Na’vi express their innermost feelings through quiet improvisational singing, usually when alone in the midst of the forest. Both men and women perform this genre, usually when wandering by themselves, and often as appreciation of the beauty of their world. Eywa, the Kelutral, and mates are the most common audience for this type of musical expression. These songs may take the form of a slow, mournful, undulating melody with very little variation in pitch, or a more lively sort of warbling. It is considered rude to eavesdrop on another’s personal music, unless specifically invited to do so.
Some Na’vi sing using words to express their sentiments—rol nì’awtu, ‘to sing alone’. Others leave the sentiment to be expressed through their melodies—tìng lawr (nì’awtu), ‘to sing a wordless melody (alone)’. These seemingly random sounds, known on Earth as ‘vocables’, are non-lexical or non-semantic syllables, like ‘fa la la’, which have no intrinsic meaning but are easy to sing. Some elder Na’vi and linguistic researchers theorize that many of the vocables used in these lawr may be derivations or mutations of old Na’vi words, or perhaps even remnants of a language that predates the Na’vi. One example would be the vocables te-la-ni, which is often sung repeatedly. Some theorize that this is a derivation of the word txe’lan, ‘heart’. Another common vocable, tra-la, resembles the word Utralä, ‘of the tree’.