mouth music

Calque of the Scottish Gaelic puirt a' bhèil (“tunes of the mouth”).

mouth music (uncountable)

1. The vocal imitation of instrumental music.
   • 1877, Alexander Carmichael (translator); Angus Macleod (speaker), “The Reciters' Lament, and Their Story”, in W.Y. Evans-Wentz, editor, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries‎, →ISBN, page 115:

     She herself or one of the other crofter women of the townland would sing to us the mouth music.

   • 1996, George Odam; Joan Arnold, Alison Ley, Sounds of Music (Teacher's Book)‎, →ISBN, page 61:

     ‘Mouth music’ evolved in those parts of the country where poor people had no instruments but still wanted to dance.

   • 2002, Charles Keil & Angeliki V. Keil, “Foreword”, in Bright Balkan Morning: Romani Lives & the Power of Music in Greek Macedonia‎, →ISBN, page xxiii:

     Listening to flamenco, or to English Gypsy or Russian Gypsy folk song, or to the “babba-deep-babbaa-doop” mouth music of the Hungarian Roma, one would be hard put to identify a commonality.

• puirt a beul