Polynesian Mythology: Appendix: On the Native Songs of New Zealand
AND A COMPARISON OF THE INTERVALS DISCERNIBLE IN THEM WITH THE INTERVALS STATED TO HAVE BEEN PERFORMED BY THE ANCIENT GREEKS IN SOME OF THEIR DIVISIONS OF THE MUSICAL SCALE, CALLED γένοσ ἐναρμονικὸν {Greek génos e?narmonikòn}, on BY OTHERS ἁρμονία {Greek a!rmonía}. ALL nations, perhaps, without excepting any, have some method of expressing the more energetic emotions beyond mere speaking or acting; a sense of joy or pain, naturally calling forth ejaculations and vociferations exceeding in limit the tone of voice used in ordinary discourse. The cry of war, the encouraging to battle, the shout of victory, or the lament of the vanquished, the wailing over a deceased friend, grief at the departure of a lover, each in its turn has prompted or suggested some modification of sound beyond the ordinary range of mere tame every-day discourse; and this modification of voice we may call, in a wide sense, natural music. But as the highest art is to conceal the art, 1 and to imitate nature, that mighty nation, the Greeks, with an art almost peculiarly their own, having observed these expressions of sentiment, thence deduced certain laws 2 of interval, by which, while they kept within the limits of art, they took care not to transgress those of nature, but judiciously to
So Plutarch (Περὶ Μουσικῆσ {Greek Perì Mousikh^s}), who adds a remark, the purport of which is, such persons (who affirm that the ancients could not accompany the enharmonic) forget that if they can accompany greater intervals which were composed of less, there can be no reason why the scale of an instrument might not be so adjusted as to accompany the less intervals which compose those greater. The doubt of the possibility of using the enharmonic as a scale is not confined to our own day, for Plutarch, as we have seen (and in other places also), speaks of the decline of it; and Athenæus speaks of certain Greeks who, from time to time, retired by themselves to keep up the recollection of the good old music, since the art had become so corrupted. In Plutarch's time (De Musica) he bitterly complains that certain people 'affirmed the enharmonic diesis to be absolutely undistinguishable,' and that, therefore, it had no place in the scales of nature, and that those who attempted to prove it were mere triflers (pefluarhké?nai) 2
appear wholly strange and unmanageable', and hence it has been concluded that the enharmonic was impossible in practice. Dr Burney, however, one day received a letter from his friend Dr Russell, regarding the ' state of music in Arabia, and to the Doctor's utter astonishment, he learnt from that letter that the Arabian scale of music was divided into quarter tones; and that an octave, which, upon our keyed instruments is only divided into 12 semitones, in the Arabian scale contained 24, for all of which they had particular denominations. This latter observation would seem to tally very well with what Mr Lane 1 says of the canoon (κάνων {Greek kánwn}) of the present Arabs, which, he says, has 24 treble notes. Only, that he adds, each note has three strings to it, which (later, as we shall see) he affirms to have been thirds of tones. If so, the system is a shade of the chromatic; and if Mr Lane is right (and he gives a drawing of the instrument), Dr Russell must err, or speak of another instrument. I should be inclined to give preference to Lane, because of the great pains he has taken in describing the instrument. Mr Lay Tradescant 2, speaking of the Chinese intervals, says that 'it is impossible to obtain the intervals of their scale on our keyed instruments, but they may be perfectly effected on the violin.'
There is another matter with which incidentally we have to do, namely, an apparent difference of opinion between ancient authors themselves about the enharmonic. Plutarch 3 says that Aristoxenus (in a book not now extant) informs us that Olympus was the inventor of an enharmonic, but of a kind consisting of a scale in which certain notes, the 'lichani' or 'indicatrices', were omitted, and that the airs of Olympus were so simple and beautiful, that there was nothing like them. This Scale would approximate to the Scotch, or rather to that given as Chinese by Dr Russell. 4 But there is nothing repugnant in this, to the division of the intermediate half-note between this saltus; and, as here, it is the division of the halfnote interval with which we have to do;
the discussion as to the variety or difference introduced by Olympus--(as to whether he made use of this design or not)--is not of any importance to our subject, our object being merely to show that the smaller interval, called a quarter tone, has its representative in modern times. Suffice it to say, that many Chinese airs, of which I have two, show the diesic modulations and the saltus combined; but the majority of the New Zealand airs which I have heard are softer and more 'ligate', and have a great predominance of the diesic element. It may not be amiss to define in what sense we wish 'diesis' to be understood, for sometimes, by modern writers especially, it is used for the simple minor half-tone of 24/25 in contradistinction to the major of 15/16. In Dr Smith's Harmonies it is the limma of equal temperament. Sometimes the moderns use the term for the double sharp. It was Rameau's these major; Henfling's Harmonia; Boyce's quarter-note; the Earl of Stamford's tierce wolf; observed in the tuning of an organ. Dr Maxwell makes 2025/2048 the maj. diesis, and 32768/32805 the min. But the sense in which I shall use it is that of the ancient quarter-tone, being an approach to the quarter of a tone major, or rather the division of the limma 243/256 into two unequal parts; this is called the Aristoxenian diesis quadrantalis; which is represented nearly by 120 being the lowest note; then 116.60: 113.39. First, that an enharmonic modulation might; exist is admitted by many modern writers. Mr Donkin, for instance, author of the able article on Ancient Music in Dr W. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, observes (under the title of Music) of the different genera less frequently named 1, 'that it would be wrong to conclude hastily, that the others would he impossible in practice, or necessarily unpleasing'; and of the enharmonic he says: 'but it is impossible to form a judgment of its merits without a much greater knowledge of the rules of composition than seems now attainable.' Mr Lay Tradescant having shown the differences of interval of the Chinese instruments from the intervals generally in use in Europe, adds: 'It will therefore very readily appear from the respective rules, that the character of the music, or, if you please, the mood (he should have said genus), must be very different from our own, and that none of our instruments (he should have said keyed or bored) are capable of doing justice to any air that is played on the kin' (or scholar's lute). He subjoins: 'In my travels I sometimes wrote down the airs that I had heard among the natives, but though I took much pains to learn them accurately,
Mr Tradescant might have added, that there will always be some difference in an air played on the guitar and on the violin, though the intervals used axe esteemed the same; and, again, perhaps the learned traveller did not take care to divide the scale of his violin mathematically, like that of the kin, before he tried the effect,; he might also riot have noted the right interval. He concludes: 'There is, however, a connection between the Chinese and old Scotch music, so that when any highly-admired airs of Scotland happen to fall within the compass of the kin, they seem at home when played upon this instrument.' Mr Lane says the 'canoon' of the Arabians had twenty-four notes. Dr Russell to Burney says that the Arab scale of twenty-four notes was equal to one octave. But Mr Lane adds that 'the most remarkable peculiarity in the Arab system of music is the division of tones into thirds.' Hence, from the system of thirds of tones, I have heard the Egyptian musicians urge against the European systems of music that they are deficient in the number of sounds. The same remark was made to me by Selim Agar, a Nubian, when singing some Amharic songs: 'Your instrument' (piano), said he, 'is very much out of tune, and jumps very much.' Mr Lane adds: 'These small and delicate gradations of sound give a peculiar softness to the performances of the Arab musicians, which are generally of a plaintive character; but they are difficult to discriminate with exactness, and therefore seldom
We must not suppose that the Greek enharmonic was a consecutive gamut of quarter-tones--no; we are told distinctly by all authors (except, perhaps, Salinas), that there was a quarter-tone, then another quarter-tone, then a great interval completing the fourth; or reversely, a great interval of two major tones, or about our third major, the quarter-tone, mother quarter-tone, thus completing the fourth. So with these nations, and especially in the Chinese airs I have heard, there is either the two quarter-tones, then an interval of about a third, or, the interval of the third, and then the two dieses or quarter-tones, or it is a mixed genus, and adds a tone or half-tone at either extreme. I here beg to state that, though with great care and the assistance of a graduated monochord, and an instrument divided like the intervals of the Chinese kin, I have endeavoured to give an idea of those airs of New Zealand which I heard, yet so The notation that I have adopted is, for the enharmonic diesis, the St Andrew's cross or saltier
In the Arab ternal division I should use-one third sharp,
would read E half-flat, E natural, E half-sharp, E natural; and is a delicate expression of the chromatic or of the diatonic I now give the airs as best I can. One word as to time. Though I have timed the airs I have given, I am free to confess there was neither metre nor rhythm of any marked character discernible in them; and even in the divisions of the lines or verses, the singer seemed to stop indifferently now at one, now at another word. I have, however, followed in my divisions those given in the book, taking it for granted that the learned author, who has given himself so much pains about the matter, will have chosen the most authentic. James A. DAVIES 1 Formerly of Trin. Coll., Camb. Late Private See. to H.R.H. Prince Leopold, Count of Syracuse, Naples. 17, Great Ormond Street, Queen Square, September, 1854.
Which I represent thus: or thus, perhaps clearer: The run at the end is also met with in the New Zealand songs. The cadence is mixed, i.e. enharmonic and diatonic. The Chinese Air sung under my window in London: Reduced by James Davies. Page 30 1
This last bar would perhaps be better written: No. 2 A LAMENTATION WHAKARONGO CHILD'S SONG, TO TEACH SINGING 227:1 Cicero. 227:2 Cicero, Orat. 228:1 Ptolomæus the Magian, Mr. Vincent's paper in Notices et Extraits des MSS., tom. xvi, Paris. 229:1 Smith. 229:2 Burney. 231:1 De Poematum Cantu. 231:2 That the enharmonic has no foundation in nature is false, for what tree tapers 'per saltum?'--'what river flows in heaps?--this gradation is 233:2 Lay Tradescant's Chinese as they Are. 234:1 Notices et Extraits des MSS., tom. xvi. 234:2 Memoire de la Societe Royale de Lille. 234:3 Περὶ Μουσικῆσ {Greek Perì Mousikh^s}. 234:4 Burney, vol. i. 237:1 As the soft diatonic, the hemiolion chromatic, the soft chromatic. 238:1 Lay Tradescant's Chinese as they Are. 241:1 Author of the Papers on the Rhythm of the ON THE NATIVE SONGS OF NEW ZEALAND
, quarter tone or half sharp; the usual
for the sharp; and for
three-quarter sharp. In like manner, the
for quarter tone or half flat;
for the flat; and
(or I might have said:
) for the three-quarter flat.
; two-third sharp,
; one-third flat,
; two-third flat,
.
or
never conveys its influence beyond the note to which it is attached; thus
or
as being so very unusual, and it is evident to the musician that D three-quarters sharp is equal to E quarter flat, at least sufficiently near in practice.
Footnotes
