Dating back over a thousand years, Seto leelo is a traditional singing style of the Seto people, featuring two main voices in a choir or group of singers: the primary voice, the torrõ, sung by most of the singers, and the upper solo accompaniment voice, the killõ.

In the older style, singers of the primary voice would employ various melodic modes — different voices would move apart, reunite and move crosswise, creating a patterned sound.

Janika Oras, a senior researcher at the Estonian Literary Museum (EKM), has been teaching Seto leelo for nearly 20 years. Now, she helped develop a web application dedicated to learning it.

Setonoot was inspired by a practical need. According to Oras, visualizing the system is often the most effective way to explain it.

"This is the quickest way for people to understand how the polyphonic harmony works, what each voice does and how the leelo pattern comes together," she explained.

The older Seto leelo tradition, however, doesn't conform to the conventional tempered tuning system, such as the way a piano is tuned. The distances between the notes vary in different performances, so microtones are needed to represent these distances — meaning the scale includes intervals within semitones, or distances smaller than the differences between piano keys.

"The tradition is constantly evolving, and is being influenced by today's music world; as a result, it's these characteristics of the older style that are beginning to fade," Oras acknowledged. "But there are singers who bring this old style back into the present, to preserve the uniqueness and musical richness of the Seto leelo."

Unlike standard Western musical notation, the innovative notation developed for Seto leelo takes into account the distinctive tonal quality of Seto music and allows for microtuning. Seto musical notation is simpler than regular notation, and doesn't require users to know how to read sheet music.

Oras noted that the web application does of course take some getting into, but the visuals are helpful. "The goal is to explain the system and the opportunities of the individual parts [in the music]," she said.

Setonoot allows users to watch and listen to complete polyphonic, or multipart, Seto leelo melodies, with the option to toggle various voices on and off. Users can listen to and learn the part for one voice separately, and then, for example, try singing their part together with the other voice.

Users can also try their hand at writing their own musical notation and immediately play it back.

According to the senior researcher, this application could be used by complete beginners to learn the basics in their first foray into leelo.

Once a user has learned even just a single torrõ variation, that's enough for them to sing along in a singing circle.

"It's a good idea to start with the Leelo School on the Seto Singing Heritage site," Oras suggested. "It includes an explanation of the notation, and you can gradually go through the process of learning songs in different tonal styles. Links there will take you to the notation application and to the songs."

More experienced singers can also learn the nuances of the older style.

Oras emphasized that this new technological solution is still merely a tool, and that one's main focus should still be on singing and learning together.

To date, Setonoot has been used to learn Seto songs with folk musicians at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater (EMTA) and in international workshops.

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