Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/366

 fillmorb] HARMONIC STRUCTURE OF INDIAN MUSIC 3*5

ages and which is familiar to us in the old Scotch and Irish music.

The process of development seems to be this :

i. The key-note and its chord.

2. The addition of one of the two bye-tones which are the sixth and second of our major scale, probably the sixth before the second.

3. Both these bye-tones come in with the chord to make the five-tone scale.

4. The tonality is major or minor according as the do or the la is made the point of repose, this probably being determined by the character of the feeling expressed in the music.

5. The fourth and seventh of the major scale are afterward added to complete the dominant and subdominant chords.

In all this process it would seem that a natural perception of the harmonic relations of tones is the s/iaping, determining factor.

It seems clear, also, that this natural perception is the same for all races of men, depending on the physical constitution of the ear and of the vocal chords, and their correlations with the laws of acoustics on the one hand and with the psychical laws of the relation of music to emotion on the other.

But I shall be asked, and with entire pertinency, " Are you sure that the intervals sung by the Indians whose songs you have studied are the ones you have transcribed?" I answer without hesitation, Yes, I am sure. I started my investigation with the impression that there might be essential differences in structure between the Indian music and our own. I studied the Indian music for ten years with the utmost care and thoroughness of which I was capable. I have failed to find one single interval in Indian music which we do not use. It is true, I have often heard Indians sing these intervals out of tune ; but this is a phenome- non by no means confined to savage or uncivilized races. In every such case, when I was singing with Indians and was able to get at their real intention, I have found that they meant to

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