Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/120

 lOO Reviews.

Every person gifted with musical feeling will support Mr. Sharp's protest against the indiscriminate setting of folk-tunes to accompaniments in our major or minor scales. Mr. Sharp will probably also be widely supported in his contention that the accompaniment should be in the same mode as the original melody. When, however, we bear in mind his admissions (i) that "it was only very few of them [folk-singers] for instance, who were able to recognise their own songs when I played harmonized versions of them on the piano; and still fewer who could sing them to the simplest instrumental accompani- ment," (ii) that folk-melodies are non-harmonic, (iii) that the determination of the mode rests on the selection of the tonic, (iv) that there is often difficulty in deciding whether a song belongs to the mixolydian or ionian (major) mode, and (v) that, whereas the dorian is only distinguished from the mixolydian by its major third, the peasants are often apt to sing neutral thirds which are neither major nor minor, — we may question whether even this procedure is from the scientific standpoint always legitimate.

Mr. Sharp rightly points out how prone the trained musician is to take down folk-songs in the notation of our ordinary major and minor scales. On pages 57 and 58 he quotes the generally accepted version of "Polly Oliver," as printed, for example, in Chappell's Popular Music. He then quotes the unmodulated version which he himself has heard. He also calls special atten- tion to the study of the variations of the melody made by different singers or by the same singer in different verses of the song; and he confesses, (p. 21), "I have missed many of those [variations] which have appeared but once."

It is obvious that valuable service is rendered by the phono- graph in studying these variations and in avoiding erroneous notation of songs while they are being sung. We are glad to find that Mr. Sharp recommends (p. 72) the phonograph for such purposes. It is to be sincerely hoped that he may make use of the instrument. Every musician must feel how impossible it is to express on paper the subtleties of intonation and shades of tempo and expression which form so marked a feature of all folk-song.