Auctioneering as music?

If you haven’t done so already, check this out.

This video calls attention to a tradition that lies on the edge of music. Though I don’t know exactly what auctioneers try to accomplish by jabbering like this (other than excitement and showing off), it seems that the auctioneering chant is considered a skill rather than an art form. Much like traditional Alpine yodeling, it comes from a non-musical background but can definitely be considered musical. The auctioneer seems to be improvising, but within a set form or pattern, reminiscent more of early jazz or perhaps some folk music traditions than the bebop/postbop continuum that dominates modern jazz. The auctioneer’s filler syllables often resemble “bols”, the syllables used for learning tabla drumming (or even more so “konnakol”, the equivalent in southern India for mrudangam drumming). They also remind me of “scat” singing and folk traditions of nonsense syllables, such as Celtic “mouth music” or similar (unfortunately stereotyped) kinds of Eastern European singing. (This particular auctioneer’s filler syllables sound a lot like the “Hi Digga Digga Dum” of these “gypsy” stereotypes.) Unlike yodeling, also a non-verbal vocal tradition, auctioneering’s musical possibilities haven’t been truly explored outside of this video and this song.

There are several possibilities for expanding this tradition musically. I would perhaps like to hear a drummer (or any musician) who has studied the auctioneer-chant tradition enough play along with an auctioneer in real time. This could lead to either having an auctioneer sit in with a band or having a singer, rapper, or beatboxer learn the tradition and work it into something else. With regards to the genre-blending that goes on so much in experimental/postmodern music, why not?

-Elijah