovered that the Japanese lullaby Itsuki No Komoriuta (sung here by Shirley Yamaguchi) was allegedly first brought to Japan by Korean potters after the Japanese invasions of Korea from 1592 – 1598.

You can read the rest of the post here.