A daina or tautas dziesma is a traditional form of music or poetry from Latvia. Lithuanian dainas share common traits, however have been more influenced by European folk song traditions. Latvian dainas often feature pre-Christian themes and legends, drone vocal styles and can be accompanied by musical instruments such as the Baltic zithers (kokle). Dainas tend to be very short (usually four-liners) and are usually in a trochaic or a dactylic metre.

Poetic metre and its limitations
The trochaic metre is most popular with around 95% of dainas being in it. Characteristic to this metre is that an unstressed syllable follows stressed syllable, two syllables forming one foot. Two feet form a dipody and after every dipody there is a caesura, which cannot be in the middle of the word. The dainas traditionally are written down so that every line contains two dipodies. If caesura is followed by three syllables, the last syllable i.e. at end of line, is long, if four syllables follow it is short. Syllable is considered short, if it contains short vowel or short vowel and s, all other syllables are considered long. This results in rather limited vocabulary as dipody can consist of either one four syllable word, two two syllable words, one one syllable and one three syllable word or two one syllable and one two syllable word. Exceptions are mostly found in Eastern Latvian dialects, which allow words to start one syllable before or after where caesura normally would be, thus allowing five syllable combinations. This inconsistency is usually found only in one or two lines, most often in second or forth. The notion of short and long syllables at end of lines is retained. However syllable after lost caesura is often unstressed as it is in everyday speech. Elsewhere to increase vocabulary a sound may be added or removed. In particular addition of sounds is explained with structural changes in language itself (loss of vowel in word endings). The sound added at end of the word usually is I, in some rare cases also A, U or E (the later mostly at some regions of Courland). Occasionally both contraction occurs and I is inserted instead of diminutive ending in I i.e. the ending is retained, but separated from the rest of the word by caesura. This can be perhaps explained by diminutives being so popular in dainas that people didn't find it appropriate to replace it with the same word without it, which would be a syllable shorter. However the opposite also might be true with diminutive being added to increase number of syllables, even when meaning of words is quite opposite to what usually is expressed with diminutive. Similarly the need to match the metric might cause disagreement in tenses.

Stylistic devices
Dainas feature several stylistic devices to ensure euphony. Common devices use repetition, these include alliteration – repetition of similar consonants in stressed, anaphora and epiphora - the use of same words at, respectively, beginning or end of lines, repetition of a word, combination of words or previous line, or starting new sentence with word that has same root as last word of previous sentence. Comparisons and other symbolic devices are also found their range including straightforward comparisons, epithets, metaphors, synecdoches, allegories, personifications and parallelisms where seemingly unrelated concepts are used likening events from nature to human life and different social classes.

Themes
Lyrically, dainas concern themselves with native mythology and traditional festivals but, in contrast to most similar forms, do not have any legendary heroes. Stories often revolve pre-Christian deities like the sun goddess Saule, the moon god M?ness. There are dainas that do not have mythical theme as well - many simply describe the daily life of agrarian society and nature. However these still often include personifications of natural phenomena. Another major theme is human life cycle, especially three major events - birth, wedding and death (including burial). The dainas concerning birth are deeply emotional, they usually feature mother figure, not only as the person who gives birth, but also as determining the fate of the child. These also often feature the fate deity Laima and were historically sung directly after birth, which traditionally took place in bathhouse. Many dainas are set apart from others by erotic and sexual themes and mockery. These are commonly known as ner?tn?s (naughty) dainas. The dainas devoted to death describe individual preperaing for the death and often relate funeral customs. These often feature a female god related to world of dead, variously known as kapu m?te, ve?u m?te, zemes m?te or smilšu m?te (mother of graves, mother of dead, mother Earth, mother of sand). The first collection of dainas was published between 1894 and 1915 as Latvju Dainas by Krišj?nis Barons. There are well over two hundred thousand collected dainas in written form.

Daina is the traditional name of vocal folk music in the Baltic languages, and is preserved in Lithuania and Latvia. Lithuanian dainos (literally, "songs") are often noted not only for their mythological content, but also for relating historical events.

Most Lithuanian folk music is based around various types of dainos, which include romantic songs, wedding songs, as well as work songs, and archaic war songs. These dainos are performed either solo, or in groups, and in parallel chords or unison. There are three ancient styles of singing in Lithuania connected with ethnographical regions: monophony, multi-voiced homophony, heterophony and polyphony. Monophony mostly occurs in southern (Dz?kija), southwest (Suvalkija) and eastern (Aukštaitija) parts of Lithuania. Multi-voiced homophony is widespread in the entire Lithuania; it is the most archaic in the western part (Samogitia). Duophonic songs are common in the renowned sutartin?s tradition of Aukštaitija. A large number of Lithuanian dainos are performed in the minor key.

Parts of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring are based on Lithuanian dainos[citation needed], as are works by Lithuanian composer Juozas Naujalis.

Etymology
Cf. Celtic Gaelic duan 'song' ; Romanian doin?, dain? 'folk song, often with a sad music or contents'.

Song Festivals of Dainos
Lithuania is home to many folk music festivals. The Dain? švent? (literally "Song Festival") a state-supported festival is perhaps the most famous; it was first held in 1924, and has continued every five years since, helping to keep folk traditions alive. Other major folk festivals include the Skamba skamba kankliai and the Atataria trimitai, both held annually; of historical importance is the Ant mari? krantelio, which was held in the 1980s and was the first major festival of its kind. The Baltica International Folklore Festival is held in one of the Baltic states every year.

The tradition of mass Song Fests was inscribed in the UNESCO list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2003.

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