Trallalero

Trallalero is a kind of polyphonic folk music from the Ligurian region of Genoa, in northern Italy. It is traditionally performed by men, though there have been some female performers in the modern era. The name derives from the monosyllabic vocables (non-lexical vocalizations), tra-la-le-ro, which feature heavily in the repertoire of the groups or Squadre. These are typically sections of songs without words during which the melody is sung on nonsense syllables.

In the 1950s, American musicologist Alan Lomax and Diego Carpitella recorded trallalero. Lomax later claimed he was blown away, and called it the most significant work in his long and storied career. Edward Neill worked to revitalize the tradition in the middle of the 20th century, with a wide range of works by musicologist Mauro Balma making up the majority of modern academic study on the subject.