Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/364

 fillmore] HARMONIC STRUCTURE OF INDIAN MUSIC

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��The following Arab dance song, which I heard many times, was first sung by several girls alone, and then accompanied by an oboe while a girl was dancing. It is in a plain minor key, imply- ing the tonic chord, its relative minor and the major dominant :

��No. 18. ARAB DANCE SONG.

��Sepeat,aaifb. | Final Ending. |

���The next is also an Arab song. It is in minor and implies the tonic and the dominant seventh. The bye-tones, which are rather numerous, all belong to the latter chord :

��No. 19. ARAB SONG,

��Repeat, ad 18k

���These two examples are particularly interesting, because it is commonly said by musical theorists and historians that Arab music is very different from ours, in that the octave is divided into seventeen tones and such minute intervals are used that the occi- dental ear cannot appreciate them, except very imperfectly. But Dr Land, a Dutch student of Arabic music, has shown that this is an error. The Arab lute, he says, does indeed provide separate strings for the sharps and flats ; but one set is used for the sharp keys and another for the flat keys ; the two are never used for the same tonality. By this means each key is in pure tune, in- stead of being tempered as in our system, so as to make, for ex- ample, C sharp and B flat identical. The tonality of their music, whether major or minor, corresponds precisely with our own. This tallies exactly with my own observations of the Arab foljc- music at the World's Fair.

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